Speakers | WordCamp Manchester 2017

Blind Speaker Selection

Having a diverse conference without bias is very important to us and so we opt for blind speaker selection. As WordCamp Manchester speakers you are selected initially on the content of the talk you submit. We believe in quality and subject matter over everything else. There is no shift towards the person delivering the talk and their relationship with WordCamp Manchester organisers. There is also no bias towards a particular gender or location, and no overshadowing of new applicants by more experienced speakers.

Our 2 Step Process

Talks go through 2 rounds of selection, as follows

Round One

We will vote based on the title and description of your talk. Each WordCamp Manchester organiser will put together a selection of talks we feel would fit a good schedule. We will vote for each speaker slot of the day, we rank your talk with others and move to round two.

Tips to stand out: We are looking for a broad range of topics, mostly WordPress related. However if you have story where WordPress supports you, maybe you have a successful blog please apply. We love the unoriginal quirky ideas. If you have a tale to tell we’re all ears!

Round Two

We sometimes get speakers submitting multiple talks for selection. One or all could be great but we have to be fair. In round our organisers unblind the names to check no-one is speaking twice. When we have a speaker with two talks voted for, we’ll give one of your slots to the next talk with the most votes.

We’ll contact all applicants to let you know whether you been successful or not this year. If you are unsuccessful at this point, it’s not the end of the road. There will be lightning talks on the day and we encourage you to take part. We may also contact you to submit again in the event that another speaker drops out. This is also based on the round one ranking process.

The evening before

To encourage you before the big day and to say thank you WordCamp Manchester will be hosting an invite only dinner the day before WordCamp Manchester 2017. It’s free to chosen speakers, details to follow on your acceptance. We look forward to introducing you to our team. You’ll meet us, our sponsors and volunteers and toast to the upcoming event. Not too many mind 😉 we wouldn’t want you to lose your voice the night before.

WordCamp Manchester needs you! To make WordCamp a success we need some fantastic speakers!

What Kind of Talks Are We Looking For?

In the spirit of WordCamp we want talks on a broad range of topics to include lots of lovely people who use WordPress in all sorts of ways.

Technical Talks

You know the score by now – these kind of talks are the back bone of WordCamps. It would be great if you could come up with a talk with a new / different angle, a personal experience or some cool things you have made.

Design Talks

Are you a front end designer / coder? How do you use WordPress to make your ideas come to life? Have you been doing interesting things with JavaScript, been using interesting frameworks or just plain wowed your client with what you can achieve with WordPress? We want to hear your stories.

Content

Do you write a personal blog? Do you write for articles for business sites to help explain their product, their support pages, or outreach? Do you work in the less corporate environments of music or Charity sites? Are you an SEO that helps businesses create great content for their search rankings? If so we want to hear from you! What makes a great article? How do users respond to your content?

Security

Do you know the top 10 things an any WordCamper can do to make their sites more secure? Or do you work for a major company that has taken WordPress security to the next level? (or anything in between) we want to hear from you!

Other

We’ve missed your brilliant idea off our list? Even better – we are looking for some great ideas for talks so please go ahead and apply!

Lightning talks

There will also be the opportunity to sign up to do a 5 minute lightning talk on the day if the thought of doing a longer talk gives you the heebie geebies.

How To Apply

So you’ve got a great idea? Cool here are some things to consider before applying to speak.

All talks (except lightning talks) will be filmed and will be uploaded onto WordCamp.tv after the conference has ended.
Please make sure that your talk adheres to WordCamp Central community standards
Talks will be 20 mins with 10 mins for questions.
We would like a copy of your slides one week before the conference.
You will receive a free WordCamp ticket, but we are unable to pay for accommodation or travel expenses.

We will select your talk based on the title and description you give us (so it’s worth putting some thought into this). Once your talk has been selected you may not significantly change the topic of your talk, although you can tweak the wording of the title if you wish.

If you live outside the EU, please make sure that you have a visa to travel to the UK, or are aware of the requirements for getting a visa before you apply. Be aware this may involve significant costs to you including getting documents translated into English. More details on applying for a visa.