Events

Question: Who can attend? Answer: You! People of all genders are welcome at CallbackWomen workshops. It’s especially terrific when cis men attend as guest of an enthusistic participant who is another gender.

Workshops

“Proposing Your First Tech Conference Talk”

A three-part half-day workshop

PART 1 (Talk) A presentation focused on why to become a tech conference speaker, qualifications, benefits & tradeoffs, and how to find and evalute CFPs for strategic fit.

PART 2 (Q&A Session) An extensive and lengthy Q&A session. The workshop participants posed a deluge of great questions — not just about entering speaking but also how to deal with things that come after it. My favorite part of giving this talk & workshop is getting to learn what else what people need demystified. There’s so much. When it comes to tech conference speaking, virtually everything aspect and step is a mystery to newcomers.

PART 3 (Breakout Groups) When giving this workshop at Girl Develop It Raleigh, Conference organizer and speaker Bridget Kromhut and speaker Yoko Harada generously volunteered to each mentor a breakout group. The three of us each helped particants brainstorm talk ideas and shape those into something concrete, exciting, and targeted.

Every participant had at least one idea that would be a compelling topic for conference program committees and audience to see. Even participants who initially said “I don’t have anything that I could speak about” started to embrace what veteran speakers know: Yes, you do. Really. Everybody does. Communicating effectively about it is where the hard work is.

It’s a delight afterward to here from women announcing that they put in their first proposal immediately after the workshop. Score!

Be a Workshop Sponsor!

Expanding the workshop makes it possible to give attendees more individualized coaching on conference targeting and writing abstracts. These are crucial takeaways. To sponsor a CallbackWomen workshop, ping via Twitter or email.

Meetups

“Proposing Your First Tech Conference Talk”

An adaptation of the workshop’s part 1, given instead as a standalone talk/Q&A.

  • Carbon 5, Los Angeles
  • DevBootcamp, San Francisco
  • Girl Develop It, Chicago
  • Girl Geek Dinners, Wellington, New Zealand
  • Ladies of Code, Paris
  • PyLadies, Austin
  • RailsGirls, Wellington, New Zealand
  • Women Who Code (with guests Lena Reinhard and Dajana Guenther Berlin
  • Women Who Code (with co-presenter Michele Titolo), San Francisco, CA

Speakers Panels

Moderated discussion with a different panel of 5-6 women each time. Panelists have a range of conference speaking experience levels and roles. Previous panels have included high-demand keynoters, conference organizers, emerging speakers, etc. The panelists, along with several additional experienced speakers, give informal mentorship to breakout groups at the end of the evening. CallbackWomen’s YouTube channel includes videos of two panel discussions from this series.