Want to present in 2020? The time is now!
How’s 2020 been so far?
Busy, right?
I’m sure you are caught in countless meetings, urgent projects, crises (hopefully the minor kind) and the craziness of snowy days that don’t quite graduate to full-blown snow days.
In the whirlwind of the first few weeks of the year, it’s so easy to let great speaking opportunities come and go. But, it doesn’t mean you should!
Truth is you’ll never have a shot at presenting this year if you don’t submit a proposal before the deadline!
If you’re serious about presenting at a conference (there are so many professional benefits when you do it!) this year, there’s no better time than this week!
Batch your conference proposal submissions for these 4 open calls for proposals!
Embrace the beauty and zen of saving time as you can literally batch conference proposal submissions right now with no fewer than 4 open calls for proposals.
4 Open Calls for Proposals to Present at a Higher Ed Marketing Conference in 2020
I’m listing the conferences below by CFP deadlines.
- HighEdWeb Conference (Oct 18-21, 2020 in Little Rock, Ark.) – CFP open until Feburary 24, 2020
- PSEWeb Conference (Jul 13-15, 2020 in Montreal – Canada) – CFP open until February 22, 2020
- AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education (Nov 15-18, 2020 in Chicago, IL) – CFP open until March 31st, 2020
- 2020 Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference (June 3, 2020 – online) – CFP to open until April 1st, 2020 (no joke!)
As you can see, there is actually no better time to schedule your proposal development session.
And, if you follow my 60-minute process, you can get it all done in an hour!
Conference proposal: from brainstorming to submitting in 60 minutes
Ready to take a step to advance your higher ed career?
If you’re a seasoned pro, you probably don’t need my help to get your conference proposal ready.
But, if you struggle with many things on your to-do list now, here’s how you can find a good topic and get your proposal ready in 1 hour of focused work (no interruption).
- Take 15-minutes (set up a timer, ask Siri) to list the projects you’ve worked on, the best practices you’ve implemented, the tools you’ve incorporated in your workflow or/and the lessons you’ve learned over the past 6 to 8 months.
- When you’re done, take a 2-minute break. Only 2 minutes though 🙂
- Now, read the list you’ve just made and look for 2 points that you would implement/use again if you started a new job at another school. This little exercise will help you find quickly the most interesting topics for your colleagues. Take 10 minutes to come up with your short list.
- For each of the topics on your short list, spend no more than 5 minutes to write a short paragraph addressing why this is important, timely or useful and what your colleagues will learn by attending your session.
- When you’re done, take a 3-minute break.
- Read your 2 paragraphs and add a descriptive title for each. If you submit a proposal for the 2020 Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference (Didn’t think you should? It’s a great way to get exposure with a keynote-size online audience!), don’t worry too much about the wording at this stage. I always do a rewrite of session titles and descriptions for the final program. I want to make sure it doesn’t read as it was written by 12 different people :-). So, don’t spend more than 10 minutes on this.
- Take the remaining 10 minutes to submit THE proposal that aligns the most with your professional brand. What do you want to be recognized for in our industry? If you can’t choose between 2 topics, submit both. You will also be asked to provide a short bio as well as a photo (think LinkedIn profile photos).
Congratulations, 60 minutes of focused work and you’re done!