Speaking at linux.conf.au 2007
Every year I do an excellent job of getting my talks rejected from linux.conf.au. That's not surprising, the LCA competition is tough, and lots of people want to speak. This year, rather than just submitting a few talks, I instead took a shotgun approach. I submitted six, ranging from Perl, to mind control, to presentation skills and business management. To my great delight, my talk on starting an open source business was accepted. As it happens, I discovered that I knew a few people on the review committee, and I have no doubt this helped somewhat.

According to the acceptance letter, 80% of all proposals were refused. Since I submitted six, I guess that makes my acceptance rate "typical". ;) I'm going to have to remember this trick for next time.