Speaker Application Guidelines

What’s the story you want to tell?

Think about why your story matters, the value it provides the audience, and how your story will be remembered. Consider what you want people to take away from your talk. Is your goal to inspire, motivate, or raise awareness? If your goal is to promote a product or deliver a sales pitch, we’re not interested. (Sorry!) Make sure your story is a fit with our audience. Overall, your session should be inspirational, actionable, and educational. Submissions should not be repeats of presentations made elsewhere. Speaking experience is not a requirement nor an advantage.

How do I increase my odds of getting selected?

We always receive more submissions than we can accept for our annual conference. We seek to ensure the majority of our speakers and presentations are brand new for each conference and have not been presented at other major events in the same year. Well thought out, complete, unique submissions are rewarded. Intermediate to advanced content scores the best. Don’t shy away from controversy – this is a forum for industry discussion so debates and out-of-the-box thinking are welcome – our audience likes a challenge.

What are the main reasons sessions don’t get selected?

The #1 reason is incomplete submissions – the session detail portion of the submission is the most important piece of the entire submission. Sales pitches are also extremely easy to spot and we are quick to eliminate them from consideration. We also get a lot of similar submissions and with the limited number of sessions we have, it’s important we choose the subjects and presenters that we think best address the topic.