This webcast is for DrupalCon sponsors on how to submit a session abstract that will resonate with the selection team.

1. DrupalCon Call for Papers
How to submit a winning abstract

2. Megan Sanicki, COO
megan@association.drupal.org
@drupalassoc

3. Call For Papers Webcast Agenda
● About Session Selection
● How to write a winning abstract
● Special tips for sponsors
● DrupalCon New Orleans Tracks
● How to buy a session

4. About Session Selection
Image credit: Flickr Drupalcon

5. DrupalCon New Orleans
May 9 - 13, 2016
● Monday: Training & Summits
● Tuesday - Thursday: Sessions
● Friday: Sprints
Call for Papers
● Closes February 29 at 11:59PM New Orleans local time
● Community selected sessions, paid sessions

6. About Sessions
● There are 13 tracks
● We host a total of 143 sessions
● Sessions are 60 minutes long, recorded
● Format: Present alone, co-present, or host a panel
● Speakers get:
● Free DrupalCon ticket (one speaker per session)

7. Who Selects Sessions
● 2-3 volunteer experts are assigned to a track
● Define themes, desired sessions
● Receive 500+ sessions
● Over two weeks, rank and select sessions
● In depth explanation here: https://events.drupal.
org/neworleans2016/session-selection-process
A Community Process

8. Pro-Tips:
Getting Your Session Selected
Image credit: Flickr Drupalcon

9. Getting Your Session Selected
● Speaker has proven speaker experience and is known
in the Drupal community as an expert
● Speaking at camps is a good inroad
● Start the writing process 2-3 weeks before the deadline
● Go to event site, read about the Tracks & ideal sessions
● https://events.drupal.org/neworleans2016/tracks
● You can reach out to Track leads with questions
● https://events.drupal.org/neworleans2016/team
A Community Process

10. Getting Your Session Selected
● Write a complete, educational abstract - no pitches
● Tell a story:
● Share the takeaways you will provide in your session
● Proofread your proposal
● https://events.drupal.org/neworleans2016/news/submit-session-
drupalcon-new-orleans
● Get feedback from others before submitting and during
● Ask other Drupal experts
● Ask your Account Manager
● Read community feedback once you submit
● Submit on time. No exceptions for late submissions
● https://events.drupal.org/neworleans2016/submit-session
A Community Process

11. Writing a Winning Abstracts
For the Community Selected Sessions

12. Pro-Tips:
Insights for Sponsors
Image credit: Flickr Drupalcon

13. Writing a Winning Abstracts
● Be an attractive speaking team
● Not known in the Drupal Community, but you are an expert?
● Partner with a known community member, co-submit the abstract
● Especially helpful for Software vendors and Hosting companies
● Tell a solution story with a Drupal Shop or Drupal customer - no pitches
● Partner Connect
● Not sure how to find the right person in the community?
● Ask your Account Manager about this program
● We connect you to possible partners
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16MMJdJPa29-ctlvMNgfrWqM_O2nd-vmtwS96AgHNOtg/edit?usp=sharing
For the Community Selected Sessions
Ask About Partner Connect

14. Let’s Get Ready for
DrupalCon New Orleans

15. DrupalCon New Orleans Tracks
Community Selected Tracks
● Business
● Coding and Development
● Core Convos
● DevOps
● Drupal.org
● Frontend
● Horizons
● PHP
● Project Management
● Site Building
● Symfony
● UX
Sponsored Track
● Business Showcase (only case studies)

16. Business Track
Suggested Topics
● Recruiting and retaining talent
● Tools and best practices for teams - local and distributed
● Customer service, communication, and marketing
● Selling Drupal: Showcasing the value of investing in open source
● Beyond Drupal: offering products, strategy, services and integrated solutions
● Growing and scaling your business
● Choosing the right platform for a technology start-up
● The upgrade decision: when is the right time to move to Drupal 8?
Track Leads
Jeff Diecks
Diana Montalion

17. Coding & Development Track
Suggested Topics
● Showcasing awesome things that contrib projects can do in Drupal 8
● How to manage the migration of our projects to Drupal 8
● Tools and techniques for upgrading modules
● What both beginner and experienced developers should know
● Project architecture
● Caching and performance
Track Leads
Matt Davis
Jon Peck
Mike Nielson

18. DevOps Track
Suggested Topics
● Business value of DevOps for companies of any size
● Establishing DevOps Culture
● Configuration Management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack)
● Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery
● Docker best practices
● Docker infrastructure (Kubernetes, OpenShift, Rancher, Swarm)
● Monitoring and Logging (ELK, Graylog, Sensu)
● DrupalCI use outside of drupal.org
● Chatops (Hubot, Stackstorm)
Track Leads
Joe Stewart
Ashok Modi
Jason Yee

19. FrontEnd Track
Suggested Topics
● The maturation of Front End as an engineering practice
● Front End practices outside the Drupal world
● Current and emerging best practices, tools, & techniques (BEM/OOCSS,
static prototyping, design in browser, progressive enhancement)
● Front End and Back end templating systems (Twig, Twig.js, Handlebars)
● Performance
● Content-first, atomic design, and new design issues
● Sustainable patterns of development
● And most importantly -- Why are we doing this? What do we hope to
achieve? Why, as a Front Ender, use Drupal at all?
Track Leads
Eric Sembrat
Kathryn
McClintock

20. Horizons Track
Suggested Topics
● What perspectives can the Drupal community learn from alternative,
complementary or even competing platforms, JS MVC frameworks, etc.
● Drupal as a publication platform for the Internet of Things
● Integrating Drupal with your chosen front end framework
● Drupal as an application framework
● Interdisciplinary topics: accessibility, performance and security
● Optimized Drupal for content discovery: search engine optimization
● Web analytics and A/B testing
● Advertising networks and integrating them with Drupal
● Video content publishing
● The content authoring experience
● Using Service Workers and Drupal
Track Leads
Jason Want
David Hwang

21. PHP Track
Suggested Topics
● PHP 7 / Strict Type Hinting / New Features
● Unit testing
● Building from cross-project components (Composer, etc.)
● Web services / REST / Guzzle
● Web security best practices
● Debugging PHP
● Code quality tools, practices (Code reviews, pull request, etc), and
methodologies
● Software architecture patterns and techniques
● Interoperability and integrations between Drupal and other PHP projects
Track Leads
Heather White
Larry Garfield

22. Project Management Track
Suggested Topics
● Project estimation
● Project planning techniques: Sprint planning, resource allocation, Backlog
management
● Scope, risk, and change management strategies
● Project management case studies
● Project and portfolio reporting tactics: “how to” with specific tools, charts,
reports. (PMs like spreadsheets)
● Leadership and coordination approaches: working with remote teams,
encouraging self-organization, encouraging cross-functionality.
Track Leads
Justin Rhodes
Ashleigh Thevenet
Shannon Vettes

23. Site Building Track
Suggested Topics
● Drupal 8 is here: What’s new with Site Building (e.g. Multilingual), Share your
Drupal 8 Site Build story
● Improving Accessibility, UX and Content Admin UI
● Information Planning and Content Architecture, Applied Content Strategy
● Migration - either from previous versions of Drupal or other systems
● Configuration Management Best Practices, and beyond CMI core functionality
● Layout and Theming using UI : Tools that allow you to build and control layout
● Distros & Platforms: Come talk about the next platform you are building!
● There is a recipe for that! Whether building a shopping cart, Faceted Search, or
custom RSS feeds, all are something that Site Builders can do. Highlight a
module that made your site special
Track Leads
Ryan Price
Dan Linn

24. User Experience Track
Suggested Topics
● UX process and techniques
● Strategy and planning
● Content strategy
● Visual and interaction design
● Responsive and accessible design
● Usability
● The impact of non-web interactions on the web user experience
Track Leads
Lauren Smith
Koen Platteeuw

25. Sponsored Sessions
Image credit: Google Images

26. Buy a Session
● Business Showcase = Case Studies
● Sponsor Packages Include Speaking Opportunities
● Diamond - 60 minutes
● Platinum - 30 minutes
● Gold - 15 minute lightening talk
● Buy a speaking slot as an add on
● Platinum/Gold can buy more time on stage
● Sponsors can buy a speaking opportunity as an add on
● Ask Account Manager if they are still available - this sells out
Review Sponsor Packages Here
https://assoc.drupal.org/drupalcon-sponsorship

27. Summary
● Know the tracks
● Talk to the track chairs and others
● Write a detailed abstract
● Submit on time
● Talk to your account manager about
● Partner Connect
● Buying a session
Johanna Bergmann
Johanna@association.drupal.org
Mark Brandstetter
Mark@association.drupal.org
Gener Umali
Gener@association.drupal.org

28. Questions?