As I was working on my "Call For Submissions" for our 2015 National Conference today, I was thinking about how other organizations select speakers for conferences and educational events. Many, like me, look to members and other interested parties to submit proposals for conference presentations... both plenary and concurrent/education session presenters.
Does the program content fall under your responsibility?
Do you have an Education Committee or Department within your organization that makes the educational decisions?
Do you have a good selection to choose from? (We are very fortunate to receive 150 + proposals to choose about 30 presentations from).
How do you deal with biases... do you do the first selection blind - not knowing the presenter and simply looking at the submission content? This is how we handle the first wound of submission selection. We don't want either positive or negative biases because of the person submitting the proposal.
Do you do your submission collection and review manually or do you work with a supplier such as Multiview who can handle the process on line. Personally I love the on line process - not only is it eco-friendly, it does a superb job of tabulating the results as well!
Share your process... what do you like and what drives you crazy... yes a simple topic but one that can be fun and interesting or a huge effort. Let's see what others have to say!
Cheers