Anatomy of a Rejected CFP

Call For Presentations, a staple of any conference. Those of us that come up with ideas to share, love and dread them. I wrote about them in my CFP season post earlier this year. Of 4 CFPs I put in for conferences this year, I got rejected for 3 of them. The last one, which is for Derbycon, just came this week. I am not surprised by the rejection as Derbycon had 125 slots and 495 Presentations put in (not 495 speakers, people put in multiple presentations to hedge their bets, I put in just one). Over the last few weeks, I have been impress with how transparent Derbycon has been with the process. Dave Kennedy tweeted a thank you that showed who was the panel who reviewed and scored them. There was another tweet from Dave I do believe that explained preference levels (score, has the presentation been done before etc…) used to make the decisions. He even tweeted about how difficult it was deciding who to cut because of how good the presentations sounded. Now the CFP for Derby was blind, so the reviewers did not know PII of who the submissions were from. Some, like Lesley Carhart, Lee Holmes, and Amit Serper gave thoughts and recommendations based on what they saw (click on their names to see what they wrote).

I figured I would post my CFP here (email address removed) and take a look at it, what I might have done wrong, and one small complaint about the Google Forms (based on what Lesley wrote about outlines). Lets take a dive shall we?

 
 
 
 


Thanks for filling out DerbyCon 8.0 Evolution - Call for Papers


Here's what we got from you:
DerbyCon 8.0 Evolution - Call for Papers
Use this form if you are looking to submit a talk for DerbyCon. All submitted talks will be reviewed by the DerbyCon CFP review board. If accepted, DerbyCon will reach out via the email address provided in this form. An accepted talk provides admission to DerbyCon for each speaker(s) and $200 cash per talk (to be divided if more than 1 speaker). If you choose to do so, donations are accepted at check in. DerbyCon does not provide reimbursement for travel and expenses. Follow @DerbyCon for additional announcements. 
 
Email address *

Additional email address(es) of speaker(s) 
If there is more than one speaker that will be contacted Example: Karl - creepy@derbycon.com , Bob Speaker - bob@example.net ....(clearly showing name association with email address, separating multiple speakers by commas). This info will be used to contact you, it will not be published 
 
Name(s) of speaker(s) *
Provide your name(s), these will be printed in the handout and on the website unless notice is given
Mike "Shecky" K
 
Twitter Handle(s) of speaker(s) 
Example: Karl - @dorkultra , Bob Speaker - @bobspeaks ....(clearly showing name association with twitter handle, separating multiple speakers by commas). This info will be published on the handout and website unless notice is given
Siliconshecky
 
Speaker(s) Bio *
Provide a brief bio for the Speaker(s)
Shecky has been involved in computers since the late 70's. Over the last 20 years he has worked up from being on the help-desk to Security Engineering roles. He helps organized one of the Burbsec meetups in the Chicago area, has volunteered at B-Sides Chicago in 2017, and Burbseccon in 2018 in Chicago and spoken at Cyphercon in 2018 and B-Sides Chicago in 2014.
 
Talk Title *
This will be the title of the talk
Communication Breakdown
 
Talk Description *
This is the description of the talk that will be put in the DerbyCon handout and website
We have all seen it and experienced it. It lurks all around us, and when shows its ugly head problems get exasperated. We have a communication breakdown so we will breakdown communication. The problems, and possible solutions. Ways to get better at communicating and how to potentially hack ourselves into being better communicators.
 
Talk Outline *
Provide an outline of your talking points. This helps us narrow in on the talks that are a great fit for the con.
I.	Introduction 
II.	II. The problem 
A. Talking over people’s heads 1. Example 
B. Talking around the truth 
C. Treating others like idiots, both in and out of the Cybersecurity Field 1. Example 
III. Why should we work on communication skills? 
                      A. Buy In from others in the company/client 
                      B. Lower levels of frustration 
                      C. Easier to get help when needed 
                      D. Helps lower the loneliness factor 
                      E. Helps with Social Engineering skills 
                      F. Communication does help secure things 
IV. Different types of communication and how to work on them 
                     A. Written Word 
                                1. Blog 
                                2. Whiter paper 
                                3. Social Media 
                     B. Spoken Word 
                                1. Toastmasters 
                                2. Acting/Improv Classes 
                                3. Speaking at confrences 
                                4. Talk to strangers 
                                            a) Just say hello 
                                            b) Listen first 
                                            c) Talk to at least one new person every conference 
                                            d) Go to local meetups (security or non-security) 
V. Conclusion – hack yourself into becoming a communicator 
VI. Questions 
 
Provide a category for your talk *
Ex: password cracking, social engineering, phishing, blue team, etc
Communication/Social Engineering
 
Has this talk been given before? If so.. Where? 
Let us know if and where this talk was given before
This talk has not been given
 
Talk Length *
How long is your talk? Stable talks are 30 minutes, normal talks are 45. Please note that we reserve the right to change talk times based on available time slots and variety of content.
•         ( ) 30 Minutes (Stable Talk)
•         (X) 45 Minutes (Standard Talk)


Create your own Google Form

Pretty normal, I made one spelling error in the outline (the word conferences is misspelled).

Anything that we can see wrong with the description? Maybe a little grammar near the end:

“We have all seen it and experienced it. It lurks all around us, and when shows its ugly head problems get exasperated. We have a communication breakdown so we will breakdown communication. The problems, and possible solutions. Ways to get better at communicating and how to potentially hack ourselves into being better communicators.”

That last line probably should be combined into the sentence before it. That would be points off then, and can make a difference. When I wrote it, it seemed right to me, but English and grammar are weak points (one of the reasons I write this blog is to get better at both of them).

Next up is the outline. I have adjusted it back to how I saw it when I put it in originally. I did the outline in Word so I could get formatting correct. Lesley said in her blog post about problems she found with some of the CFPs “Many submissions I reviewed did not include one or the other. In some cases, the submitters provided long bullet lists or paragraphs instead of a tabbed outline that concisely described their talk proposal. ”

Above you see a proper outline. The actual e-mail showed my outline like this:

 

Talk Outline *

Provide an outline of your talking points. This helps us narrow in on the talks that are a great fit for the con.

1. Introduction II. The problem A. Talking over people’s heads 1. Example B. Talking around the truth C. Treating others like idiots, both in and out of the Cybersecurity Field 1. Example III. Why should we work on communication skills? A. Buy In from others in the company/client B. Lower levels of frustration C. Easier to get help when needed D. Helps lower the loneliness factor E. Helps with Social Engineering skills F. Communication does help secure things IV. Different types of communication and how to work on them A. Written Word 1. Blog 2. Whiter paper 3. Social Media B. Spoken Word 1. Toastmasters 2. Acting/Improv Classes 3. Speaking at confrences 4. Talk to strangers a) Just say hello b) Listen first c) Talk to at least one new person every conference d) Go to local meetups (security or non-security) V. Conclusion – hack yourself into becoming a communicator VI. Questions

Notice, it has lost its formatting. I will take blame on this one partially, only due to the fact that I did have it originally in proper outline form, and once submitted it reverted to the paragraph above. This is something I will have to figure out how to prevent next CFP I do, but it would cause points to be removed from my score.

Other items that get talked about such as fit into the conference’s overall theme/scheme are tough to judge since that information was not given by Derbycon itself. It is a guessing game there as to how the CFP review board felt on that. Soft skills talks are difficult to get accepted unless a CFP is perfect, at least from my perspective. Truth is I probably should have put this in as a workshop instead of a talk, I mean who wants to just listen to someone talk about communicating. I do wish we could have gotten feedback from the review board sent to us, but with almost 500 submissions, that is just way too time consuming,

Hopefully this helps some of you out there with what a rejected CFP looks like, and please feel free to comments and critique mine. Thanks again to Derbycon for being so transparent on the whole process.