Laracon AU CFP, developer storytelling, and audience engagement

About this episode

Michael and Jake discuss the organization of Laracon AU 2026, focusing on audience engagement and the challenges of technical presentations.

Michael shares a behind-the-scenes look at organising Laracon AU 2026, including the new committee-based CFP review process, the tooling built to manage the talk submissions, and how AI-assisted workflows helped shape the final conference schedule. The conversation dives into balancing technical depth with audience engagement, designing conference cadence to avoid cognitive overload, and why advanced technical talks are so difficult to execute well. Jake and Michael also discuss the realities of crafting technical presentations, from simplifying code examples and avoiding "proof of expertise" syndrome, to using AI tools as collaborative thought partners when preparing talks. Along the way, they explore how conference organisers think about audience fit, production experience, practical takeaways, and keeping attendees engaged during deeply technical sessions. Show links Laracon AU Model Context Protocol (MCP) Riff & Refine: Trust the Process

People in this episode

Host: Michael

Guest: Jake

Topics covered

• conference organization
• audience engagement
• developer storytelling
• technical presentations
• AI-assisted workflows
• CFP review process

Keywords

• Laracon AU
• audience engagement
• developer storytelling
• technical presentations
• AI tools
• CFP review process
• conference cadence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Laracon AU, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Riff & Refine

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