What makes a great tech conference abstract?

Bill Doerrfeld | December 17, 2025

What goes into a strong tech conference abstract?


My latest
post on Nordic APIs explores some tips to help speakers craft solid pitches!


In short, it's relevant to the event theme and audience. It's vendor-neutral. It's compelling with a specific angle. It's well-structured with clear takeaways. And the speaker has a credible background.


These are some of the things we look for on the Nordic APIs speaker selection committee, but the advice could apply to all kinds of community tech events.


This is my sly way of sharing that the call for speakers is now open for the Platform Summit 2026! This one is shaping up to be our biggest event yet, and abstracts are already coming in. Excited to look through them soon!

Read: How Do You Create a Great Conference Speaker Pitch?

Other Blog Posts

By Bill Doerrfeld September 15, 2026
Does your agent really need access to every tool call under the sun?
By Bill Doerrfeld September 8, 2026
I'll be writing a weekly series for The New Stack this fall covering Kubernetes, cloud native, and everything happening on the road to KubeCon in November.
By Bill Doerrfeld September 1, 2026
I'm teaming up with Dan Barahona and AI Security University to put together the MCP Security Conference, a free half-day virtual event dedicated to MCP security .
By Bill Doerrfeld August 27, 2026
My latest DirectorPlus edition interviews Shopify's head of engineering, Farhan Thawar, on their unique internal engineering culture.
By Bill Doerrfeld August 24, 2026
Neoclouds promise cheaper GPUs and AI-optimized infrastructure, but can they really challenge hyperscalers? My feature on InfoWorld explores their advantages, risks, and likely role in AI compute.
By Bill Doerrfeld July 29, 2026
My latest for LeadDev interviews IBM's Neel Sundaresan on how to prevent a decades-old issue in software engineering.
By Bill Doerrfeld July 13, 2026
The latest advancement in identity and access management (IAM) is something called zero standing privilege. It's a response to new agentic AI risks.
By Bill Doerrfeld July 7, 2026
Big surprise: it's way easier to generate new code with AI than to reuse old code. But what are the long-term effects?
By Bill Doerrfeld June 25, 2026
Agentic coding tools have become the default. "When we've taken that away accidentally from people, they scream."
By Bill Doerrfeld June 17, 2026
My latest for LeadDev considers how engineering leaders should respond in the wake of uncertainty in the AI model market.