Thank you for your interest in speaking at php|works 2008. As with all our conferences, our main goal is to provide our attendees—mostly a highly technical crowd who is looking for specific, to-the-point information on relevant developer topics—with content that is as relevant as possible to their daily lives.

This means that, while php|works is a conference for PHP developers, not all of our talks are directly about PHP—after all, PHP development doesn't happen in a vacuum, and there are plenty of “sister” technologies that we, as developers, deal with on a daily basis. Thus, if you have a cool idea about a product or platform that somehow relates to PHP, we definitely want to hear from you!

Crossover With PyWorks 2008

This year's php|works takes place concurrently with PyWorks 2008, MTA's new fall Python conference, organized by the publishers of Python Magazine, and attendees to both conferences will be able to attend talks from either.

This gives us a great opportunity to create cross-over talks to cover topics that bridge both worlds, enriching members of either communities and facilitating the cross-pollination of ideas. If you have a topic that fits the bill, or that could be equally interesting to both PHPers and Pythonistas, don't hesitate to propose it.

Topics We're Interested In

php|works is a conference built (and run) by PHP developers for PHP developers. While this might seem like a bit of a cliché, it is the real driving force behind the kind of talks and presentations that we look for—we want presenters who are passionate about the talks they give... because those are the talks they would want to attend themselves!

In general, we cater to a technical audience whose level of expertise is maturing. Therefore, we are looking for innovative, in-depth and clever talks on presentations ranging in difficulty level from intermediate to advanced.

Following are some general topics that we think are going to be of interest to our audience. Please do not feel limited by this list—some of the best talks we've hosted have often been on topics we couldn't even think of!

• Rich Internet Applications
• Cloud computing
• Unique ways PHP is being used. Some may be more practical than others, but we'd love to see some that really fire the imagination of the attendee.
• Practical tools for the PHP developer. IDEs, tips and tricks for debugging or improving performance and comparison of frameworks might be examples of something that falls into this.
• PHP “extras,” like SPL, PEAR/PECL, or what's new in PHP6.
• PHP Best Practices, like documenting, code structure, abstraction, etc.
• So-called soft skills, like increasing your productivity or time management; team dynamics (i.e, dealing with inferior coders on the same team), and so forth.

Talk Make-up

All “regular” talk sessions are one hour long. Tutorial sessions are 3 hours long. You can request that your audience have access to a laptop to fully enjoy your presentation (most attendees bring a laptop anyway). If you need any additional tools for your talk, you should specify them in your proposal (that way, our tech team can coordinate any installation requirements with you in time for the conference).

Incidentally, our conferences have featured Bring Your Own Laptop (or BYOL for short) sessions for the past few years now, and we've discovered a few tricks to making them successful:

• First of all, BYOL only works with tutorial sessions. Because of the open nature of this kind of talk, you have to be very familiar with the topic and be able to diverge from your study plan in response to questions from the audience.
• BYOL works very well if you set up your talk as a series of short lectures followed by an exercise. Plan to make the solution to each exercise available—that way, those attendees who don't want to write code can still look at how an idea can be applied in practice.
• Because your audience will enter the conference room expecting interaction, you must be prepared to be flexible with your slides so as not to fall too much behind schedule.

The Talk Trailer

Talk trailers are a great way to help attendees understand the contents of your talk ahead of time. This will make it possible for them to set their expectations with regards to what you are going to present—and it will help you, in turn, by ensuring that your audience is as fine-tuned to your needs as possible.

The Talk Trailer is a short (less than 5 minutes) interview designed to introduce prospective attendees to your talk. Its goal is to give guests who are trying to schedule their participation at the conference a quick way to establish whether a talk caters to their needs and abilities. The only requirement on your part is to be available for approximately 15 minutes to do a quick interview over the phone or via Internet chat.

The interview follows a highly standardized format (to make sure that all talks are covered evenly), and you will be able to discuss its contents ahead of time with our staff. Don't worry if you have never given an interview before—we'll do our best to make the entire process as smooth as possible.

In-Depth Tutorials

php|works also features an extra day (Nov. 12th) dedicated to “in-depth tutorials” that provide much more in-depth coverage of a specific topic than regular talks. Tutorials are either three (half-day) or six (full-day) hours long, and happen in a more intimate setting than regular sessions; if you plan on submitting a proposal for these slots, please make sure to show that there are sufficient materials to cover the time allowed, and that you are comfortable enough with the topic to answer an increased number of questions (which is a likely occurrence during tutorials).

Speaker Package

Our speaker package includes:

• Complimentary full access to the conference
• A travel allowance (including hotel allowance), based on where you're coming from and the number of talks you're giving
• A stipend for each talk

Submitting a Talk

You can submit a talk by sending an e-mail to the conference organizers. Please note that there is no limit to the number of proposals you can send. When submitting one or more proposals, be sure to include the following in your e-mail:

• A title for your talk
• A brief synopsis (less than 100 words)
• The type of talk (i.e.: regular session, BYOL session, half-day tutorial, full-day tutorial)
• The difficulty level (beginner, intermediate or expert)
• A recent bio
• The location you will be coming from
• Your complete contact information (including phone number)
• If available, a recent picture of yourself (highest resolution possible, please).
Please note: we will not publish your address or phone number; we simply need it for administrative purposes (e.g.: if we need to get in touch with you, or in order to send you payments, and so on). All submissions must be made by e-mail to our talk committee no later than July 25, 2008.