The Call for Proposals is your chance to share your story, and place your mark on the Baltimore DevOps community.

What we are looking for:

Types of accepted proposals:

• Ignite Sessions: An Ignite talks are 5 minutes talks with slides auto-advancing every 15 seconds (20 slides total).
• Presentations: A 30-minute talk presented to the entire conference audience

General Guidelines:

• Be concise, but include as much detail as is necessary to convey your idea.
• Please provide at least two takeaways that the audience will get from your talk.
• Multiple entries are welcome, but please limit to no more than four submissions per submitter.
• Submissions must be made by one of the proposed presenters; we do not accept proposals submitted on behalf of others.
• All presentations must conform to the code of conduct.
• Proposals must be submitted via this CFP site. If you have questions about our CFP process, please email: [baltimore@devopsdays.org]

Ideas:

• Culture: Stories and processes of promoting a culture of inclusion and cross functional collaboration.
• Technical Introductions: Are you a user of some awesome tech? Tell us your story about the problems it solved for you and how it might help others. Keep it mostly introduction, but tell us about some of the hurdles. Try to use your talk to drive a deeper discussions in Open Space time.
• Stories of failure: Often we learn more from a failure than we do from success. Tell us your stories and some lessons you learned that hopefully lead to a happier ending.
• New local presenters: You are the only one who can tell your story. We are very interested in the challenges and successes being experienced in our local area. We are happy to provide guidance/coaching for new speakers upon request.
• Underrepresented voices: We want to hear all voices, including those that may speak less frequently at similar events. We are interested in your unique experience.

Please avoid:

• Third-party submissions: This is a small community-driven event, and speakers need to be directly engaged with the organizers and attendees. If a PR firm or your marketing department is proposing the talk, you’ve already shown that as a speaker you’re distant from the process.
• Vendor pitches: We value vendors, but we are not going to accept a talk that appears to be a pitch for your product. Please consider sponsoring the event so we can continue to grow our community and you can connect to potential customers.

Even more tips:

• Broad appeal: How will your talk play out in a room of people with a variety of backgrounds?
• Will this talk help generate discussion during the Open Spaces? Open spaces are a great place to do a more thorough dive into the technical or procedural weeds.
• We like stories over theory. Examples of what your organization has done are fantastic.
• You don’t need to write out the entire talk in your abstract, but please provide sufficient detail for the selection committee to get a feel for what your talk will include. Show, don’t tell.