Pick a Genre
Let's explore some important list of genres.
Dictate your CFP title and abstract
Once you know your topic, there are several different genres of talk that will dictate your CFP title and abstract. Of course, you can choose not to stick to a genre or to subvert a well-known genre, but within the confines of a CFP, it is often easier to just stay inside a genre. I haven’t collected a full list of genres, but here is a non-exhaustive list.
The war story
This is a great first talk genre for someone with some work experience. You simply tell a story of something you went through at work, including setbacks, lessons learned, and ESPECIALLY any quantitative benefits gained. You don’t have to be the world expert in anything except your specific situation. It usually helps if you work somewhere notable like Airbnb, but a lesser known name is fine if you advertise the interesting elements of the story like Millie Macdonald did.
Library/framework/product launch
Conference organizers like to be at the start of something big. To do this genre of talk well, you have to tackle an important problem and sell the idea that you have developed a good solution ...