GopherCon 2016 is going to be an amazing event, and this is your chance to be a part of it! First time speaker? Experienced Speaker? Have a package you want to talk about? Or perhaps you just have a great story about Go you want to share. The GopherCon lightning talks are there for you!

You don’t have to be a “professional” speaker. Lightning talks are a great way to get some experience on the stage in a friendly and supportive environment.

Last year we had dozens of great speakers get up and share their knowledge with the hundreds of Gophers in attendance, it was an amazing day!

Among the many talks at the 2015 lightning talks we were introduced to GopherJS by Richard Musiol. Brad Fitzpatrick introduced us to the http2 library. Matt Holt demoed Caddy for the first time in public. Jessica Suttles taught us about #gopherfriends. Paul Smith showed us how Go saved America. Andy Walker dramatically crashed his machine to demo deadman. Ken Thompson revealed Go generics.

Because of the excellent response last year, this year we are taking the lightning talks to the main stage. Both July 11th and July 12th will conclude with 90 minutes of lightning talks in the keynote room.

Submit a CFP at GopherCon 2016 Lightning Talk CFP.

The deadline for submissions is July 8th 12 noon EST.

If your talk is chosen you will be informed by July 9th and told which day you’ll speak.

The format

1. Monday & Tuesday 4:30 - 6pm in the Main Room
2. Each session will have 10 - 12 speakers
3. Talks will be video recorded

Lightning Talk Ground Rules

1. Talks are 6 minutes each. After that, the mic is turned off.
2. 1 minute for questions while the next speaker is setting up (you can use more if your talk ends early).
3. You’ll get one warning at the 5½ min mark.
4. Slides are allowed, but not required, and you can flip them at your own pace.
5. Demos are allowed, but please be mindful of the time and plan ahead for technical issues.
6. You can submit as many talks as you like, but to be fair to others, we’ll only choose at most one talk.
7. All talks must adhere to the GopherCon Code of Conduct

Why give a lightning talk?

(taken shamelessly from Yapc’s instructions on lightning talks).

Maybe you’ve never given a talk before, and you’d like to start small. For a Lightning Talk, you don’t need to make slides, and if you do decide to make slides, you only need to make three.

Maybe you’re nervous and you’re afraid you’ll mess up. It’s a lot easier to plan and deliver a seven minute talk than it is to deliver a long talk. And if you do mess up, at least the painful part will be over quickly.

Maybe you don’t have much to say. Maybe you just want to ask a question, or invite people to help you with your project, or boast about something you did, or tell a short cautionary story. These things are all interesting and worth talking about, but there might not be enough to say about them to fill up thirty minutes.

Here are some suggestions for awesome lightning talks that I’d like to see at GopherCon this year, and of course this list isn’t exclusive, it’s your seven minutes of fame.

1. Why my favorite library is X.
2. I want to do cool project X. Does anyone want to help?
3. Successful Project: I did project X. It was a success. Here’s how you could benefit.
4. Failed Project: I did project X. It was a failure, and here’s why.
5. Heresy: People always say X, but they’re wrong. Here’s why.
6. Here a few things our community needs to do better.
7. Call to Action: Let’s all do more of X / less of X.
8. Wouldn’t it be cool if X?
9. Someone needs to do X.
10. Wish List
11. Why X was a mistake.
12. Why X looks like a mistake, but isn’t.
13. What it’s like to do X.
14. Here’s a useful technique that worked.
15. Here’s a technique I thought would be useful but didn’t work.
16. Why algorithm X sucks.
17. Comparison of algorithms X and Y.

We look forward to hearing you share your remarkable and inspiring stories, projects and messages.