EmberConf 2021 CFP

EmberConf 2021 Online is now accepting proposals for talks. Join us virtually March 29-30!

What will 2021 look like?

This year will of course be different than previous years. Even with the optimistic news about vaccine availability, March is too early to count on being back in person, so online it is! The magic won't be the same, but we'll aim to make it a great (albeit different) experience just the same.

In 2020 we ported an in-person format to online last minute, so 2021, with more prep time, will also look different. We're less tethered to our usual strict limits of 30m talks, and also going to pepper in even more breaks and non-tech tidbits to give our brains and bodies room to breathe.

Note that in 2021 our program will be a mix of invited and CFP submitted talks. The CFP period will also be condensed, as we need a lot fewer slots filled in this new format, and since, let's face it, we've all been busy!

Proposals will be accepted from January 6th through January 31st at 11:59pm pacific time. This is a condensed timeline all around, so there will also be less time to prep, and accordingly, less time to stress ;)

What will giving a talk actually look like?

Talks will be pre-recorded, edited for any small tweaks and for digital format consistency, but aired for the first time live in your assigned slot once the scheduled is confirmed. We'll send accepted speakers some basic equipment to help make sure they're able to record top quality content for our video editors to work on.

Conference talks will be 30-, 15-, 10- or 5-minutes total. Apologies for the paradox of choice! Your reviewers may also suggest alternatives if they feel your submitted topic warrants more or less time.

The process and timeline is as follows:

• —Acceptances go out February 5th through 9th, or earlier if accepted on the rolling basis; shortly after that, we'll send you some recording equipment.
• —During the week of February 15-19th you'll be scheduled for a review with member(s) of the program committee to help you evaluate what you're up to. If you've moved quickly, this could be a full dry run-through of your talk. If you've moved less quickly, you should at least be prepared by this call with your full outline and plans.
• —During the week of February 22nd through 26th we'll schedule final run-throughs. That means your talk should be close to ready, but that our expert reviewers will still make small suggestions to help get it in even better shape.
• —Your recorded materials will be due during the week of March 1st through 5th. You'll most likely do a full run-through in your space and send us (1) your audio, (2) your video and (3) a screen recording of your slides from your live run-through. Depending on tooling, items 1 and 2 might be the same file. We'll stitch them together, line up all the audio and video, and add branded starting+ending slides and music.

While we won't be doing live audible Q&A, each talk will have a separate Discord channel in the conference Discord, and speakers are expected to be available while their talks are airing live, to answer questions and chat with the audience. You'll be able to post any pre- or post-talk materials in the channel for folks as well.

How will the CFP reviews work?

We'll be voting on and reviewing talks on a rolling basis, and will attempt to send feedback sooner than our final evaluation, so the earlier you submit, the more chance you'll have to tweak your pitch and improve your odds.

The first several rounds of reviews in our CFP are, as usual, blind. To respect this process, please refrain from including biographical information in your talk abstract or details. Note that this also means if you receive any feedback, the reviewers don't know who you are then either.

How will Monday/The Bonus Day Work?

You may also submit Workshop and off-topic proposals. Monday will feature a conf-lite day of Bonus content, as well as our returning popular Contributor's Workshop (this year led by Ava Wroten and Ricardo Mendes). As always, Monday is opt-in only for our attendees, and will attract a smaller but more well tailored audience.

Monday in this format offers us the opportunity to present non-technical talks; instructional workshop or lecture style time slots for folks to talk about passion projects and hobbies. Woodworking, art skills, sewing, making music, extreme Lego sculptures, whatever! The world is a very different place than usual, and so many of us are picking up new hobbies, or perfecting old ones. Let's share some of our stuff with our Ember friends, and extend our community beyond just our code! (This is of course in addition to standard workshop type talks).

To submit a Monday talk (all time slots valid), be sure to tag your talk with off-topic or workshop (we may pepper some in on Tuesday but the bulk of these will be reserved for a TBD broadcast format on Monday).

The Monday talks will follow a similar schedule in terms of planning and recording, and since they'll be finished up and submitted by the beginning of March, you'll also be able to provide a list of suggested materials for attendees to bring along to your session.

If you're unsure about whether or not your off-topic topic is a good one, consider one of the ways we'll be thinking about it: in an audience of 500-1500, can this attract 30-50 folks who will be interested and set time aside Monday?. We'll likely limit attendance to these, depending on topic and format, but TL;DR the burden of "this needs to be interesting enough" is slightly lower and the appeal can be slightly broader. Lastly, some of these might be truly live and more interactive, since that might be appropriate for the content.

Sweet! What happens if I get accepted?

If your Conference Talk or on/off-topic Workshop is selected you'll receive the following:

• —a free pass to attend the conference
• —a TBD speaker honorarium; typically our allocation is $500 per 30m, but with so many different formats, that likely means we'll need to do some math once the agenda is set to sort out what each slot ends up receiving, proportionally.
• —special speaker-only gifts, mailed to your address.
• —recording equipment as appropriate
• —the opportunity to be assigned a mentor or accountability partner to help keep you on track

...and other special speaker privileges and invitations.

Anything else?

EmberConf is intended to be an inclusive, welcoming conference for everyone. Our Code of Conduct can be found here: http://emberconf.com/about.html#code-of-conduct.

NOTE: If you are accepted as a speaker and have already purchased a ticket, we'll refund it, 100%. So don't wait, be sure you have a seat either way!

If you have questions others might, or want to brainstorm with Ember friends, there's an ember-conf channel in the Ember Community Discord, as well as a talks channel.

For those of you with family obligations: in-person EmberConf generally has on-site childcare and nursing mother facilities available, but that's obviously moot here. Our program will however feature some content for kids, so they can join you for brief periods of the day (remember story time and Music Together from 2020?), and ample breaks to feed the kiddo-meters. If you have other logistical concerns, such as being unavailable for specific times of the live day due to childcare obligations, pumping or nursing schedules, etc., we'll be sure to accommodate those as well <3

Lastly, note that with the talks pre-recorded we'll also be able to have closed captioning that you get an opportunity to edit and perfect before the live talk.

Feel free to reach out if you're concerned about anything that isn't spelled out here or in our event FAQ.

Conference information: http://www.emberconf.com/
Questions? Bugs? email [email protected].

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FAQs:

We'll add to this as we notice questions coming from multiple sources.

1. Can I edit my proposal after I submit it?

Very much yes! In fact, that's the idea—you get feedback, and then you edit to improve, and then you get accepted <3

Once the CFP ends of course, things get a lot more final fast.

2. Can I have more than one presenter?

Our thoughts on this are nuanced. The blanket answer is yes, you can submit a talk with as many presenters as you'd like—the app will allow it.

Digging in a bit though, talks with multiple speakers are significantly less likely to get accepted. If we have any, it'll probably be limited. In practice, they're just incredibly difficult to do well, and so when there are enough single-speaker proposals, we're more likely to choose the less risky path. They'll also be especially challenging to record since none of us are in the same place... but if you're up for the challenge, we want to hear about it :)

3. I submitted a proposal but haven't received any feedback. Is everything alright?

Yep! Not all submissions will receive feedback. This is partially because our resources are limited, but also because some of them will be 100% clear, and no clarifications will be required. So not getting any feedback isn't an indicator of how your proposal has been received.

Also, of course, the earlier you submit, the more likely it is that you'll receive questions and/or feedback from reviewers.