if you've ever considered contributing to a PHP (or any other technology conference) but weren't sure about how to even get started writing up a proposal for a session, you should check out this recent post from Ben Ramsey with a good guide (and some advice experienced speakers could use too).

Earlier today, I was asked "Any tips on how to write a proposal for a major conf?" I've never shared tips on this, and since the calls for proposals for Sunshine PHP and Midwest PHP both end tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to share my approach to writing conference proposals. Remember those standard, five-paragraph essays you used to write in high school? Remember how you thought they sucked and wouldn't provide any practical benefit to your life? Well, it turns out they do have some redeeming qualities.

He suggests that this "five paragraph essay" format helps you not only come up with a more fleshed out, full idea but also can provide you with the abstract to submit to the conference (possibly the first paragraph). He mentions the need for a "hook" and finishing off with an opinion that's the basis of the talk. He also has a reminder of a few things - don't talk down, don't use negative language and try not to use absolutes.

In this new post to Reddit, the author asks the community for suggestions for a talk they're giving at a university to cover the PHP language and some of its major features.

I've been asked to give a 1.5-hour talk to university students about PHP. What helpful information should I not miss to impart? Little help please. I plan to name the talk "Why PHP?" to give an introduction of the language and give reasons why it's a good/bad career path. I'm also asked to show a short demo and show some past projects. [...] What would be really helpful facts, tips, etc that I can impart to the students?

Suggestions in the comments include:

• PHP performance
• The accessibility of the language
• Popular sites that currently use it
• The wide community
• Corporate usage

Have any other thoughts? Share them here!

In this new post to her site, Lorna Mitchell shares some other skills/technologies that are "allied to PHP" and can make you a more effective (and better) developer for knowing them.

In web development, our biggest challenges are not writing code, we can do that. But getting the code safely from one place to another, with many people's work preserved, having our platform(s) correctly configured and understanding how to use them, making use of the tools in the ecosystem which will help us improve the quality of our code; these are the big challenges we face, and that's why I proposed this workshop and why I think all these topics are important.

Among the things she'll be talking about are useful things to know like effective use of version control, using a static analysis tool to evaluate your code and performance profiling. If you'd like to attend the talk and hear it all first-hand, you can find out more about PHPNW 2012 from their site.

If you're a speaker (or even if you're not and just want to play with the API) and have information on Joind.in, Lorna Mitchell has a quick way you can pull you information from the site into an easy to use format.

I've recently been thinking that I should also do a better job of linking through to the various talks I'm giving/have given - and at around the same time I was contacted by the good folk at mojoLive about integrating against joind.in. To cut a long story short, the joind.in API now has the functionality for users to retrieve their list of talks!

Her example just uses a file_get_contents to pull the data from the remote URL in a JSON format. You don't need to be logged in to get to the talk information, though, so you won't need to bother with OAuth for this one. A snippet to loop through the results is also included.

On the Ibuildings techPortal today they've posted the latest episode in their DPC Radio series as recorded at the last Dutch PHP Conference. In this new episode they share a session from Tobias Schlitt called "Advanced OO Patterns".

You already know Singleton, Signal/Observer, Factory and friends. But, which object oriented patterns are en vogue in the PHP world and how can you seize their power? This talk gives you an overview on Dependency Injection, Data Mapper and more OO patterns the PHP world talks about right know, using practical code examples.

You can listen to this latest episode either via the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. You can follow along with the talk in his slides over on the qafoo.com site.

As a result of the ZendCon advisory board for this year's event, Joe Devon has posted a guide that wants to help you get your talks accepted to conferences in the future (both PHP-related and not).

For those who don't know what an advisory board is, conference organizers get loads of proposals and need help deciding who should speak. So they ask others in the industry to provide some feedback. It was quite a learning experience.

He talks some about the "speaker backlash" that comes from being rejected, a lack of professionalism in some submittors and some basic (common sense) recommendations like:

• fill out the form completely, even if you don't think it's all useful
• start locally and then move up. A major conference isn't the place to try out your speaking first-shot
• whet the board's appetite - make them want to hear more about the topic or come up with something new
• share your unique experience with the technology
• use sites like Joind.in, Meetup and SlideShare to your advantage

With the deadline for the Call for Papers for the TEK X conference quickly approaching (November 23rd!) Cal Evans has posted some last-minute tips to help improve your submission for a better chance at acceptance.

As the Call for Papers progresses for TEKX, it dawns on me that I have the distinct privilege of having participated in the Call and Acceptance process of all three of the major PHP conferences, ZendCon, the Dutch PHP Conference, and now TEK. Thinking back, this gives me a unique perspective on the process. Since I get a lot of questions about "how do I get my talk accepted," I thought I would share some of what I have learned. Here are a few basic rules I have discerned.

Cal gives some suggestions on becoming known for knowing the topic well (blog it out), tailoring the abstract to the conference's focus, thinking about the experts that already exist, being interesting and being respectful of the Call for Papers rules.

If you'd like to get your submission in, head over to the submission form on the TEK X website!

The Zend Developer Zone has posted a relaunch of the ZendCon Sessions podcast today with this fifteenth episode, a talk given by Matthew Weier O'Phinney at the 2008 Zend/PHP Conference & Expo - "Getting Started with Zend Framework".

In this series we will be releasing regular sessions from ZendCon 2008 as we lead up to this year's ZendCon. This episode of The ZendCon Sessions was recorded live at ZendCon 2008 in Santa Clara, CA ... and is Matthew Weier O'Phinney giving his presentation: "Getting Started with Zend Framework"

You can both check out the slides or listen to the talk either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3. You can also subscribe to the feed to get future episodes automatically.

php|tek aims to be the conference of reference for PHP enthusiasts and professionals. As such, it features technical talks on topics that range from programming paradigms to internals development, all aimed at an audience comprised of beginners and professionals alike.

This year's theme is "$build->deploy->scale();"'"a nod to PHP's growing role in the rapid development of Internet applications of all sizes, from small to massive, covering a wide array of PHP-related topics. Regardless of the subject, we are partial to talks that tackle a specific issue in a thorough way, with a very pragmatic slant. Remember, attendees will come to the conference with the intent of learning something that they can take home and use in their daily lives'"they are not necessarily interested in why things work, but they are definitely interested in how they work.

Speakers get free access to the conference, some travel assistance (not completely paid for), and compensation for each of the talks given. Instead of havaing specific tracks of talks, they're opting for a "tag-based" approach, applying as many tags that fit to the talk.

To submit your talk ideas, send them off to proposals@phparch.com and include the usual contact info as well as a title, synopsis, audience level, talk type, and topics included in the presentation.

Remember, the deadline is December 21, 2005 - so get those proposals in today!

Paul Reinheimer has a new post to his blog today talking about a special event happening at this year's php|works conference - Pecha Kucha.

The format is a little bit different than a talk (thank god) and hopefully a lot more fun. Basically the presenter gets up there with twenty slides, each are going to be shown for exactly 20 seconds, for a total of six minutes forty seconds. No take backs, no do-overs, no boring slides full of code.

He tosses in a few FAQs for those interested (who can do it, what can it cover, etc) and who to contact to get yourself signed up - drop Elizabeth Naramore an email and let her know you're interested.