Hints and tips for writing a great CFP

06 Oct 2024 - karit

If you have a great idea that you want to present at a conference, you have to fill in a CFP (Call for Presentations or Call for Papers) so the review board can select your talk. This blog post will examine how to write a great CFP and ensure you avoid some common issues.

Similarly, many of these points will also cover what you need to do to make a Call for Training (CFT).

Background

I have helped review CFPs/talks for conferences. While doing this, I read many CFPs; some were great, and some were not. Through this, I have put together some common points which make a CFP good and some that make a CFP bad. In addition to reviewing CFPs, I have written many CFPs of my own and spoken at various conferences.

Caveat

This blog looks at how I review and what I look for; every reviewer is a bit different. Each conference also looks for a different content makeup based on its target audience. This blog is just guidance and help, but it is not a surefire way to get accepted every time. You still have to have an excellent presentation that suits the conference.

Fill in the form

Firstly, fill in all the fields. If a CFP is asking for particular information, make sure you answer all the questions/fields. Even if they are optional, put some thought into the answer. (Sure, if the field is anything extra type question, which is OK to skip, but you know what I mean).

If the CFP is poorly written and presented, the reviewers will likely feel you are wasting their time and lack attention to detail. Remember, you want the conference to give you time to speak on stage in front of the attendees. We need confidence that you are not going to muck this up and make the conference look bad.

Read the instructions for what you need to do. Please fill in the fields as described and note the additional details like:

Trying to hack your way around the system or Code of Conduct will result in your talk not being selected.

How much to write

Some CFPs may have guides for the number of words to include in the different sections. That should guide you with how much you need to write. Do not be too light, as it can look like you have not put in effort. However, we generally do not want long essays either. Particularly when they start to become waffly.

Don’t bury the lede

Be clear about the topic of your talk. Make sure it is clear what you want to do a presentation on. Reviewers do not need lots of scene setting before we know what your topic is. Sure, if you have space, follow up with the context as part of why your talk is important, but as a reviewer, I want to know what you want to talk about first. The context should help support the justification of why including your topic is important.

Target the audience

If you are submitting to multiple conferences, don’t just copy and paste the same content for each conference you are submitting to. I have had talks I have presented at different conferences and will tweak the CFP and talk content to suit the audience. If the con Dev Focus or security focus, tweak the description to suit that. Consider whether the conference is trying to target newer people in the industry or if it is an advanced con with a niche focus that will dictate the depth of the talk. When reviewing, the reviewers consider whether the talk will suit the conference and whether the speaker understands the conference. If the conference site has a theme, try to bring those points to your CFP submission.

You will also need to consider that the abstract will usually be published for attendees to read and pick which talks they want to attend, particularly for multitrack conferences. So, in addition, the abstract is selling not just to the review board but also to the conference attendees. Of course, in the CFP, there will be other fields specifically for the review board.

Also, think about whether you can make it interesting to more people. For instance, if your talk is about breaking things, it might be interesting to red team people, but if you also include some information on detecting or defending, the talk becomes helpful for blue team people. The more people who can potentially benefit from the talk, the more likely it will be selected as a talk.

Takeaways/Learnings from a talk

Most CFPs will ask for the talk’s takeaways. This is what you expect conference attendees to take away from your presentation. For me, as a reviewer, this would be one of my key points to assess talks on. If there is nothing for people to do on Monday when they get back to work from the conference, what is the point of putting a talk on the schedule?

This also ties back to targeting the audience. If appropriate, including takeaways for multiple different audiences will make the talk more attractive.

If the CFP does not have a specific field to describe the takeaways or learnings from the talk, make sure you include this information in one of the talk description fields.

No sales pitches

Following on from takeaways, a takeaway should not be buying your tool or service. Conferences are for education, not for sales pitches. Presenting a new (or newish) open-source tool will be accepted depending on the conference. It is generally best when the tool is part of the story but not the only story. See the section on using bugs and CVEs.

Using Bugs/CVEs as the foundation for a talk

Talking about Bugs and CVEs can be the foundation of a great talk. Ideally, you have reported the bugs, and they will be fixed by the time of the conference. That being the case, make sure there is more to the talk than just the bug, as installing a patch does not make for good learning from a talk. 

You can use the bug as a story/anchor to discuss the bug class. For attackers, you could talk about finding similar bugs or present a tool for finding bugs of this type. The defenders would appreciate how to detect and defend bugs of this type. This will broaden the talk and make it more attractive to a broader range of people. 

Talks based on research

If your talk is based on research, make sure you have completed it or are far enough along in the process that you actually have content, not just a hypothesis or a hunch.

Failure presentations can be good, and they can show that security research has many dead ends and rabbit holes. But really, I am only going to pick a failure talk from someone who has done a lot of successful research and is a known quantity when it comes to speaking. That way, we know you are speaking about failures based on understanding how research is successful instead of failures based on learning how to do research.

Thought Leadership Talks 

Thought Leadership Talks just don’t interest me. Instead, focus on what people are going to do when they get back to the office. Thought leadership-type talks, on the whole, are not that actionable by people.

Buzz Words

Humans are doing the CFP reviews we see through buzzwords. I am looking for substance, not that you can type in a series of buzzwords. Also, many people jump on the buzz bandwagon, so there will likely be lots of submissions on that topic. Which lowers the chances of you getting selected.

How is your talk different?

Chances are this talk is not the only one on the topic. Make sure it is clear what is new in your talk and what you are bringing to the table. You need to ensure your talk differs from what has been presented or published previously.

This can also be extended to your research. Some larger conferences want new research that hasn’t been presented before, even by you. Think about dates and what conferences you are submitting to. You do not want to miss out on that conference of regional or international significance because you have already spoken at a couple of smaller conferences first and have nothing new in your talk.

We understand that no talk will be 100% new and novel. It is encouraged to say where you got your inspiration and thank the people from whom you extended your work.

Don’t spam multiple talks

Submit your best talk. You should be putting forward your best talk, do not have the review board select which talk for you. If multiple “themed” tracks exist, maybe submit one talk per track. If you have some ideas, ask some friends which talk would be best to put forward. Depending on the conference and who the organisers are you could consider asking them, don’t give them too much to read, maybe a couple of sentences per talk tops to get an idea about which is best. However, do remember that asking them which talk to submit does not guarantee that your talk will be selected.

Even if you have one great talk but multiple talks submitted, it is often seen as negative and spammy.

Do not harass the organisers

Most conference organisers are volunteers who are not getting paid for their work organising the conference. People are giving up their time to do the work and put the conference on for you. Chasing the organisers about: When talks are going to be reviewed. When you are going to hear about X. Your timeline/dependencies (flights, visas, etc.)

These are not going to change the organiser’s timelines. Too much may make you seem high maintenance and result in you not getting selected.

Timing of talk

Make sure the amount of time you describe your talk will match the length of the requested timeslot. This works both ways. If you describe a lot of content but select a 15-minute lightning slot, it can be a little worrying, as it leads to the impression you will skim over things and not really impart the knowledge. Similarly, if you request a long slot but are very light on what you will cover, we may question what you will talk about and how you will fill in your slot. 

Submit early

Sometimes, reviewers may ask questions about the CFPs, so getting in early can be helpful. It allows questions about your submission. Not all conferences will ask questions, but it can’t hurt to get the CFPs in early.

Save a copy of your submission

Do not just write your submission into the CFP form. Not all CFP submission systems let you, the author, see what you wrote. Having a copy means that if you get selected, you can go back and see what you said you would talk about. 

Writing your talk outside the form allows you to get feedback from friends on your submission. Running your submissions through a tool like Grammarly will not hurt either.

Selecting the talks

The talks that get selected for the program are not X top-rated talks. The ratings of the talks feed into it, but there is also a need to make a coherent program. For instance, AI is a hot topic, but a program with half the talks on AI will likely not be that interesting. When putting the program together, we need to ensure that we have a range of topics and that talks don’t overlap too much. When selecting the program of talks, the organisers need to make sure there is a range of talks for the audience, e.g., they want to have content for the blue and red teams.

Other Resources

I am not the only one who has written about writing a good CFP. This was just my perspective as one reviewer. There are other perspectives as well:

Closing thoughts

I look forward to reviewing your talks in the future and/or seeing you on stage.

Remember that the takeaways and learnings are important. Consider how the attendees will use the content you present at the conference’s conclusion.