How to Submit a Successful Session for Redis Day New York

Redis Day New York is fast approaching (June 27th – get your tickets NOW). This will be a new event for New York, but not a new event for us. We’ve done it three times in Tel Aviv, once in London and now we’re adding New York. The Redis Day format is fairly unique and very different from RedisConf. At RedisDay, we have a single track, short talks and (generally) we don’t have a public Q&A time per session. What does that mean? A few things:

1. You don’t have to worry about people not showing up at your talk – it’s always a full house.
2. Short talks are easier to put together – you need just a handful of slides.
3. The lack of questions really takes the pressure off – no highly specific, 5 minute long questions that don’t really relate to your talk (we’ve all seen it before, right?)

So, I’m sure I’ve convinced you. Now how do you convince us? Well, we’re looking for talks that are about Redis in some way. I know that might seem obvious, but judging from submissions I’ve reviewed in the past, not everyone picks up on that. Beyond that here are a few pointers:

• Write about a project you have already done or are at least in the process of doing. I know you have big ideas, but we don’t accept something based on a project that isn’t real yet.
• Redis should be a major component. If you have an amazing piece of code that counts cod fish as they swim, that’s great. But if you’re using it only to cache the results of another database, that might be a little thin. However, if your cod fish counter uses sorted sets and ZINRCBY in an interesting way for cod fish counting, then we want to hear about it.
• You don’t have to be an expert in Redis. You just need to be an expert in what you do and how Redis helps you do it.
• Simple ideas are generally better than complex. Keep in mind that it’s a 20 minute talk – you need to convey your idea completely in the time.
• We don’t put a word or character count on our Call for Paper fields, but that doesn’t mean you have to write a novel. Keep it short and sweet.

From a practical standpoint, submit as early as possible. Now, this might surprise you but humans are really excellent at procrastination. To the point that if we say it’s due on May 10th, then we will get a flood on May 9th. I know everyone is busy and working towards more timelines that toes, but the truth of the matter is that we pour over the first few submissions, but those that come last minute are often given less review. Why? A couple of reasons. One, we end up accepting some talks early if we’re sure we want to have the talk. If you submit last minute then, literally, you have less of a chance just by nature of the number of slots free and occasionally we have to make tough decisions. The other reason is that we don’t have as much time to review the flood of entries that come in at the last minute.

Now that you know why you should submit your talk for Redis Day New York, how do you actually submit it? Just head on over to the Redis Day New York CfP page and fill out the form. I would estimate this would take you less than 30 minutes as it’s just a handful of questions. If you’ve used Sessionize before to submit a talk anywhere, it’s even faster as it fills out your non-event specific details. What are you waiting for? Get CfPing!