How to Give an IMUG Talk
From left to right: Uwe Muegge, Talia Baruch, Matt Sanford, Nataly Kelly, Roozbeh Pournader.
IMUG talks are usually held on the third Thursday of each month, from 6:30 to 9 PM, beginning with a half hour of networking, then the talk at 7 PM, and more networking after the talk as time allows. Please check the Upcoming Events schedule for confirmation. We welcome proposals for talks on a broad range of language and language technology topics.
Topics
IMUG talks offer news, expertise, and experience benefitting the advancement of globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation across companies, departments and industries. Topics are often similar to what you'd hear at conferences such as GALA, LocWorld, or the Internationalization & Unicode Conference.
Avoid a "sales-pitch" approach. Talks that discuss a branded product or service should do so only in the context of industry trends, best practices, and shared challenges. Exceptions may be made for products that invite community participation, or open source products available free to all. In all cases our members prefer to have all or most of the topic presented by a developer or practitioner, who can openly discuss how and why this was developed, and be prepared for a wide-ranging discussion with fellow experts in the field.
Past topics have included Unicode, W3C, and other industry standards, community translation and localization projects, and new tools, methods, and practices in internationalization, localization, translation, user experience, and related areas. See the past events section for examples.
Audience
Typical IMUG members are "GILT" professionals — in globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation — and advanced users of language technology products and language services.
This includes globalization strategists, internationalization architects, localization engineers, project managers, translators, interpreters, type designers, content creators, test engineers, testers, researchers, teachers, students, and others in related global fields, including localization and translation management, international business, global marketing, and government.
Attendance depends heavily upon topic. As of this writing (January 2019) headcount at recent IMUG talks ranged from 45 to 200, and often included several webcast attendees around the world. Attendees often drive in from as far away as Monterey and Marin, but most live and work in "Silicon Valley".
Webcasts and recordings, when available, are an option for you. It is fine to ask that we limit your talk to those in the room only, or to ask that any webcast not be recorded. Any recordings made with your permission will be submitted to you for review and approval. Check with us for info on what each host can provide. If you wish, we can also distribute your slides online.
Format
Please arrive by 6:00 PM. The general format is as follows:
- Networking: 6:30 - 7:00 PM
- IMUG intro: 7:00 to 7:15 PM
- Your time, 7:15-8:30 PM
Presentation: 30 to 45 minutes, or less
Questions: 30 to 45 minutes, or more - Networking: ~8:30 - 9:00 PM
Abstract
We need an abstract of your presentation for our announcements as soon as possible. Your abstract should be about 10 lines long and describe the content of the presentation, not advertise your products or services. You may add a speaker's biography of about 5 lines and links to additional information. We reserve the right to edit. Please see examples in our Past Events Archive, and please send your abstract via the email link on the Contact page.
Location
IMUG events have been hosted by Adobe, Apple, Box, eBay, Facebook, Google, Groupon, LinkedIn, Netflix, PayPal, Twitter, and Yahoo! among others. For our current schedule of locations, please see the Upcoming Events page, but note that the locations listed may possibly be changed at your request.
Equipment
Our hosts usually provide state-of-the-art conference rooms equipped with large video screens, microphones and Internet access, and can also offer remote web/audio access or recording services as mentioned above under "audience". If you have questions about these or if you need any other equipment, connections or specialized software, please contact us in advance.
Handouts
If you have any handouts, please monitor the Meetup event page for the latest headcount. After the presentation, if you wish we will be happy to post your presentation or a summary on our Web site in PDF, PowerPoint, html or other formats.
Interested?
If you are interested in giving a presentation to the IMUG monthly meeting or an IMUG special event, or if you would like to suggest a speaker for us to invite, please contact us.
Get IMUG event announcements, sign up for reminders and RSVP via Meetup, the world's largest network of local groups. IMUG events are usually $5, but free for members, volunteers and hosts.
Join the multilingual computing community! Admission to most IMUG events is free for members. Membership is only $20, annual renewals are $15, and lifetime membership is $100.
