Signal Not Noise

Conference Submission guidelines.

This page is contains information that will be useful for submitting to Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.

Video: Why submit?

We asked Preeti Mishra, Adrian Fittolani and Kirsty McDonald about their experiences with submitting to LAST (the former name for Signal).

This 3 minute video beautifully illustrates the benefits of submitting and delivering sessions.

Signal Not Noise brings together practitioners across disciplines. We're looking for submissions relevant to:

Core themes:

Engineering, Cyber, AI & Data Science
Product & Strategy
Design & Research
Leadership & Building Teams
Delivery & Ways of Working

Specific topics could include:

Product thinking and experimentation
Harnessing changing technology in development
Bringing data insights into everyday team contexts
Integrating machine learning and AI
How jobs and roles are changing in an AI world
Improving developer experience (DevEx)
Scalable architecture
Transforming teams and organizations
Agile and lean practices that work in practice
Sustaining cultural change
Learning organizations
Customer and user experience
Content strategy and digital marketing
Adaptive leadership and teams
Scaling good practice
Modern systems thinking
Changing needs of organizational design
Managing projects and stakeholders
Innovation and creativity
Startup stories…how we imagined, built and scaled

This isn't exhaustive. If you're working on something interesting in digital product and service creation, we want to hear about it.

We have provided more, detailed information below for those who may not be familiar with our ethos. Otherwise you can click or tap this button to find the links to the submission system.

Submission Links

Key dates

Dates are subject to change. Don't leave it to the last minute!

Adelaide 2026 Submission details

Sydney 2026 Submission details

Brisbane and Melbourne details to come.

What's in it for me?

You may want to share what you know. You may want others to know that you know things e.g prospective employers. You may want to find a bunch of like-minded people. You may want to become a better at facilitating/presenting in public. You may want to have fun, meet people and learn some great stuff that you can take back to your day job. See the video above for a great summary from the perspective of previous submitters.

People who are selected for the schedule will be given a complimentary registration. If you have already registered, we will refund you, or you can pass your registration on to someone else.

Interstate and Overseas submitters

Coming from out of town? Here is our policy about interstate and overseas speakers.

As each event is mainly focused on the community in each city, we don’t expect people to travel from interstate or overseas to participate, although you are welcome if you choose to come. As Signal events offer affordable registration prices, we need to keep overheads down. Therefore, we generally do not reimburse travel and accommodation or pay a fee to session leaders/speakers.

Detailed Information

We have provided detailed information below about submitting.

The submission process.

We are been opinionated in our ethos. We have a particular emphasis on encouraging engaging submissions for the event.

We provide the info on this page, so you know what we are looking for and to give advice on how to prepare an excellent session.

A range of topics, experience and different/new faces

We signed up to the Diversity Charter in 2016. We want to have a lineup that reflects the community that the event serves. Giving opportunities to have opportunities for people who have been previously under-represented, less experienced colleagues who have a story to tell and/or can teach the people who have been "around the block".

Here are the steps you will follow:

Review the info below.
Please, at least watch the first video.
The other videos go into great detail (hint - speed up the videos to 1.5x speed) about our ethos, and what will give you the best chance of being accepted.

If you watch all the videos, it will take about 45 minutes of your time.
Click through, and complete the ConfEngine submission process for the city you wish to submit for.

Code of conduct

A reminder to please review the Code of Conduct that we have in place!

Why is it so particular?

Ever since we staged out first event in 2012, we have made a point to help people who submit sessions to put on the best, most engaging session that they can. We've run public speaking training, peer reviewed workshops and information sessions. As you can get a sense of, from the highlight video, we did a pretty good job at having high quality content on the schedules.

If it gets a slot on the schedule, we want it to be the best that it can be for everyone who goes to the session, including you.

We also want you to understand the ethos of these events.

Highlight reels

You can get a taste of what our conferences have been like in these highlight reels from previous editions of LAST Conference Melbourne and Brisbane.

Videos

The videos below are from previous info sessions.

Although the name of the events have changed, the principles around the content, and the thought process we encourage remain relevant. Even though we are being thorough about passing on the principles we want you to work on, there is still flexibility for you, when you submit ideas.

You will be pointed to specific info in the videos that you should understand before submitting session ideas.

If you only watch one video

If you only watch one video, watch this at 1.5 or 2x speed!

This emphasises the main points in the previous videos and any updates since then. It was recorded in 2022, but it still applies for this year.

Submission links

Origins of LAST Conference

Relevant info is 2:00 to end of clip.

What content do we want. Part 1

Relevant info:

Please review the whole video.

What about Lean and Systems Thinking?
What is overdone?
Technical content

Note - Craig talks about 2 days and repeating sessions, this is not currently applicable.

What content do we want. Part 2.

Please review the whole video.

Contains a breakdown of who comes

Note - There are fewer slots available than Craig shows on his slides.

Slides, Case Studies, other formats, Games.

Important! This video talks about different formats for sessions. Presentations in front of slides have their place BUT they can also be like treacle. Craig talks about other formats that we really like to encourage. Please review the entire video.

Submission process

We often have an iterative process for submissions. Craig outlines this. Please check the dates for each city. on their submission pages.

Optional videos

How you can help out.

Optional. We do need some help on the day, Craig talks about this. He also talks about the Slack Channel and how it's used for comms. Finally he talks about who we get to help us select sessions.

Preparing a session

Optional. Some tips on how to structure and get your message across. Link to video Craig mentions.

On Diversity

We want diversity of presenters.

The Entire Session

This video is the entire info session which is 1 hour long.

Submission system.

Congratulations, you have the info you need to submit .

Now click the button and follow the instructions on the submissions system. We use ConfEngine, so you will need an account in order to submit. ConfEngine will allow you to clone a proposal to allow it to be submitted to more than one event.

Adelaide 2026. Submissions (Open until 1 March)

Sydney 2026. Submissions (Open until 1 March)

Brisbane (Coming)

Melbourne (Coming)