High quality content, speakers and talk topics will determine event success. First and foremost, all organizers shall follow CNCF vendor nuetral values, which means:
Vendor neutrality in the context of a conference session refers to the principle of maintaining an impartial and unbiased environment during the session, particularly when discussing products, services, or solutions offered by different vendors. The goal is to ensure that the content presented is free from any undue influence, endorsements, or promotional activities related to specific vendors.
By adhering to the concept of vendor neutrality it fosters an environment where knowledge sharing and learning take precedence over commercial interests, benefiting both attendees and the broader industry.
Start with understanding your selection committee versus your program committee
- The program committee is the reviewing committee. This team is allowed to include members outside the core KCD organizer team, or simply be the core organizer team.
- The selection committee must comprise of those on the core KCD organizer team, and shall not have anyone that is not local to the KCD's primary location.
- CNCF highly reccomends as organizers that you do not submit a talk to your own KCD. While this is NOT mandatory, it has created issues in past KCDs. Please note KCDs are different from a KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, where there are hundreds of selected sessions versus 10-50 slots at a KCD, so we ask you do not compare standards. -- Exceptions can always be made in the event your team needs an organizer to fill in a speaking session, or your KCD simply did not receive enough Cfp submissions.
Some basic guidelines for building a good event program include:
- Encourage bold, innovative thought-provoking subjects
- Recruit a diverse slate of speakers (example: not all men)
- Make sure one organization does not receive too many speaking slots
- Make sure that all content is sensitive and appropriate
- Promote fun and participation
- Encourage interaction between attendees
- Specify what languages are acceptable for talks
Along with sponsorships, this is one of the most challenging parts of running an event. The CNCF Speakers Bureau is a great place to start. Regardless you should anticipate spending some time recruiting speakers and speaking proposals. With this in mind, here are some ways to make recruiting speakers easier:
- Build a stock of proposal ideas for potential speakers either to adopt or use to spark their creative process
- Offer to brainstorm with potential speakers to help create content
- Reach out to known event speakers on the CNCF Slack and ask if they have speaking ideas (or if they want to speak at the event!)
- Here is a playbook you can share that shows you how to submit an application via Sessionize.
Recruiting a diverse speaker slate requires extra effort. Some ideas for this include:
- Kubernetes Community Days prohibits all male panels. Please plan to have a minimum of two women speakers on a panel. This ensures if there is a cancellation you will have gender diversity.
- Contact organizations like Women Who Code and Black Girls Code
- Check relevant meetups for past speakers
- Consider bringing in speakers from outside the region to improve diversity
- Give speakers at least six weeks of notice so they can make travel arrangements
- Announce your “Call For Proposals” early to give speakers and your team the most time to find quality speakers and content ideas
- Minimize bias, by creating a transparent proposal rating system
- List proposal rating criteria (e.g. originality, big idea, new speaker, high-quality speaker, vendor nuetral)
- Have a panel of judges award each proposal points against each criteria
- Add up the points and award the speaking slot to the highest rated proposals
- Publish the names of the programming committee
- Be prepared to explain any programming decisions
- Give higher priority to content that has not been previously presented
- Try for a good balance between local and out-of-town speakers
- Prioritize new event speakers: Kubernetes Community Days is a supportive environment to encourage new voices in our space
- Regularly check-in with speakers to ensure they are making progress
- Offer content development assistance and presentation coaching
- Review every presentation in advance to ensure appropriate content
- Schedule at least two live video run-throughs of presentations before the event
- Identify all A/V requirements for each presentation
- Do they need video playback?
- Live coding?
- Preferred microphone types?
- Check in with all speakers on event day to make sure they are ready
- Provide constructive post-event feedback with concrete advice
- Building your program schedule in Sessionize: https://sessionize.com/playbook/schedule-builder
- Use this helpful dymanic agenda builder to assist in creating the agenda for your event.