With #ONA13 just four weeks out, the people behind the annual unconference today will start accepting session and lightning talk pitches from attendees.

Atlanta will play host to an expansion of this year’s unconference, which will have more space and time to carry out its mission: allowing attendees to pitch, vote on and lead workshops, discussions and anything else that may not have appeared on the regular conference schedule (team captain Jessica Estepa wrote up a primer on the unconference Tumblr).

You can start pitching your ideas here. We’ll accept pitches through Friday, Oct. 18, the second day of the conference. More will be announced about the voting process soon.

Also this year, ONA will host its first lightning talks round. Akin to the lightning talks given at the NICAR conference, we ask speakers keep it short and sweet; they’ll have five minutes to speak on whatever they want. The lightning talk has an official conference slot on Saturday, Oct. 19.

Attendees can submit their lightning talk proposals here. The submission process will close on Wednesday, Oct. 9. We will then allow attendees to vote for what lightning talks they want to see from Thursday, Oct. 10 through Thursday, Oct. 17, the first day of the conference. The chosen talks will be announced on Friday, Oct. 18.

Any questions? Ask Team Unconference as many as you’d like.

Happy brainstorming!
Jessica Estepa and Team Unconference

The ONA unconference is sponsored by MailChimp.