If you've considered submitting to a Call for Papers to speak at a technical conference but aren't sure exactly what the process is like, Stefan Koopmanschap has shared some of his experience in a new post to his site.

Having been a conference organizer as well as a speaker, I've seen both sides of the CFP process. Because of that, I've made some decisions as a speaker on how I handle CFPs. Since I've discussed this with several people in the past year but it keeps coming up, I've decided to document one of my decisions here.

He talks about a "first world problem" of not knowing if you're accepted to one conference before applying to the CfP for another at the same time. He also looks at the usual Call for Papers process from the perspective of an organizer and how to sift through the (usually) hundreds of submissions that come in. He also shares his own personal rule for submitting to a conference: only submit if you're absolutely sure you can attend.