AutoCon 4 Update: Thursday Tracks!
What’s this AC4 track thing all about?
Thank you for asking. We’d love to explain…
Measured Growth
We’ve been considering how we can carefully and smartly grow AutoCon events, without disrupting the ability for all of us to connect as a community. We started expanding at AutoCon 1 by adding more conference time and prototyping our version of workshops. At AutoCon 2, we expanded to a full slate of 16 workshops, which we carried through to AutoCon 3. Of course, the conference itself has grown with every meeting, and we’re excited to see how many turn out for AutoCon 4.
The Next Step
The next step we’re taking is to provide an additional day of content on Thursday at AC4. We’re excited about how this is going to enable us to respond to two areas that you’ve requested: Leadership & Management topics and more Advanced topics.
We’ll devote a half day to the Leadership & Management track where we hope to cover topics including but not limited to the following:
How to communicate with business and financial leaders
Influencing management to invest in automation
Quantifying Return on Investment (ROI) for automation projects
We are already doing network automation...aren't we?
Changing mindsets
Up-skilling the team beyond taking courses
Building bridges with IT departments and other organizations
The other half of Thursday, we’ll have an Advanced Topics track. Some topics and level of detail that could fit in a deep-dive track could include:
More detailed implementation detail
More “how-to” type info - not at the level of a workshop, but if you have an idea for a workshop and aren’t able to deliver as a full workshop, this might be a convenient condensed form for a workshop, call it a “tutorial”
More complex combinations of tools and mechanisms
Of course, all of the incredible presenters will keep in mind that for people to see those important how-to details, they need to be visible on the screen all the way in the back of the room, and shown at a speed that can be followed (hint hint!)
We’ll craft the exact agenda depending on the ideas submitted. As with previous events, some ideas might fit better as a panel, so we may aggregate some content into a panel session, particularly in the Leadership & Management track. And of course we’ll still have a full day general session on Thursday as well - providing choice to all attendees and allowing everyone to tailor their AutoCon experience to their individual preferences and requirements.
Hard Choices
Will this present you with some hard choices at AC4? It just might do that. But remember: everything will be recorded and available. You’ll also be able to move back and forth between tracks, so you don’t have to just lock in and commit to the track or the main sessions for the entire day.
Submit Your Ideas NOW!
Of course, all of the above topics - the main track or the Leadership and Deep Dive tracks - depend on you submitting your proposals for talks. The call for speakers is open until 18 August 2025, so don’t delay. If you have an idea you can develop into an abstract, please do so and submit it ASAP. We’re happy to give you feedback, but keep in mind that all submissions go through the review process with the entire NAF Advisory Board.
As a reminder, other topic areas that have been specifically requested via previous AutoCon feedback include:
Security Automation
Testing & validation
Observability
We’d love to see more submissions in these areas, along with other projects that you’ve put into production. We’re hearing more and more about AI and AIOps - what’s really happening with AI in your organization?
Before you head to Austin…
Did we mention to submit your talk and workshop ideas?
Register for the workshops (open 18 Sep 2025), register for the conference (open NOW for self-funding attendees; early bird registration opens 31 July 2025, general registration opens 28 August), and grab your hotel reservations (open NOW for all). Keep in mind that all three of these items are separate registrations with separate links you need to click, and that staying at the AutoCon 4 hotel helps us keep costs lower (please and thank you).
Then get to Austin however you can. Be ready for great discussions on what’s really happening in network automation in real networks all over the world. See you there!
