Excellent! WordCamp Calgary would love for you to share your knowledge with the WordPress community.
All of our amazing speakers have made WCYYC a huge success and we’re so happy you want to be a part of our ever-growing event. Our last event had more women on the speaker roster than men for the first time in our 8 years of WordCamp Calgary. This was incredible and we look forward to continually supporting and encouraging not only new speakers but also a diverse set of speakers.
WordCamp Calgary actively looks for a diverse mix of people from different backgrounds who are passionate about WordPress and would like to share their stories, knowledge and expertise.
Speaker applications are now closed for WCYYC 2020. Thank you to everyone who applied!
Never applied before? That’s okay!
If this is your first time applying to WordCamp Calgary, welcome!
If it’s your first time applying to speak, you might want to consider doing a lightning talk, scroll down to more information about lightning talks.
Some Helpful Tips
- Share > pitch. WordCamps are educational events, not marketing opportunities, so no pitch proposals please!
- Yes, you can! Whether you’re a user, designer, or developer, WordCamp is an event where you can share what you’ve learned about WordPress and how you’re working with it.
- Local first. WordCamps are local-focused events that are asked to shoot for minimum 80% local speakers ratio.
- Volunteers only. WordCamps are 100% organized and staffed by volunteers, and WordCamps can’t pay speakers or cover speaker travel/accommodations.
- No “pay for play.” WordCamps never, ever provide a speaking opportunity in exchange for sponsorship or anything else. Please don’t ask. If you are a sponsor, you are welcome to apply, but your application will be considered on its merit.
- Make it unique. WordCamp sessions are all recorded and posted to WordPress.tv for everyone to watch. WordCamps pride themselves on having unique content.
- Tell a story. The web is full of tutorials and most people won’t remember most of the instructions from your how-to talk in a few days (or hours!). The human brain is hard-wired to be engaged by stories, and we are looking for sessions that will inspire attendees to do more with WordPress.
What should I talk about?
We have an overarching theme for WordCamp Calgary 2020: Building Blocks. The theme can be interpreted in many different ways (Gutenberg, foundational skills, etc). We’d like all talks to speak to the theme of building blocks in some way.
To help get you thinking about a topic you might like to cover, here are some suggestions:
- Freelancing / Business Topics (dealing with clients, best practices, etc)
- Mental Health / Work-life balance
- Accessible design and development
- Using WordPress in creative ways
- Content Creation (SEO, Blogging, etc)
- Case Studies (tell us how a project went, the mistakes made and lessons learned)
These are just some suggestions, feel free to pitch us something different!
Types of Talks
We’ve got 3 session formats for 2020 that you can pitch for:
Regular Sessions
These are presented over a 1 hour block and are typically lecture style sessions. Ideally, your talk will be 40-45 minutes long, with 10-15 minutes for Q&A after.
Lightning Talks
We have 4 lightning slots available for 2020. It’s the first time we’ve offered this format. Sessions should be 25 minutes at most. If you’d like to allow time for Q&A, we suggest a 20 minute talk and a 5 minute Q&A section. A Q&A section is not required.
Since the sessions are quick and there’s little time between each session, your final slides will have to be submitted to us at least three weeks prior to the event. All lightning talk slides will be compiled into one mega slide deck to make transitions simpler between sessions.
Workshops
We’re excited to have two workshop slots available for 2020! This is a new format for us. Workshops should be hands-on actionable sessions where attendees come away with something tangible they create alongside you. These will be 2 hour slots.
A couple examples of workshops that fit the criteria:
- Creating Welcome and Inclusive Spaces – a workshop where attendees come away with a reference workbook and practical ideas on how to cultivate inclusive and welcoming spaces for their events.
- Build Your First Gutenberg Block – a workshop where attendees learn the ins and outs of a native Gutenberg block and learn how to create their very own call to action block.
We’re looking for one development-focused workshop and one on any other relevant and helpful topic.
This year, slides submissions before the event will be required. Your slides do not have to be final (unless you are doing a lightning talk) but they do have to be submitted.
Timeline
- December 22, 2019: Call for Speakers opens
- March 6, 2020: Call for Speakers closes
- March 2020: Speakers contacted
- April-May 2020: Speakers announced