Kevin Schroeder has a reminder for those attending ZendCon this week - don't forget about the unconference and bring those topics you may have not gotten officially accepted to the conference and present them!

If you were looking at the UnCon at ZendCon and wondering what, if anything, you should do, let me give you a couple of hints. The UnCon is the place where people who either did not submit a talk or did not get their talk accepted can sign up for a time to speak and talk on the topic of their choice. [...] It's also a chance for you to get a little practice if you have not spoken before and would like to see what it is like. We recommend that you have either slides, examples or both. It's not "required" that you do, but it definitely helps and it shows that you are treating it seriously.

There are times for full talks (the usual hour-ish slot) or an opportunity for lightening talks (20 minutes long and packed with content) with the possibility of a prize. The session with the highest ratings on the unconference event on Joind.in could win free tickets to other conferences or a copy of the official ZF programming guide. Kevin also suggests a few topics you could speak on that aren't represented in the official session list.

If you've never spoken at a conference before and you're not quite sure what to expect, you might check out this new post from Matthew Turland about how it all works and some of the common issues you might come across.

I can’t make any claim to the title of veteran conference speaker. Not yet, at least. However, I have done it once before at ZendCon in 2008 and I'll be doing it again at php|tek this year. I thought I’d take a blog post to give out a few tips to any prospective first-time speakers based on my first speaking experience.

He gives a few recommendations like being ready to give your presentation before you even get on your plane (including practicing out loud), take some cues from those members of the PHP community that are the veteran speakers, don't depend on your (or the conference's) technology to come through and, most importantly, don't let critical feedback deter you from submitting and speaking again.

Feel motivated to get into helping others learn about PHP topics but aren't sure how? Well, check out this new post from John Coggeshall - he's looking for someone for Zend:

Zend needs, pretty much immediately, a part-time trainer who can do online trainings periodically (generally in two hour blocks starting either at 11am or 2pm EST). Must be able to speak intelligently and authoritatively on various PHP subjects you know and have the time to learn any subjects being taught you might be lacking in.

If you'd like to be considered, drop him an email at john at zend dot com with your contact information and any experience you might have and he'll get back with you.

Feel motivated to get into helping others learn about PHP topics but aren't sure how? Well, check out this new post from John Coggeshall - he's looking for someone for Zend:

Zend needs, pretty much immediately, a part-time trainer who can do online trainings periodically (generally in two hour blocks starting either at 11am or 2pm EST). Must be able to speak intelligently and authoritatively on various PHP subjects you know and have the time to learn any subjects being taught you might be lacking in.

If you'd like to be considered, drop him an email at john at zend dot com with your contact information and any experience you might have and he'll get back with you.

Ilan wrote in to let us know about a talk that Andi Gutmans, VP of Technology for Zend, is going to give at the upcoming SCALE 4x (Southern California Annual Linux Expo) this year.

Andi Gutmans (Zend Founder and a creator of PHP) will be speaking at SCALE 4x, the 2006 Southern California Linux Expo on Feb 11-12. He will discuss new features in PHP5, as well as planned features for PHP6.

SCALE is a non-profit community run event in Los Angeles, CA. Presenters include Jim Winstead (MySQL), John Terpstra (Samba), Chris Dibona (Google) and more.

You can still sign up and get tickets, but the Early Bird price has passed. Tickets are only $65 USD regular price/$32.50 for students - so you can't go wrong for a few days full of talks from respresentatives of companies like Google, RealNetworks, AMD, Sun, Novell, and, of course, Zend...

Ilan wrote in to let us know about a talk that Andi Gutmans, VP of Technology for Zend, is going to give at the upcoming SCALE 4x (Southern California Annual Linux Expo) this year.

Andi Gutmans (Zend Founder and a creator of PHP) will be speaking at SCALE 4x, the 2006 Southern California Linux Expo on Feb 11-12. He will discuss new features in PHP5, as well as planned features for PHP6.

SCALE is a non-profit community run event in Los Angeles, CA. Presenters include Jim Winstead (MySQL), John Terpstra (Samba), Chris Dibona (Google) and more.

You can still sign up and get tickets, but the Early Bird price has passed. Tickets are only $65 USD regular price/$32.50 for students - so you can't go wrong for a few days full of talks from respresentatives of companies like Google, RealNetworks, AMD, Sun, Novell, and, of course, Zend...