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Phew! Having reviewed 163 CFP submissions for @localfirstconf.com over the last week, I have some thoughts Here's some tips for an effective talk proposal!

1. Pitch me, get me excited Make your proposal a short, exciting teaser for your talk. Keep backstory minimal. Highlight problems that speak to your audience and the unique insights you've gained through hard-won expertise.

❌ Bad "In this talk I will discuss Project Giraffe, which is a prototype I made some years ago but never released. Maybe I will publish the source code before I give the talk. I had some different ideas about data migrations. I will try to do a demo if I can get it running again."

✅ Good "Migrations in distributed systems can be a nail-biting adventure in avoiding data corruption. I led the team which handles this at BigScaleCo, where we found that standard transactional migrations break down. Instead ...

2. Tell me who you are Ideally two links: your bio website that lists the major projects of your career, and a link to the company or project you're representing. Don't drown me in numerous links, or make me hunt around to figure out what your career has been about so far.

3. Show proof you are good at presenting Link to a recording of a past talk you've given. If that's not available, a five-minute Loom/CleanShotX "talk to the camera" screen recording demo or presentation of your project is fine.

I prefer presenters that can speaks clearly and energetically, offer a high density of information, and incorporate some light humor or general charisma to keep the audience engaged.