As usual as the end of the CFP for OSCon, I find myself increasingly panicking to pick a topic. I keep going over the stuff I know enough about to talk about and everything appears to fall into two categories: either there's already someone on it and I don't want to duplicate, or there's no one on it and that gives me the impression that the topic is of interest to no one :-/
mull, mull, mull...
OSCON topics
gnat on 2003-02-10T19:53:35
I always ask people "what are you hacking on?" Tim makes a big deal out of
tracking the alpha geeks, but the truth is that the interesting stuff that people like you and
Matt Sergeant and
Leon Brocard are hacking on will be in everyone's face next year. So if you have a project you've been beating on in your spare time
... kick it loose!
Another approach is a case study: is your company willing to talk about how they used Perl or any other open source system to make millions? Alternatively, if your company creates open source and has a justification for it in the business model, can you talk publicly about it so that other companies can see the light?
Pick a module you can't live without and convince others how great it is.
Figure out what you'd have to teach your replacement. If there's a skill (writing test cases, XS hacking, your preferred XML translation system, a particularly cute way of reading email from Perl) that you think applies outside your company, then submit a talk proposal on it. Think: core skills.
Some topics off the top of my head, not necessarily relevant to you, but which might kick-start others thinking:
- WxWindows tutorial
- Inline tutorial
- vcard or ical talk
- POE tutorial
- practical AI
- top ten things found in code audits
- top ten things you can do to make your code easier to read
- analysis of why a particular module or system Got It Right (what makes it well-designed or implemented)
- template toolkit tricks
- five critical OO design patterns you've used in the last six months
- signal handling
- threading
- five things everybody does wrong with XML
- practical talk about the content management system you use (what it does, how you have it set up, how you use it to do the things you want)
- live coding (build a program or a module in front of the audience). NB, risky!
- Why You Should .... (tell people what they should be doing)
- I Saved My Sanity With ... (module/system/methodology/insight here)
- Guru Session (get together with one or two other experts in your field and take questions for 45 minutes)
Hope this helps!
--Nat
