I received my Borland DevCon Abstract Review Status email today. All my abstracts were denied. Most of them were being covered by another author. A few "No coverage of this topic is planned for this conference," and "of interest only to a small number of attendees." One was ". . of interest only to a small number of attendees. Too basic."
The fact that most of my abstracts were turned down because they were being covered by another speaker means I had good ideas for my abstracts. That is a plus.
This last one that they said was "Too basic," really makes me think they didn't bother to even read that abstract (and maybe the others) as it was one of the more advanced topics I submitted. The abstract was HTTP Inside and Out, which would cover resumable downloads from the client and server side, downloading the same file from multiple servers, as well as details on all those useful tidbits of information in the header that most people know nothing about. Then time permitting we would look at creating extensions to HTTP. Most people don't realize this, but Gnutella is really an HTTP extension at its most basic level.
It does leave me wondering about the selection process. I am a returning speaker who received a "Very Good" score the previous time with 84% of my 49 attendees saying they would come hear me speak again.. I submitted fourteen abstracts (some are variations on what I listed in my blog post), so they should have plenty to pick from. I am experienced speaking and training, and even recently received a certification as a trainer, and to top it off I am published author.
Maybe the conference is going to be really, really small this year so they don't have room for any speakers that are not on TeamB or Borland employees. . . .
I was looking forward to presenting at DevCon. It is a great opportunity to give back to the Borland community. This year with hardly any benefits for speakers it really is just an opportunity to give, especially since I don't have a training or consulting business to bolster with my speaking credits. In a way I am kind of relieved because they saved me a whole lot of work.
5 comments:
I can assure you they're not trying to hold speaker slots for TeamB. Most of us are not speaking.
Wow, if you are not speaking then I wonder who is.
I know its always discouraging to get that kind of news, but dont give up on the community. We need all the help we can get, even with a basic thing as a blog, you are already helping.
Thank you in advance.
Esteban Pacheco
http://estebanp.blogspot.com
I am not giving up. I like Delphi too much. I am going to look at writing up the papers anyway and publishing them here.
It is the normal case that most of TeamB doesn't present at BorCon. There are around 40 of us in total and I can only remember 10 or so of us presenting at any given BorCon.
I don't know how many TeamB folks will present this year. I didn't submit, but I know a few of my colleagues who did.
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