Hi,

So, I have some work from my Honours year (CS stuff in heuristic search) that I've extended over the past 6 months and turned into a conference paper. I've been accepted to a workshop and the reviews so far have been great.

So, I'm wondering where to next.
There is a small(ish) conference coming up that seems like a good fit for my work. Apparently it's a Tier 2 conference (I'm told this is OK) and I'm tempted to submit there because there's a great keynote speaker this year who did some stuff a few years ago that influenced my work quite a bit.

Then again, some local profs have told me I should aim as high as possible and get my work as widely read as I can. There are some big Tier 1 CS conferences with deadlines from October - January but I wouldn't be able to present my work until mid 2009 (assuming I get accepted).

It's all rather confusing. I want to be rid of this thing but I don't want to feel like I'm throw away all my effort.

Does anyone have any advice? I think I'm worrying too much :/

I was always told that people will expect that during a PhD you will have done 1 international, 1 national and 1 postgrad conference. I too was encouraged to do the 'big' tier 1/international conf first - which I did, and it cost an horrific amount of money and was no use whatsoever (except it looks great on my CV). I got much better feedback at a samller more specialised conf.
There's nothing to stop you doing both.

Both!

completely lost, what is a tier 1 conference????

go for the big ones! no use wasting your time and effort on anything else...

Do both - good for the CV and you'll be grateful for the experience at the smaller one before the big one.