Whatever you call it – a Call for Participation, a Call for Speakers, a Call for Abstracts or a Call for Papers – it’s important for a company looking to gain mind-share to do it right.
One of the biggest questions I hear from tech companies trying to propose a speaker candidate is ‘What topic should we submit on?’
My answer is always the same. What are you up to? Why is it exciting? What can you contribute to the bigger conversation? A good way to approach this is to pretend that you are the industry talking to the industry. Instead of gloating that my company achieved ABC by doing XYZ, remove the company ‘we’ pronoun and propose an idea from 1,000 foot view.
Man or woman behind podium armed with PowerPoint is zzzz. Attendees are more interested in different formats. Fireside chats, interviews and customer / case studies are all more engaging than the podium man. If you empower the audience with a back channel of some sort, all the better. Conferences these days are a two way conversation and the folks in the audience are just as entitled to voicing their opinions as the featured speaker.
When in a session, one always checks to see who is speaking and which company they come from. Just having a representative of your company speak at an event provides instant thought leadership credentials.
