Submit an Abstract to RMOUG Training Days 2016!

As the Training Days Director for Rocky Mountain Oracle User Group, one of my tasks is not just running the conference for RMOUG, but also promoting it.

RMOUG Training Days was the first conference I ever attended, (2004) and the first one I ever presented at, (2009.)  Its one of the reasons my career is where it is now and how I stayed in touch with the man who is now my partner in life, best friend and husband.

 

The Training Days conference is the largest regional Oracle User Group conference in the US and is held each year at the Colorado Convention Center with it’s unforgettable venue.

 

Our conference has an amazing group of volunteers and attendees, which can be seen easily just by a picture showing last year’s keynote from Maria Colgan:

With that said, currently the call for papers is open and I would like to recommend to everyone that they submit an abstract.  To prepare you for this task, let me go over a few reminders of what it takes to make a great abstract:

1. Take the time to make a great abstract title and fill out the abstract and summary completely!
2. Run it through spelling and grammar check.  If you submit a “sloppy” abstract with misspellings and errors in grammar, how can we know that you’ll take the time to ensure that the presentation will be performed professionally and technically accurate?
3. List a few take-aways the attendee will leave with.  What is the value that will be gained by attending your session?
4. Fill out your speaker biography.  We like to know a bit about you and why you are important to have presenting at the conference.
5. No marketing!  Keep your session technical.  Our conference is a technical conference and nothing irks our attendees like marketing!  If they like what your teaching, they’ll search out your company and/or product-  trust me!

Our conference sessions selection is based off the scoring of our valuable abstract reviewers.  If you are selected to be a presenter, these are a few other things you can do to ensure that you are desired to return:

1. If you’re on social media, find out what the twitter handle and hashtag are for the conference.  Promote it.  Many user groups have little to no marketing budget and appreciate the support.
2. If you have a blog, find out if they can provide you a speaker button for your webpage or if they mind if you create one from their conference logo.  This is more marketing support that is greatly appreciated.
3. While at the conference, tweet, post and share what you love about the conference.
4. Fill out conference evaluations for both sessions you attend and the conference overall evaluation.  This lets speakers know how they did and what they can improve upon.  For conference evaluations, this data is invaluable in the next year’s planning and enhancements!

Finally, if it’s your first time submitting a paper, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask for mentoring or guidance.  Many conferences have senior speakers that can assist you and I know at RMOUG, we have a special selection process to ensure that our members get to hear from new speakers in the community.  Ensuring success of the next great presenter in the Oracle world is important to us all.  Take a deep breath and a dive into the great world of knowledge sharing!  Everyone wins when every one contributes!

Submit your abstract today!  The deadline is September 30th, 2015!