Call for speakers (CFP)

A CFP does two jobs at once: it fills the agenda and it markets the event. Every person who submits — selected or not — has now engaged with your brand, and a well-promoted CFP reaches communities your attendee marketing might miss. That's why experienced organizers treat the CFP page and its distribution as a campaign, not an administrative form. The quality of what comes in depends heavily on what you ask for. Vague themes attract vendor pitches dressed as talks; specific prompts ("show us a migration that failed and what you'd do differently") attract practitioners with real material. Review discipline matters equally — blind review reduces bias toward big names and big logos, and a clear rubric keeps a volunteer committee consistent across hundreds of submissions. The honest nuance: a CFP alone rarely builds a great program. Open submissions skew toward people with time and confidence to submit, which underrepresents the busy senior operators audiences most want to hear. Strong programs blend CFP selections with directly invited speakers, using each to cover the other's blind spots. The common mistake is ghosting rejected submitters. A short, timely rejection preserves goodwill; silence quietly burns the community you'll be calling on again next year.