Can I add something to your AV form? From a professional speaker’s point of view it’s useful for me to know a bit more about the venue than just whether there’s a projector – it’s handy to know what size screen and whether the projection is, for example, back-projected.

Slides for back-projection need to be designed differently. Forward projection often means I can’t walk about as much…..

A customised info pack is DEFINITELY the way to go!

one is, while a speaker generally wants to do what the event owner asks, not all event owners have a truly clear picture to share of what the audience is or what that audience really wants to hear. that’s not true of you or anyone reading this of course

i hear a lot about speaker questionnaires but i have always used the interview approach so i have never used one. and as you point out, it creates extra work for a client. i am sure they are great but i would fear to rely too much upon such a device– who knows what i might forget to ask? altho i would be curious to see what you think such a questionnaire should ask. next blog??

also, there’s always the wade in and listen approach, even if the client/event owner’s time is limited, if i have questions there’s usually an insider at the event who can clue one in

–jl

I agree that answering questions for the speaker is extremely important. The challenge for the event professional is that sometimes we can have 20, 50, 100 or even more speakers per conference. Most speaker professionals have their own questionairres each with their own spin. I didn’t mind completing one for a speaker but when I had more than 200+ speakers for one event, completing those forms became tedious. I resorted to completing one form and giving it to all the speakers. Then as you can imagine, 200+ conference calls took some time…so, I went to having several Webinars where my speakers could askk me questions and hear each other as well.

Bottom line, like you said, “Communication” is the key!

i certainly agree with everything here, and I’d like to add a couple of items. One is the importance of how the speaker is introduced/ presented.

I did a whole blog about this but i’ll sum up: avoid introductions that are a) too long and b) too glowing. more at http://bit.ly/21Z8vK

a big part of the success of a show is maintaining a proper pace. while content is what generally what drives bringing in a speaker, this does not eliminate the need for a sense of show biz.

I once had to follow a presenter whose computer crashed and the audience was forced to sit thru a windows 2000 boot-up sequence projected on screen, and it went downhill from there. I call that event my lazarus show, because when i finally went on, I had to bring an entire audience back from the dead.

This entire thread i think is all about one thing: communication. I just did a presentation for an association here in MA and I spent 3 hours having lunch with the event owner. he talked the whole time in answer to one question: who is in this audience? far from being bored by all this minutiae, that info greatly enhanced my ability to communicate with the group. hearing the audience, perceiving the audience, this can never be taken for granted. there’s always more to it.

I actually find that many event owners are not used to this idea. i enjoyed the questionnaire but it needs an open ended essay question: who are you? who is in this audience, and what do they want/ need from the speaker? also, if we are having a conversation after the event, if this was the best presentation ever, what did it accomplish?

–jl

@VelChain
Great point that now all speakers will complete a call for proposals. I’ve seen many conference organizers and meetings professionals using social media to source speakers this past year. I’ve see a lot of requests in Twitter as well as in LinkedIn Groups. While I’ve used speaker bureaus in the past, I often turn to my trusted online social networks first for ideas. Finding thought leaders in LinkedIn, on blogs and in other social networks is a great place to start. Then I want to talk to someone who has used that person as a speaker to find out about the speaker’s delivery style. I’ve seen some great thought leaders with great ideas that are terrible speakers too. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

Recently there have been a number of blog posts about the experiences of conference speakers, some of those experiences negative for both the speaker and the audience. Here, Jeff Hurt offers six practical tips and guidelines to help you help your confe…