The Voices of the ElePHPant podcast has posted a roundtable, hosted by Cal Evans, session it recent recorded with several conference organizers sharing what conference organizers wish speakers knew about speaking, the events themselves and how they can improve as a speaker.

Cal is joined by organizers from five different conferences all around the world:

• Adam Culp (Sunshine PHP)
• Chris Cornutt (Lone Star PHP)
• Anna Filina (ConFoo)
• James Titcumb (PHP Southcoast)
• Michelangelo van Dam (PHP Benelux)

You can catch this latest episode in a few different ways either using the in-page audio or video player or by downloading just the audio. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed and follow them on Twitter for updates when new shows are released.

On the Zend blog there's a new interview posted with Marc Grotholtman one of the organizers of the PHP.RUHR conference coming soon in Dortmund, Germany (November 10th).

We recently spoke with Marc Grotholtman, organizer of the upcoming PHP.RUHR conference. With access to web developers and decision makers in Germany and around Europe, PHP.RUHR offers a full day of expertise and entertainment for all attendees. In three short years, the event has outgrown its old venue and will now be hosted by the Signal Iduna Park stadium on November 10, 2016

Marc answers questions about the event and some of his own background including:

• topics/sessions to be presented at this year's event
• what he sees as highlights of the conference
• what the future holds for PHP.RUHR

He also talks briefly about where he sees PHP as a language being in five years and advice for businesses wanting to use PHP for mission-critical systems.

For those out there that are speakers (or are wanting to try their hand at speaking) at a technology conference, Anna Filina has shared her own thoughts about how many talks to submit to a single conference...and what might be too many.

I read this interesting post by Cal Evans about submitting conference proposals. He makes some very valid points, but I’d like to add my own experience as an organizer, so that when you submit, you have multiple perspectives.

She responds to Cal's comments about filtering talks based on topics the conference has mentioned, submitting a max of four talks and submitting the best idea first. Anna also shares some of her own recommendations as an organizer from the Confoo conference(s).

I know how hard it is to go through so many talks. At ConFoo, we receive close to 1000 proposals. [...] I don’t mean to tell other conferences what to do. However, speakers should always bear in mind that conferences operate differently. Perhaps organizers can create a comprehensive guideline specific to their event.

For those interested in how things work "behind the scenes" at technology conferences and how it looks from an organizer's perspective, Cal Evans has put together a video to share his own experiences.

My good friend Adam (@adamculp) and I spent a few minutes answering questions about how talks are selected in a [Call for Papers]. If you’ve ever wondered, about the process, give it a listen.

The recording was of a live Google Hangouts session they did a while back answering both some of the common questions people have and questions from their viewers. They talk about the Call for Papers process, how they've selected talks in the past and the role that passion plays. There's also discussion about speaker experience, diversity and how to find out the interest level of you topic. There's plenty more mentioned in the video as well, so if you're considering submitting to a technology conference be sure to give it a listen (well, watch...it is a video after all).

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.

If you've considered starting up a technical conference and wanted to get an inside look at what it takes, check out this recent post from Thijs Feryn about what it takes for the PHPBenelux organization to make the PHPBenelux Conference happen each year.

The PHPBenelux Conference edition 2016 took place last week in Antwerpen (Belgium). As an organizer, I’m really happy with the end result. I like to think that our attendees, speakers and sponsors also enjoyed it. It’s the 7th time we organize the PHPBenelux Conference and every year we try to introduce something new. Although the 7 years of experience and the well-organized crew have made it a lot easier to organize, it’s still a lot of work.

This post gives you a behind the scenes look at what it takes to organize the PHPBenelux Conference. It will reflect our passion, our strengths and our weaknesses.

The article covers what the conference is all about and what the name (PHPBenelux) represents. They also talk about some of the things that are important to them as an organization, the venus they've used for the past several years and some of the things that annoy them a bit about it. The article goes on to mention each of "the crew" behind the event, volunteers they have helping out and more about this year's event including the theme, how they handled sponsors and spending funds to make the event happen. They also cover one of the more fun things from this year's conference: the bumper cars from the speakers dinner.

Finally they end with a list of "lessons learned" and things they see they can do to help improve the event for years to come.

Thijs Feryn has posted his latest video interview with a member of the PHP community. In this latest episode he talks with Adam Culp, organizer of the ZendCon and Sunshine PHP conferences as well as the SoFloPHP user group, while they were both at this year's ZendCon conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I’ve started a good habit of releasing new episodes of my podcast and video blog on a weekly basis. Let’s continue to do that! This week’s episode features Adam Culp from Zend. Adam is a community animal.

They talk about the conferences Adam organizes, his involvement in the PHP-FIG and contributions to the Zend Framework project. You can watch this latest video either through the in-page video player or directly on YouTube. If you're more audio-inclined, you can listen over on Soundcloud too.

Thijs Feryn has posted another in his series of video interviews with various people in the PHP community. In this latest episode he talks with Jeremy Coates, an organizer for the North West PHP conference that happens each year in Manchester in the UK.

My special guest is the organizer of this very conference. His name is Jeremy Coates and we’ve known each other for quite a while. It was Jeremy who inspired us to organize the PHPBenelux Conference, which we did back in 2010. Safe to say that this man is a source of inspiration. This year marks the 8th edition of the conference. I’ve been to 5 of them and I’ve been a speaker at 4 of the ones I attended.

Most of the discussion is about organizing conferences (as they're both organizers) with a look at how each respective conference started out and how it's grown over time. You can catch this episode either through the video player in the post or the audio-only version over on SoundCloud. You can also find previous interviews he's done with other PHP community members in this section of his site.

On 7PHP.com today there's a new interview posted around the first ever Nomad PHP user group meeting that featured Rob Allen. The interview spans a few different people - the organizer, the speaker and three of the people in attendance.

Wednesday 22nd May 2013, NomadPHP hosted their first talk which was about “Zend Framework 2″ – a talk by Rob Allen. I even announced a two-ticket giveaways which was made possible by NomadPHP. In this article you’ll find short interviews which will showcase the opinion, feedback and suggestions from the NomadPHP organizer (Cal Evans), Rob Allen (The Speaker) and three attendees – two of which were the 7PHP Ticket winners.

There's lots of good information and feedback in the interview and if you're at all interested in the Nomad PHP (virtual) user group, you should definitely give it a read. There's information from Cal Evans (the organizer), Rob and the three attendees - David Weinraub, Peter Kokot and PJ Hagerty with their own feedback on the event.

On 7PHP.com today there's a new post spotlighting two upcoming "sister" conferences happening early next month in Amsterdam - the Dutch PHP and Dutch Mobile Conferences. He asked the organizers a few questions about the event like:

• What the conference(s) are about
• When it was first launched and where its been held
• Average and highest number of attendees
• Working with sponsors
• Speaker submission and selection
• How it compares to other conferences
• The differences between running a user group and conference

There's also a mention at the end of the unconference that happens parallel to the event - an open area where people can present on the topic of their choosing. This year's unconfernece chair for DPC/DMC is Jeroen van Dyke.