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Talk submissions (YAPC::EU::2005 and EuroOscon)

cog on 2005-05-23T09:46:28

The day has barely started.

The deadline for YAPC::EU::2005 talk submission ended yesterday. To no surprise, we're receiving a bunch of talk submissions... today :-)

BTW, if you're planning on submitting something and are just taking care of the last details, you might as well send us an email stating so, because we will shut down the talk submission in a couple of hours. You've been warned :-)

In other news, I just found out the deadline for EuroOscon talk submission is... today :-)

So now I'm thinking about it... I'd like to submit something, but I really don't know what, mostly because I've never been to a EuroOscon before (who has, anyway?) and I have absolutely no idea as to how many atendees there might be, their level of expertise, what they'll be interested in, etc...

Any pointers in regards to this? :-\

Deadlines Too Soon?

barbie on 2005-05-23T10:11:38

Seeing as the conference is 5 months away, I would have thought the deadline is a little too soon. I can understand the organisers wanting to get things as prepared as possible before hand, with it being the first one in Europe, but I can't help thinking that by having such an early deadline, and so soon after the initial announcement, that there may be distinct lack of submissions.

I was thinking about submitting one or two talks, but with several other talks to prepare for submission to various events, adding more to my list wasn't practical. Given another month, I might have given it a go.

I have yet to decided whether to attend, as I think it may be difficult to get the company to pay if I'm not speaking, and I can't really afford to pay for myself.

I started to ...

Purdy on 2005-05-23T13:16:25

[This is probably worthy of a journal post on its own.]

I've been really shocked to see how times have changed in the speaking arena. Perhaps it's related to the .com bust, but conferences have stopped paying as much to speakers as they once have.

Now, it's one thing when you're an open source community that's putting together the conference (i.e. YAPC), but when it's a commercial entity (i.e. SIGS, O'Reilly, etc.) who will be charging a whole lot for the conference pass and make more money off of sponsorships, etc ... then they should be able to pay the speakers more.

Back in the heyday, when I was speaking for SIGS, they would pay for everything. Airfare, ground transportation, hotels for all conference nights, meals, conf. fee and oh yeah, an honorarium.

Jump to today. For EuroOscon, the only way to get any money out of speaking is doing a half-day tutorial (or more). Simple hour-long talks just get the registration waived. And even if I were able to do a half-day tutorial, I'd still be on the hook (depending on their honorarium).

Now I know for EuroOscon (and ApacheCon/EU), that might make more sense -- flying Americans over to Europe is more expensive.

Anyway, all this to say: count me out for EuroOscon -- just not worth it. And in general, speaking at conferences is becoming less worth it... methinks the conference organizers are maximizing their profits at the expense of their speakers (who are the folks that are really responsible for the success of a conference).

- Jason

Re:I started to ...

chromatic on 2005-05-23T22:42:59

Nat may be along shortly to give more details, but in my experience, it's not maximizing profits, it's trying to make a profit. Sure, no speakers no conference, but no profit from a conference this year no conference next year.

Re:I started to ...

davorg on 2005-05-24T09:52:14

I've been really shocked to see how times have changed in the speaking arena. Perhaps it's related to the .com bust, but conferences have stopped paying as much to speakers as they once have.


That may be true of other conferences but, as far as I know, OSCON has always paid speakers in the same way (although the amounts may have changed).

Jump to today. For EuroOscon, the only way to get any money out of speaking is doing a half-day tutorial (or more). Simple hour-long talks just get the registration waived. And even if I were able to do a half-day tutorial, I'd still be on the hook (depending on their honorarium).


You may be interested in a datapoint. As a European giving one three-hour tutorial at OSCON in San Diego in 2002 the travel grant didn't quite cover my air fare and the honorarium just about covered my hotel bill (or, at least, the accomodation part of it).