Call for Speakers

The number one thing that user groups like ours need are SPEAKERS.  Venues and sponsors and swag and book giveaways come and go, but human beings willing to speak and share their technical knowledge is the number one commodity for user groups.

What does it take to speak at a user group?

Not expertise, not experience, and not a fancy impressive slide deck.  (Though all those things are helpful.)  Got an interesting project at work?  Got a master's or doctoral thesis to research presenting?  Blogged about an interesting solution to a problem?  Become excited about a related piece of software?  We'd like to hear from you about it!  Code demos are great tools and can usually be more informative and interesting alone, with or without a PowerPoint accompanying them. 

How long do I have to speak?

You tell us!  There's no set schedule.  If you'd like only to kick off a meeting with a 15-minute talk, we'll gladly schedule you for that.  Anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes is what we try to fill during a user group, and you're entitled to any portion.

What do I get out of speaking?

If you consider speaking at a user group the pinnacle of your technical speaking career, the beginning, or perhaps just a stepping stone, our user group is the perfect opportunity to increase your technical speaking experience and confidence.  You'll never find nonconstructive, cynical, or condescending remarks - only a positive environment of your peers where you can grow as a speaker. 

Ok, I'm up for it.  Get me on the schedule!

Email us at sqlpassbr@gmail.com and we'll work out a date!  You can also visit our Call for Speakers page on  Sessionize to submit your talk. Many speakers also get encouragement from their employers in the form of a user group sponsorship, where your sales and marketing folks can meet and greet the attendees of both the .net and SQL user groups. If you'd like to schedule a meeting where your employer can also attend as a sponsor, we can definitely do that.