##IMPORTANT: DEADLINE IS AUGUST 15, 2013

Welcome to the open call for speakers for CascadiaJS 2013. CascadiaJS is a JavaScript conference for developers in the Pacific Northwest. If you love JavaScript and know how to submit a pull request, you are eligible to speak at our conference. Diversity of voices is important to our community, so please don't think that you need to be a JS celebrity in order to speak at CJS.

• The deadline to submit a proposal is August 15, 2013. You are free to submit (and even revise) proposals up until that date.
• Travel and accomodations for speakers will be taken care of.
• Please follow the instructions below and help us spread the word!

###How to submit a proposal

First, make sure you're available to attend the conference. It will be held in Vancouver, BC, Canada on November 14-15.

• Create a Github account if you don't have one already
• Fork this repository
• Checkout the master branch
• Create and commit a markdown (.md) file in this directory named after the talk title and your Github ID.

For example, if your talk is called "Intro To Node.js" and your Github ID is janedoe, name the file intro-to-nodejs_janedoe.md. Check out this example template if you need help.

• Commit an image of yourself in the images subdirectory, named after your Github id. Format should be PNG, 256x256 Eg: images/janedoe.png
• When you're ready, submit a pull request.
• Send an email to info@cascadiajs.com to introduce yourself and so that we have a way to contact you if your talk is accepted.
• Wait patiently (and nicely) for us to get back to you. We will respond to everyone who submits a proposal even if it's just to say "Thanks but no thanks".

###What should be in the proposal?

Every proposal should have, at minimum, the following information:

• Your Full Name
• Presentation Title
• Presentation Description
• Your preferred photo for the website (256x256)

If would be great if you could add in a short personal bio (50 words or less) and other details like links to your blog, twitter account, open source projects, company, or what have you, that's completely up to you. Whatever floats your boat. Bios are nice! :)

To make this easier, we've created a template you can copy and modify. See proposal-template_jane-doe.md in this directory.

If you have any other artifacts that relate to your presentation, like slide decks, code samples, videos, etc, make a directory named the same as the .MD file from above, and put related files in there. For example, if my proposal was saved in intro-to-nodejs_janedoe.md, I would place the example code in /intro-to-nodejs_janedoe/example-code.js

###What are we looking for?

We're looking for anything related to the open web, which includes: browser, Node.js, Windows 8, Firefox OS, tooling, robots, you name it. Please, no vendor pitches (i.e. How to Use Product X). A great talk should address issues that developers struggle with, break down and explain complicated topics and cover new ground in JS technology.

All the talks will be 30 minutes.

We're also open to suggestions for unconference topics. For example, suppose you really want to talk about MongoDB in Node.js but don't have a presentation, maybe just some questions or experiences to share? We will likely set aside time for lightning talks, so get your ideas ready.

###Our policy on Q&A

We often get questions about whether the 30 minutes include time for Q&A. That's an awesome question, because it brings up an important aspect of CascadiaJS: we don't permit Q&A following a talk. This might sound very odd and possibly foolish, but it's something we learned from NodeConf and seen used to excellent effect. The rationale is this:

• It forces the speaker to plan and prepare an amazing 30-minute talk
• The speaker cannot count on Q&A to fill time
• The speaker cannot use the audience to surface interesting questions
• Attendees can't hijack Q&A
• It encourages the speakers to interact with the attendees

CascadiaJS is a small, intimate conference. Part of being a speaker at CascadiaJS is being willing (and excited!) to hangout with your fellow developers and answer questions that they might have about your talk.

###Other Stuff

If you have any questions about this process, need more information or need assistance with travel and/or lodging, don't hesitate to reach out to us at info@cascadiajs.com.

Thanks, The CascadiaJS Team