SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conference: Boston 2016 is seeking proposals from speakers for full-day and half-day tutorials, two-hour hands-on labs, plus 75-minute technical classes.

SPTechCon is for administrators, developers, architects and business people who must customize, deploy, maintain and maximize business value from SharePoint Server and SharePoint Foundation. We are looking for sessions on the newest version of the platform as well as sessions geared specifically to solving problems with earlier versions.

The first day at SPTechCon is filled with intense full and half-day tutorials. The next three days contain classes that run 75 minutes in length.

When you propose a tutorial or a class, be clear about the audience. Is your class for business managers and analysts? Administrators? Developers? Think about who would be most interested in your topic, and your presentation of that topic. Make sure that your proposal makes it clear who you are addressing, and what they will learn from your session. Also tell us if your session is introductory, intermediate or for experts.

Event Schedule

Monday, June 27: Full and half-day tutorials
Tuesday, June 28: Technical classes
Wednesday, June 29: Technical classes
Thursday, June 30: Technical classes

Session Levels
Classes and tutorials at SPTechCon are taught at three levels: Overview, Intermediate and Advanced.
Attendees rarely complain that a session has too much detail. Just because a session isn’t technical, such as those for business users, doesn’t mean it can’t be at an advanced level. If you’re talking about project management, for example, but doing a deep examination of the methods and techniques, along with a demonstration of implementing these in software tools, this would be an advanced class.

Overview: No previous knowledge of the class’s subject is required, and the session will be a high-level introduction of the topic.

Intermediate: These broad technology sessions emphasize capabilities and how things work. As appropriate, the instructor will show examples.

Advanced: These sessions teach attendees how to implement a solution. As appropriate, the instructor will include detailed samples.

Topic Areas

Broadly, we'll be looking for information on SharePoint 2016 (new features that can be discussed in the wake of the expected 2015 preview), as well as Office 365 capabilities, and how-to sessions. The emphasis should be on hybrid solutions, as well as on-premises SharePoint 2010 and 2013, as this is where most of our attendees continue to work. 

Developer Essentials: These technical classes and tutorials are geared to software developers looking to write custom applications, or extend out-of-the-box functionality. Topics include the new add-in model, APIs, JavaScript libraries, BDC/BCS, workflows, branding, Delve and Graph, Client Object Model and more.

IT Pro Essentials: These technical classes and tutorials cover topics specific to setting up and managing SharePoint Server, including permissions, farm architecture, integrations, backup and recovery, storage and virtualization, among others. 

Information Worker Essentials: These sessions are geared to business users who are looking to SharePoint for document management, search, and reporting, as well as working with lists, libraries and forms. Also, power users looking to create their own simple SharePoint applications or manipulate metadata and content would benefit from these classes.

Architecture Essentials: These classes and tutorials are aimed at business, software and IT architects and address topics such as workflow, governance, search, metadata and taxonomy, and content types.

Business Decision Makers: These sessions are geared toward attendees who would be involved in making a decision to adopt SharePoint, or to upgrade SharePoint, and to understand the business value of the software.

Project Management Essentials: These technical classes and tutorials are aimed at project managers, who are tasked with ensuring software development efforts; workflow creation and more are completed correctly and in the allotted time.

Speaker Deadlines

Friday, Feb. 26, 2016: Abstract submissions, including all information described below.
Monday, Feb. 29, 2016: Speaker notification of acceptance.

Preparation of Submission

Please include the following information in your speaker proposal:
• Title of class or tutorial
• Abstract or submission, 150–200 words, describing the class and what attendees will learn from it
• List the job title of the SharePoint professional who would most benefit from your class
• List the version of SharePoint the class will talk about
• Any prerequisites of the proposed class, such as technical proficiency or knowledge-level of a topic
• Any prerequisites such as a laptop and any pre-loaded software
• Speaker bio, 125–150 words
• Speaker name(s), mailing and e-mail addresses, telephone and cell phone numbers
• Hi-res digital headshot of speaker

Please submit your information electronically as a text e-mail or as a Word document to conference chairman David Rubinstein. Please note that we reserve the right to edit class titles, descriptions and bios to fit our style, and also to ensure that it clearly presents information about your session to attendees.

Suggestions

Attendees are coming to take technical classes — they don’t want to hear a sales pitch, no matter how thickly veiled. Please do not submit classes that are geared around persuading attendees to buy your product or use your service. SPTechCon classes are for teaching, not for marketing.

Our experience shows that a class taught by more than one instructor is generally not as satisfying as a class taught by a single instructor. If you are proposing multiple instructors, be sure to explain why — and the role that each instructor plays in the class.

Teaching at SPTechCon means more than just showing up at the conference. Please pay attention to the deadlines for submission of handouts and other materials. These deadlines help us ensure that the conference provides a quality educational experience for all attendees, and your cooperation is appreciated.

Please plan on sticking around for most or all of the conference, to interact with attendees and partake of the entire SPTechCon experience.

Contacts

Questions about the speaker submission process:

David Rubinstein, Conference Chairman
+1-631-421-4158 x105 or drubinstein@bzmedia.com

General questions about SPTechCon:

Caroline Seiter, Event Operations Coordinator
+1-631-421-4158 x128 or cseiter@bzmedia.com

Stacy Burris, Director of Events
+1-631-421-4158 x108 or sburris@bzmedia.com