Speaker Applications Tips & Expectations

We’re grateful for your interest in helping us put on a top-notch event for the WordPress community in Greater Phoenix!

As much as we greatly value what speakers bring to the table, WordCamps cannot cover cost of travel, lodging or compensate speakers for their time. We will have a small token of our gratitude for speakers, gladly promote your talk and throw a small networking dinner before the event.

We have a few tips and expectations (do’s and don’t’s) for speakers we’d like to share with you to help you craft your submission.

Please do…

• Submit on a topic you’re passionate about! You need not be an expert, but we hope you have a compelling story to tell and skills to share.
• Check spelling and grammar in your application, particularly brand names like WordPress, WordCamp, etc.
• Craft your Talk Title & Description to be publishing-ready! Unless we reach out to you to discuss, your submission will be published and printed as-is.
• Allowlist our email phxwordcamp [ at ] gmail [dot] com in your email provider where acceptance and other correspondence will come from.
• If selected to speak, you will join the Slack channel shortly following accepting your invitation. All key communication between our team and speakers happens in Slack prior to the event.
• Speakers are expected to attend the full event and be available to speak on both days. If you have a special circumstance that requires you to speak on a certain day, please send an email to our speaker wrangler at phxwordcamp+speakers [ at ] gmail [dot] com .

Please don’t…

• Include profanity or adult themes in your submission. We’re a family-friendly event.
• Play into ugly and unfair stereotypes “so easy [this group of people] can do it!”
• Bad mouth code languages, companies, products or people. There are all kinds of needs and solutions in this world.
• In general, while it’s fine to submit a professional-focused talk like “10 Things to Learn from Political Websites” or “Common Issues Helping Religious Organizations Get Online,” please avoid using political/religious arcs, imagery, comments, etc. that stray from professional boundaries into specific theology or ideology.
• Feel bad if your talk isn’t selected! We receive many high-quality submissions and building the schedule is incredibly difficult because we have to deny so many great speakers and sessions. Please apply again or contact us about presenting at local Meetups!

General Tips

• Your chances are improved if you submit more than one proposal — sometimes we get a lot of submissions on one topic, so if you submit a variety of talks, it’s easier to include you. Please do not submit more than two (2) talks. We will only consider the two most-recent talks you’ve submitted.
• Consider reviewing past WordCamp Phoenix schedules to see the style and format of titles, descriptions and topics we’ve picked.
  • 2016: Saturday & Sunday
  • 2017
  • 2018
  • 2019
  • 2020
• Please aim for a prompt reply if we reach out with questions or an acceptance email!

Our Process

Now that we’ve outlined our expectations for you, here’s what you can expect from us:

• We meticulously review each and every submission. This includes online research (professional presence, social media, interviews, search results and more), review previously submitted talks to WordCamp Phoenix and other publicly-available talks and materials.
• We will have a local, blind-review committee that will see redacted applications. They will comment and rate the submissions entirely on content. Our organizing committee will review unblind, with research and the blind-review feedback.
• None of these ratings, comments and discussions are ever shared outside our committee and won’t be shared with applicants.
• Our organizers meet, review talks that scored well, discuss trends and common themes and begin to build a schedule.
• With about 32 slots and submissions from roughly 100 or more people, our acceptance rate is typically 30-35 percent.
• We’ll reach out to speakers we select, asking for a response within 48 hours. If we don’t receive a response within that window, we’ll move on to backup talks.
• We wish we could accept everyone, but we’ll email everyone we unfortunately won’t be able to accept after speakers are confirmed. Please don’t assume you’re not our first choice or not selected just because someone else you know heard back already — we contact speakers in waves.
• You may be asked to be a backup speaker in the event another speaker has travel issues or personal emergencies.