Call for Presentations 2015 DevZone It’s that time of year again! The DevZone Call for Presentations for Dreamforce 2015 is live, and its time for you to submit your ideas for a killer session about your experiences and expertise. Sessions presented by community members (like you!) make up a majority of the sessions in the DevZone, and we want to know what cool stuff you have built, discovered, or want to share with your fellow Salesforce developers.

We had hundreds of submissions last year and expect even more this year. The Call for Presentations submission process is quick with only a few questions to help us understand what it is that you want to present. Below are a some good rules of thumb when architecting your session and how to outline key aspects in the Call for Presentations submission.

What We Look for in a Call for Presentations Submission

  1. Your session must demonstrate or be related to Salesforce1 Platform technologies and be relevant to the Dreamforce audience.
  2. Show and tell, not just tell.
    • If you are doing code: show the code, explain the code, and share the code if possible (i.e. GitHub, unmanaged packages, etc).
    • If you are doing button click development: show the steps and explain the steps.
    • If you are sharing a use case: find the nugget of ingenuity and show and explain.
  3. Clearly express the key takeaways for the audience. Ask yourself, what are the most important things that they need to know or get from this presentation
  4. Provide a call to action at the end of the session – links to GitHub or other locations for digging in deeper.
  5. Highlight solutions not problems.
  6. Plan on using as few slides as possible.
  7. Your session must not include any proprietary or confidential information, and you must have permission to submit any material that you have obtained from others.
  8. Architect your title and abstract to be specific and set expectations as to what the session will cover.

Set Expectations with a Title and Abstract

A session needs a title and the title should be clear about the topical focus of the session. The abstract elaborates on and provides details on that title. Be explicit on what you plan to present in the session and address what you plan to show. For technical sessions it’s a good idea to let people know if there are assumptions about knowledge of a particular language, library, framework, etc and if the content is targeted at novices or experts.

For example, if you were giving a session on baking a cake, don’t simply say “This session will cover how to bake the best cake you’ve ever had!” Be specific. Focus on what you’ll show rather than the outcome in order to set expectations on what content will be covered in your session. A better alternative would be something like, “In this session, we’ll cover the basics of how to select the best ingredients, make a schedule that includes prepwork and order of operations, and finally walk through the recipe.”

Here are a few examples of good titles and abstracts:

Security Best Practices for Mobile Development

In the enterprise, mobile devices and mobile apps need to be secure. A lost or stolen phone or tablet can mean your company data falling into the wrong hands. Join us to explore the security features available on iOS, Android, and Windows 8, learn how app data can be compromised, and receive best practices for the development of secure enterprise apps on both platforms.

Getting Started with Apex REST Services

If you’re looking to interact with your Salesforce data from other system but need something more complex than offered by the native REST API, look no further than Apex REST. Join us as we take a look at the basics of defining your own custom APIs using Apex REST. The session will be packed with tips and tricks, and we’ll cover everything involved in defining your first Apex REST service, so come prepared to learn!

Revving up the Force.com Formula Engine

Do your formulas run more like a wagon than a sports car? In this session, we’ll take you “under the hood” of the Force.com formula engine and show you how to tune it for maximum performance. We’ll explore some common designs that make formulas slow to a crawl, then discuss how to use formula fields to improve the scalability of applications handling very large data volumes.

Continuous Delivery for Large Enterprises

Continuous Delivery is the ability to rapidly, reliably and repeatedly push out enhancements and bug fixes to customers at low risk and with minimal manual overhead.  This often strikes fear in large enterprises used to releasing with strict change control and quarterly releases.  This session will show how large enterprises can benefit from continuous delivery whilst maintaining strict control.  We will model a large enterprise sandbox footprint and use Jenkins and Git to show continuous delivery.

Submit Your Session Ideas

If you have ideas for multiple sessions based off of projects you’ve worked on or apps you’ve built, submit them! If you are not sure if your idea might be covered in another session, submit it anyway! We are looking for lessons learned, methodologies for building better apps, tips and tricks around best practices, and everything in between. We want to help you share your knowledge with fellow Salesforce developers and ensure the content you want to learn about in the DevZone is in the session lineup at Dreamforce this year.

Thank you for the awesome work that you do! Let me know if you have any questions either by email (sready@salesforce.com) or on twitter. The Call for Presentations will be open until May 10 so be sure to get your submission in before the deadline, and tell your cohorts to get their submissions in too!

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