Nervous about my GUADEC talk proposal. This will be the first time I've submitted a talk without having a well-known employer under my name.
On second thought, I don't want to give the impression that I think FOSS event talk-selection committees pick speakers for the wrong reasons. That's definitely not true.
In fact, I got enough rejections over the years (including by GUADEC!) to prove it quantitatively.
That said, this is a situation where I have no financial backer to get me there if they don't like my proposal, which makes it feel more personal. In short, I'm just an independent, unemployed free-software hacker now; the conference world looks different from here.
In fact, I got enough rejections over the years (including by GUADEC!) to prove it quantitatively.
That said, this is a situation where I have no financial backer to get me there if they don't like my proposal, which makes it feel more personal. In short, I'm just an independent, unemployed free-software hacker now; the conference world looks different from here.
Just FWIW, while it is not anonymous, there is no mention of the affiliation when the talks are listed for people in the comitee to vote on, for GUADEC.
Good luck with your submission.
Good luck with your submission.
It's a good policy, although it does have some drawbacks. For Texas Linux Fest, particularly in the early years, we were wary of selecting too high a percentage of talks from sponsors/vendors (especially to the exclusion of individuals); that can be a problem.
A large percentage of the time, you can spot those proposals from their wording, but it's not sure fire. The other thing you can do to counter it is to ask people to disclose whether or not their talk is about a product. No guarantees there either.
(Still, ultimately, though my current reflection on the waiting process is just me vocalizing anxiety. Latest thinking there: it's different this time also because my topic is something I really care about personally. While at my last job, we were more or less required to submit talk proposals, so a fair amount of the time what I came up with wasn't necessarily passion-project stuff — more like "good to know" info or updates on ongoing work.)
A large percentage of the time, you can spot those proposals from their wording, but it's not sure fire. The other thing you can do to counter it is to ask people to disclose whether or not their talk is about a product. No guarantees there either.
(Still, ultimately, though my current reflection on the waiting process is just me vocalizing anxiety. Latest thinking there: it's different this time also because my topic is something I really care about personally. While at my last job, we were more or less required to submit talk proposals, so a fair amount of the time what I came up with wasn't necessarily passion-project stuff — more like "good to know" info or updates on ongoing work.)