Submit a proposal to present at a VMUG Usercon or Supercon!
As many of you know I have a long history of being part of the Phoenix VMUG and the Global board of director for VMUG. Now, as VMware employee I continue to support the VMUG organization however I can. Just this week they announced that users can submit a proposal to present their content at their User/Super Cons globally! This is a great opportunity for users to contribute to the virtualization community and be a thought leader not only to your VMUG community but your working peers too. Over the past almost 10 years I have presented multiple times at VMUG events, from keynotes to users presentation’s, and even open mic user discussions. In this blog post I wanted to show the process I took to submit a proposal. It’s a great primer to get you ready to submit your own proposal, not to mention I’ll put in some tips and tricks along the way.
START HERE:
First off — Keep this in mind: Submitting a proposal doesn’t mean you must have all your presentation content ready, it just means you are ready to submit an overview and outline of your session.
Before writing up your proposal, I would recommend reviewing all the information in this link — https://community.vmug.com/blogs/katie-lyons/2017/11/28/2018-vmug-call-for-content
From that link you may notice there are many 4 different types of speaking sessions to choose from. This is great news as it allows you to choose a session type that aligns better to your goals. Maybe you have a topic you are very deeply engaged with and could carry a 60-90 minutes session, or maybe you got a quick 15 minute session topic in mind. Either way there is a session for that.
From the link above, move on to getting yourself ready to produce your talking points (See Below). I think this is great advice to get things ready, and these are things you’ll need to answer when you submit.
Understand submission proposal review process. My tip here: Figure our who is on this Planning committee and reach out to them for further success tips.
As of this writing (12/1/2017) the dead line to submit is December 8, 2017 for the Feb and April Events. It will stay open for others to submit for other events, but I would try to submit by 12/08 – Yes its s tight time frame, so get moving…
Finally, review the schedule and pick a session or session you’d like to present at. Keep in mind this is a community volunteer organization, and by submitting to present you volunteering your time, travel costs, etc. to do so.
One last note towards the bottom of the page – Got Questions? Questions can be directed to Molly Hewitt at mhewitt@vmug.com
NEXT SUBMIT THE PROPOSAL:
In this section I wanted to show you the fields you’ll need to fill in to submit a proposal. It should give you a good idea what you submit.
Here is the link to start your submission and log on with your ‘planion’ user account – https://vmug.planion.com/Web.User/LogReg?ACCOUNT=VMUG&CONF=CFC18&FT=ABSREG
NOTE: When you click on the submit proposal link just note the username is NOT your VMUG User ID it is a ID for a different site. So, you’ll need to create a new user account to submit.
After you logon, you’ll see a page similar to the link/information above, simply scroll to the bottom and click on ‘Begin the Abstract Submission Process’
After clicking start the submission, simply type in your title, your speaker category (VMware, Partner, Community), session format, and length of session (90,60,40,30,15)
In the next section you will need to choose a topic focus. Be ready to make further selections as each topic focus has subcategories.
TIP: All topic focus categories have the same subcategories. Don’t over think this too much just choose what you think would be relevant to the listener.
Next choose your technical content level. For my session I’m keeping it at a 200 level as it meets with the content and over all them I have. I would recommend if you are a high level say, 300 or 400 GREAT this is the type of presentations VMUG needs, please submit those too!
Be specific when you fill out ‘Identify the need” Think of it this way… Why would you attend this session? What would you want to get out of a session like this? If you can answer those questions, then you are hitting the mark.
With your Session Description have a bit of fun with it, show your passion for your topic and show why others would enjoy this session as well.
Finally, on this page fill out the remaining questions, and click save and continue.
TIP: Before clicking on Save and Continue, make sure all fields are filled out, else the form will not alert you until you are at the end of this process. If you missed anything required then you have to go back and fill all the missing items which takes you through the process again. Yes, this happened to me
Next question is – Who is presenting? Add folks if need be.
Attestation is a funny word for “Confirmation” or ‘Agreement’ review them and if all are okay, check those boxes and click submit.
Finally, you get a long page with all the content and choices you made, review them and if okay click on continue
When you all done submitting you can now view your submission.
And that’s it… Good luck submitting and if you need any help with your submittal please do reach out I’m always glad to help!
If you like my ‘no-nonsense’ blog articles that get straight to the point… then post a comment or let me know… Else, I’ll start writing boring blog content.
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