All, Ivan and I were chatting tonight and we are both concerned that we have not received enough proposals. We will get more over the week, but it will be quite shy of what we would like to see for the friday deadline. I believe the primary reason for this is a lack of advertising. We need your help to get the word out. Blogs/PodCasts: If you have a blog or poscast, please post about the deadline. If you have given a talk in the past, please post about the experience. IRC: I have started making regular announcements in the following irc channels on freenode.net: python django turbogears plone What others should be included? Anyone can make announcements in these channels, the more the better. Mailing lists/user groups: If you are a user group member, please get the word out, and consider having a group meeting dedicated to practice talks. We should make a list of mailing lists and make posts (python-users, django-users, etc.) Local Schools: For those in the Chicago area, please try to contact professors at local colleges and institutions. Undergrads, Grads, and especially Doctorate students are a prime source of interesting presentations. Focusing on local schools has a greater ROE, as students do not have much cash for travel. Anything else you can think of. We need to do a grass roots blitz to get the word out to the greater community. Anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated. It does not take any special knowledge or skills to give a presentation. Even the most basic users can present on something, and we like these types of beginner proposals. The call for proposals contains more details: http://us.pycon.org/2008/conference/proposals/ -Doug Napoleone