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Opinions: Yes
Promotion: No
SD Times' Guest View essays represent
a forum for the expression of personal opinions. They are not
a vehicle for promoting your company and its products.
In other words, a Guest View essay is not a public-relations
or marketing opportunity for vendors in the software-development industry.
If the Guest View submission is written to espouse
a market or competitive position taken by your company, as opposed
to a belief held by you as an individual, the topic is undoubtedly
inappropriate.
A Guest View essay doesn't represent an opportunity
to write about anything that you're trying to sell to our readers.
You can't use a Guest View essay to promote your business,
your products, your services, your proprietary technologies, your
unique architecture or methodology, your business partners and vendors,
or the core technologies that constitute your line of business.
(It's not a place to attack your competitors and their
technologies, either.)
If you have questions about a Guest View topic, please
contact us; we're happy to discuss your idea with you.
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PR
Professionals
SD Times works directly with Guest View writers, not with their corporate PR or marketing departments, outside PR agencies or literary agents.
We prefer not to be pitched on Guest Views by agents or PR/marketing professionals. When we receive such pitches, we will either reject the pitch outright or request that the proposed Guest View writer contact us directly.
It is our experience that letting PR/marketing professionals
"edit" a Guest View article prior to submission is a bad
idea. We discourage all writers from doing so.
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Original
Work
A Guest View should be written specifically
and exclusively for SD Times by the individual whose name is presented
as the author. It must not have been previously published elsewhere.
If we believe that a Guest View was ghost-written,
we will not publish it.
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Most issues of SD Times contain one or more Guest Views.
A Guest View is an insightful, thought-provoking opinion essay expressed
by an individual, presenting a viewpoint relevant to our readers
and to the industry.
Guest View essays may be submitted by any SD Times
reader – software development manager, a technologist, a software
architect, a researcher, a consultant, an analyst or an ISV/IHV.
The opinions must be non-commercial; that is, they do not promote
the products, services and technologies that your company offers.
Write a Guest View to question the importance
of a new technology or standard. Present ideas for helping development
teams be more productive. Tell us something we don't know. Offer
clever commentary on current events or emerging trends. Pontificate
on the state of the industry. Slaughter a sacred cow.
Make a point that readers may not have considered,
or that isn’t often expressed. Don’t be afraid to
challenge widely held beliefs.
Readers might agree or disagree with your position.
That’s good. What's important is that readers find your
arguments fresh, new, thought-provoking, well-written and relevant
to their role as enterprise software development managers. If nobody
is going to disagree with your point... then there's no need to
make it.
An interesting and insightful essay doesn’t
state the obvious, recite a bunch of statistics or say "here’s
a problem and guess what, my company sells the solution."
A Guest View is not a how-to feature article.
It's also not an industry overview, white paper, case study,
news report, backgrounder, interview, product announcement, buyers'
guide, glossary or tutorial. It's an opinion.
If the statement you're attempting to make in
the Guest View essay isn't fresh, thought-provoking, unusual or
controversial, then your opinion about it is unlikely to be interesting.
Don't attempt to argue both sides of an issue;
your mission is to persuade, not to educate. Present your strong,
well-reasoned arguments. Make us think. Convince us. Knock
our socks off. If you find that you can't make a compelling case,
or don't know what you're trying to persuade us to believe... perhaps
you don't really have an opinion on that subject to share with our
readers.
Submitting Guest Views
If you have an idea for a Guest View essay, please
send an e-mail to Alan Zeichick
briefly explaining the topic for the Guest View, explaining the
issue and your take on it. Also, explain how you propose to structure
your discussion. Nothing fancy: Just a few sentences or a short
outline will suffice.
We will write back either to encourage you to proceed,
or to offer suggestions for changing your approach to more closely
meet the needs of SD Times’ readers. Feel free to communicate
back and forth until you feel comfortable with the proposal.
Your Guest View essay should be between 900 and 1,000 words words in length (excluding your bio). Do not submit pieces shorter than 900 words or longer than 1,000 words. Write in a conversational
tone, like you were giving a talk to your peers. Passive voice or
academic style should be avoided. Guest Views do not include illustrations,
tables, graphics or footnotes. We do not like bulleted or numbered
lists.
When the essay is complete, send it to Alan via
e-mail. Be sure to include a publication-quality digital photograph
of yourself (see the guidelines) and a brief
bio describing who you are and what you do.
Once you have submitted the story, we will let you
know if it’s suitable for publication. If the Guest View essay
is not suitable, we will generally offer suggestions for revising
it.
The editors of SD Times reserve the right to
reject essays that they perceive to be overtly or subtly commercial
in nature. We may also reject essays that aren't relevant to the
newspaper's mission and audience, as well as those that we sincerely
believe aren't interesting or thought-provoking.
We reserve the right to edit Guest View submissions
for length, clarity and style. This may include exorcising what
we judge to be any promotional material that may have inadvertently
crept into the essay.
If you have any questions, contact Alan Zeichick
at alan@bzmedia.com or +1
650-359-4763.