There’s always room for improvement.
As event producers, we can use our events to grow the community in many ways. The most obvious is bringing news, updates, and training to attendees. But we can also use these event opportunities to elevate speakers – of all levels.
New Speakers
Be deliberate and open to adding new speakers to your event roster. It’s easy to select known speakers – folks with a track record of good presentations that score well with attendee feedback. At the end of the day, these veterans usually offer timely topics with practical experience and polished presentation skills.
But how did they get that way? Someone let them present for the first time. Why not keep the cycle going and give folks a chance when you can. Start with earmarking a few session slots per event for new speakers – either folks new to your event or folks new to speaking. It’s often easiest to choose folks that are local to your event as you’ll have more opportunity to work with them if they want help.
New folks might need some nudging, a bit more attention and energy than veterans. First, we’ve got to identify folks. Some of them will be upfront with a willingness to present when they make a point of chatting with organizers during the event. Others might mention a good case study or topic they’ve dug into that we as organizers know would make a great topic. So, we have to find these folks, identify them, and encourage them to consider submitting sessions. Speak up. They need to know. They need the feedback.
Mentoring
If you can, offer to mentor new folks if they’d like input on topics, writing abstracts and titles, building presentations, doing demos, and public speaking. Just sitting down to chat about the whole process might nudge them through that impostor syndrome many of us feel and make them feel less anxious about submitting topic ideas.
Mentors might come from your leadership team, or other speakers. When you’re connecting with folks that have presented, check in to see if they’d be interested in helping new folks. Mentoring might be a quick call, something they can do over coffee, or a series of meetings depending on what works for them. It’s a great networking opportunity for everyone involved as well.
Diversity
I’m not going to explain the benefits of diversity in your speaker lists – there’s tons of content about that. There’s a lot of value for our audiences in hearing different perspectives from speakers. So, take a look at how you’re doing, keep an eye out for folks that might offer another perspective.
Note: It helps to have a leadership team that also has a range of perspectives.
I won’t go as far as recommending you come up with a quota, but as you’re going through your speaker/session selection process, take a look at the speaker list before you lock things in and consider tweaking where needed. If you don’t find the balance you’d like to see, leave some slots open and maybe request changes or new submissions from folks. Your attendees will notice and appreciate a spectrum of voices.
Presentation Reviews
As a group we’ve been talking about this one for a while. We haven’t done anything like a workshop yet – though I’d love to figure out how to make that work. Challenges here are things like speakers generally are already busy, they’re already giving their time up to attend and present, and it would be hard to find a time to get a bunch of them together. However, it would be nice to offer this type of thing as a service to speakers that are interested. So, something to consider.
In our case, we’re lucky enough to have a Power Point MVP – Sandra Johnson – locally here in the Twin Cities. She’s also part of a group called the Presentation Guild that looks like it has a ton of useful materials for speakers.
Even the most polished and experienced presenters could probably do with a review of their materials and suggestions how to make them better. I know from experience that we rarely have the opportunity to get feedback from peers while at events. Also, aside from a general workshop I know a few individuals reached out directly to Sandra though and they’ve been super excited about how that coaching/experience worked for them.
Speaking Coaching
For some folks, public speaking is a hurdle. They might have some good ideas for a topic or a case study but might not have experience or be comfortable speaking in front of a crowd – even a small one. For this, there are a few options.
Co-presenting
Find someone to co-present with – preferably a seasoned speaker – they can balance a session with. It’s a great opportunity to get your feet wet without putting all the pressure on your own shoulders. Many event organizers should be able to recommend folks that would be interested in working with new folks. It’s often an opportunity for both parties to learn something.
Toastmasters
Another option that’s been available for quite a while, is an organization called Toastmasters. It’s kind of like a support group for speakers (my description). But a great place to work on your speaking skills and comfort level while also doing some networking. Here in the Twin Cities, we had a technology-focused group as well called Tech Masters though I’m not sure if they’re currently active – possibly another COVID organizational casualty.
New Technology
One last thing to consider is keeping up with updates in the tools themselves – from Power Point Designer to Microsoft’s new Copilot functionality to speaker insights available through Microsoft Teams. There’s a growing opportunity within the tools we use for speaker upskilling and updating how we each present our content. This might also be an area where we could leverage experts like Sandra who know those tools well.
Game on!