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GitLab Speakers Resources

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The Corporate Marketing and Developer Evangelism teams want to enable everyone to contribute and spread the message about GitLab, DevOps, and cloud native to the entire world. We are happy to help speakers in any way we can, including public speaking coaching and building out slides. Below you can find some resources for becoming a speaker, finding an event, submitting a talk, and putting together the presentation and speech.

Becoming a Speaker

So you're interested in becoming a public speaker? That's great!

Get help developing CFP ideas

Sometimes people have an awesome story to share but can't find the time to put words on paper. Share your ideas (Google Form) and the Developer evangelism team will work with you to build it into a talk. In the event that you are unable to speak on the topic, we can get other speakers to do justice to the talk.

The submission is open to everyone including wider community members. If you have any question, please ask in the #dev-evangelism-and-technical-marketing Slack channel (internal for team members) and mention @abuango (or Twitter) in any ongoing GitLab issue.

You can request help with reviewing CFP abstract drafts and talk slide from the Developer Evangelism team. Review examples:

Speakers Lean Coffee

Once a month, on the second Thursday of every month, the GitLab Developer Evangelism team hosts a Speakers Lean Coffee meeting in the lean coffee style. This means that prospective or current speakers who are GitLab team members or in the wider GitLab community can come and bring their topics to discuss. Whether it is help in brainstorming ideas for a CFP, refining an abstract, or discussing an upcoming presentation in more detail - all topics are welcome.

To view or add topics for the next Speakers Lean Coffee, see the Speakers Lean Coffee issue board. You can find the invite on the Developer Evangelism Calendar.

Speaker Resources

Finding an Event

CFP Submission

Event Requirements

Before accepting an invitation to speak at an event, please ensure that the conference aligns with GitLab’s values around its mission that “everyone can contribute”. The event should have both good intentions and accurately reflect those intentions.

  1. Any event where a GitLab team member is speaking "on behalf of GitLab," requires to have at least two speakers on the event agenda from an underrepresented group and any panel a GitLab team member participates on should have at least one speaker from an underrepresented group.
  2. Please ensure the event has an enforced, public Code of Conduct to ensure it is a safe environment for all contributing. If needed, event organizers are welcome to use GitLab's Community Code of Conduct.

Follow these steps throughout the CFP process and speaker announcements:

  1. Assign the CFP issue to yourself, set the due date to the CFP notification date, and review the speakers list once announced.
  2. When speaking at an event (either by CFP or invite) please notify the conference organizers that your acceptance is contingent on this event requirement. You can share this requirement with the event organizers in the CFP submission forms or via email by linking to this handbook section.
  3. If you are accepted as a speaker, and the requirements are not met, work with your manager and the corporate communications and developer evangelism teams in the #external-comms Slack channel to take appropriate actions. There may be some instances of smaller event gatherings where the organizer's had every intention of cultivating an agenda of diversity and unfortunately the available pool of speakers was limited due to various restrictions (geography, audience, available pool, travel guidance). If this occurs, please discuss the circumstances with the corporate marketing team and your manager before speaking.

Process

If there is an event you would like to attend, are attending, speaking, or have proposed a talk and you would like support from GitLab to attend this event, the process goes as follows:

  1. Contact your manager for approval to attend/ speak.
  2. After getting approval from your manager to attend, follow the steps in the Corporate Communications handbook section on Speaking Opportunities.
  3. Add your event/ talk to the events page and assign a Developer Evangelism team member to review the merge request.
  4. If the conference does not cover your travel and expenses, GitLab will cover your expenses (transportation, meals, and lodging for days said event takes place). If those expenses exceed $500, please get approval from your manager. When booking your trip, use our travel portal, book early, and spend as if it is your own money. Note: Your travel and expenses will not be approved until your event/engagement has been added to the events page.
  5. If you are speaking, please note your talk in the description when you add it to the Events Page.
  6. If you are not already on the speakers page, please add yourself.
  7. We suggest bringing swag and/or stickers with you. Check the Requesting Swag handbook how to request/order swag and stickers.

Presentation Assets

For presentation assets like templates and slides, see the Product and Solution Marketing handbook and the branded Google slides.

Consider using a GitLab branded Zoom background during your presentation to show your GitLab pride!

After your Talk

If your talk is recorded, we encourage speakers to publish their talks to YouTube.

Please upload your talk recording to GitLab Unfiltered and add the video GitLab Tech Talks playlist on GitLab Unfiltered. If the recording is published elsewhere on YouTube, add it to the playlist directly.

Best Practices

Below are some tips on being a better presenter. For an in-depth book that covers the entire speaking process, from submitting an abstract through preparing a structured talk to practicing and delivering read Demystifying Public Speaking.

  1. Use a problem/solution format to tell a story. Many talks, especially tech talks, talk about what they built first and then what the result was. Flip this around and start with the why. Why did you need to take the action that you did? Talking about what problems you were encountering creates a narrative tension, and people will listen intently to the talk because they want to hear the solution.
  2. Drive towards an action. Ask yourself, "What will people do once they hear this talk?" The answer can't be, "be more aware of this topic." By deciding what action you expect the audience to take, you can build your talk to drive towards this action. Talks that motivate the audience to action are more engaging and memorable than talks that simply describe. Some good example answers are
    1. Contribute to an open source project.
    2. Implement the technology or process you've come up with
    3. Follow the best practices you've outlined
  3. Practice how you play. Practicing your talk is key to being a great presenter. As much as possible, practice exactly how you plan to give the talk. Stand up and pretend you are on stage rather than sitting down. If you'll demo, build the demo first and practice the demo. Even practicing while wearing the outfit you plan to wear can help.
  4. Give concrete examples. Real life details bring a talk to life. Examples help people to understand and internalize the concepts you present. For each of your points, try to have a "for instance." As an example, "We recommend using this script to delete old logs and free up diskspace. For instance, one time our emails lit up as users were complaining about slow performance. Some were reporting tasks hanging for over an hour when they should have completed in less than a minute. It turned out we were out of diskspace because we had verbose logging enabled. Once we ran the script we saw performance return to normal levels."
  5. Be mindful of your body language when presenting as it will impact the way the audience perceives your presentation. Move around the stage purposefully (don't pace or fidget). Make natural gestures with your hands, and maintain good posture to convey confidence and openness, which will help you to better connect with your audience.

Finding a Speaker

To find a speaker for your event, you can see the following resources:

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