Guest post by Shannon Clark: Follow him on Twitter | Read his blog

The secret to getting great speakers for your next conference is very simple – Ask.

The complicated bit is who you ask and what you ask of them.

I attend dozens of conferences and events every year from evening networking events to five day long major events such as SXSW Interactive. Each year I help with at least a few events and conferences and in many years I run one or more events or multiday MeshForum events. Unfortunately most conferences I attend suffer from a few of the same common issues with respect to their speakers  and conference format.

1. Non-diverse speakers. Both in the sense of at least at most tech industry conferences being primarily male (and mostly white) and in the more literal sense of at many conferences being the same few folks, people who are well known, successful and often great presenters but who also speak a bit too often.
2. The same formats. Far too many conferences have overly large panels 4-5 panelists with a moderator who often barely engages. Alternatively many conferences also have individual presentations delivered by people who are not expert (or in some cases are too expert – too polished and giving the same talk they have given dozens of times before). Rarely does a conference experiment or adjust the formats to suit the specifics of who the speakers are and what would be the best formats for the conference and the specific topics to be covered. Frequently this would mean sessions of different formats, of different times and in a variety of structures – including interviews, debates, and short presentations.
3. Far too little input from the audience. At most conferences the time for Q&A is mostly an afterthought. By the time five people on a panel have been introduced and the moderator has shown off by asking questions he (or less often she) has prepared for each panelist but also giving each person a chance to address each question, typically there is only time for 3-4 if that questions from the audience. Which are rarely, if ever, actually answered but usually just serve as a chance for panelists to repeat comments they have already made or readdress a previous point by another panelist.

The best conferences I attend (or observe from afar and wish I could attend such as TED) address all of the points I raise.
So what is their secret? How do they consistently get great speakers? How do they so consistently deliver a superior experience especially compared the majority of events which do not?

It starts by who you ask.

If I am running a conference, I start by looking at similar events both in the past year and which are upcoming. I make a list of the speakers at those events. Not because I am going to invite them to speak at my event but to look at who is being overexposed as a speaker on this topic. In the tech world, for example, Brian Solis (who is a friend and a great speaker) speaks frequently on Social Media and PR 2.0, Jason Calacansis, Chris Brogan , Gary Vanderchuck and many others are others make many appearances and speeches every month. They are all great speakers and deeply expert, but in many ways inviting them as a speaker is taking the easy way out for a conference organizer. Instead I would look for who to ask to speak who is not (yet) overexposed.

Where can you find such speakers?

1. Your sponsors. Do NOT ask sponsors to provide a speaker (I’ve yet to see this work well). Instead ask them for a few names of who they want to hear from at the conference. Often a conference sponsor will know of academic researchers in the field who are doing great work or of an independent expert who has much to offer on the topic of your event. An exception to my don’t ask sponsors for speakers rule is media sponsors, very often a media sponsor can provide an editor or senior journalist as an interviewer or moderator. For some events sponsors can also help by offering access to real world case studies on topic for the event – i.e. instead of a speaker from a sponsor ask for a customer or partner of the sponsor to be interviewed on stage or to present a (short) demonstration or case study.
2. Topic specific mailing lists and other organizations. For MeshForum I posted a public call for speakers to the SOCNET mailing list, MeshForum is a conference focused on the study of networks (of all types), SOCNET is a mailing list covering Social Network Analysis and has members inside and outside of academia.
3. Past and current speakers. Ask last year’s speakers for suggestions as to who should speak next year. If you ask someone to speak and they decline, ask them for who they would suggest as an alternative speaker. Many of the best speakers I’ve invited to events have been as a result of such referrals.
4. Go beyond just the exact industry your event covers. I personally often invite professors and post-docs to speak at conferences I run, they offer a perspective and research that frequently adds a great deal to the conversation. Great professors are also expert at giving a presentation as they do so every week for their classes but this skill level varies widely. So I look for a few factors when I invite professors and especially when I invite post-docs or graduate students to present their research. Even when the conference I am organizing is not an academic conference I look for academic speakers who have peer reviewed works on topic for the conference, this is a sign that they have at least some rigorous background on what they are talking about – but I have also asked graduate students to present on work that is as yet unpublished but is the subject of their PhD research (however I only do so when I have confidence in the quality of their research – a referral for example)
5. Over the course of the year flag/bookmark folks who are doing interesting things. My friend Tara Hunt reminds me that very often the best speakers are found by noting something interesting which people or media you follow have covered – so watch who your industry contacts are Tweeting about, read articles about people doing interesting things (skip the folks you recognize focus instead on the ones you do not) and be open and aware for interesting stories throughout the year then as you start to organize your event start to reach out to folks doing interesting work.

I see the role of a conference organizer as very much that of a curator who shapes the impact of the event through the structure of the event, the flow of the event from session to session and who is on stage during the event. In events I organize I strive to always include at least a few speakers who push the limits of the topic, who offer diverse and different perspectives on the topic(s) at hand. I look for speakers from different industries and academic fields, I also almost always include at least a few artists.

My strong personal preference is for single track conferences, where everyone who attends the conference will have the same overall experience. At such conferences I usually schedule what I term Interstitials. These are short presentations, usually of an artistic nature, which I schedule between or before the longer sessions. In many ways I think these are some of the most important parts of my event’s schedules. They offer a mental break from what can frequently be a complex and deeper session – and by introducing a very different perspective on the topics at hand they help inspire everyone at the conference to think in new ways. But I’m not alone in this practice, fantastic conferences such as TED and PopTech have long done this as well. These artistic interludes – which can be live music, video art or talks by artists serve a key role in the flow of these conferences. They also reinforce the curatorial role of the conference organizer.

What you ask is as important as who you ask.

Conferences come in many forms and serve many different purposes. Some have a primary purpose of making news, serving as a forum for major demonstrations and announcements. These types of events will frequently break my guideline about not having sponsors as speakers (indeed many such events are in fact put on by a single main sponsor for the purpose of giving a major keynote address). Others have a primary purpose of bringing together an industry and in turn helping shape the direction of that industry or more broadly highlighting and supporting the pursuit of knowledge.

It is vital that the organizers of a conference understand the type of event they are organizing and keep that in mind as they approach each speaker.

Part of why TED talks are of such a high caliber is the format they are restricted to – even Al Gore is only given a short amount of time on stage at TED, this short time serves to focus the talks which are given. In general a few related talks are presented back to back, followed by some further discussion and a chance for Q&A.

1. Ask for a new, not recycled talk. The danger of this is that a speaker may be a bit less polished, but the upside is that the talk will be new, will usually be current and even if people have seen the speaker in the past will not usually have heard the content being presented.
2. Do not be afraid of asking for an interview or a debate instead of a formal talk. Many people offer a more compelling experience not as a single presenter but as the subject of an interview or as a participant in a debate (with or without a moderator). Of course this requires a great interviewer (or moderator) or in the case of a debate two people who have a difference of opinion who can civilly but interestingly present two sides of the argument.
3. Constraints are good not bad things. While it may seem a small thing constraints, such as a uniform style for presentations (or better yet in most cases banning presentations and PowerPoint altogether) can often result in far superior experiences for attendees. Personally I find most presentations add little to a great talk and distract from the majority of talks. Live demonstrations, while fraught with risks, often are far superior and for news making interviews can often be better than formal talks. Other useful constraints to consider are time (usually shorter is better), expectation of Q & A (more is better), being “on the record” (and likely live streamed & recorded).
4. Start with the moderator for every panel. All too often a panel fails because the moderator is an afterthought, when a panel succeeds it is almost always because of the moderator. In general a great moderator will carefully select the panelists and will have worked with them ahead of time to structure the panel. As a conference organizer when I do have a panel I rarely select all of the members of the panel, instead I select a great moderator and then rely on them to invite panelists. Always this results in panelists I would not have thought to invite but whose contributions to the whole conference add greatly.
5. Invite all speakers for the whole conference, not just their speaking slot. The best conferences, I find, are those where every speaker and panelist participates in the entire conference from the opening night reception to the closing event. All too many conferences have speakers who show up minutes before their session, give a talk perhaps a few additional interviews for the press and then leave. In contrast when speakers are a part of the whole of the conference they reflect earlier sessions during their talks and attendees have a chance to interact with the speakers over the course of the conference. Often at such events the speakers in one session will ask questions in the next. As an attendee I can tell immediately when a conference will be a good one when almost all of the speakers are present at the opening events.

If you follow this advice your conference with be more focused, more diverse and I think far more engaging for everyone involved. Running a conference is a big commitment but the rewards are huge.

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