Posts Categorized: Speakers

Simple Model for Creating More Engaging and Profitable Virtual Conference Sessions

Posted February 22nd, 2021 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Speakers, Virtual Events, What's New.

Many planners are still struggling with creating virtual conferences that are both engaging and profitable. The main issue is that planners frequently attempt to put a square peg into a round hole: they are simply lifting face-to-face scheduling into a virtual platform. Unfortunately, this thinking often leads to dismal results. The other problem is that planners will often lift the sponsorship/exhibitor model from the classic trade show and also slap it into a virtual product. This too has resulted in many dissatisfied vendors. The key to producing successful virtual events is to embrace the possibilities of virtual. A simple model for good... Read more »

VIDEO – Preparing Speakers for Your Virtual Event

Posted August 17th, 2020 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, Virtual Events, What's New.

Our first “Virtual Events 101” bootcamp was a great success. Here is our video on preparing speakers for your virtual event. You can also view the bootcamp recordings and experience our ER Virtual Conference software by signing up here. Here is the article that covers many of the topics in this video.

How to Prepare Speakers for Your Virtual Event

Posted May 18th, 2020 by lbradford & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, Virtual Events.

Lights, camera, action–if only it were that easy to present a virtual event! We’ve put together a list of 8 tips to help prepare your speakers for their virtual debut. 1. Create a speaker tool kit. Put together a packet of information for your speakers so that they know exactly what to expect: Include a calendar with any deadlines and practice sessions clearly noted. Provide access to any branded conference materials such as PowerPoint/Google Slide templates or virtual conference backgrounds. Send download and installation instructions for any conferencing software they will need to use. 2. Give equipment and setup suggestions.... Read more »

From Call for Abstracts to Schedule to Mobile Event App: How Event Management Software Can Make it Easy

Posted October 16th, 2018 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Mobile Event Apps, Speakers, Surveys, What's New.

One of the most time consuming processes a conference planner can face is developing the program schedule. If you have a call for abstracts, the process is further complicated by the need to conduct a peer review of the submissions. After the peer review process is completed, there is still the long task of coordinating the speakers and ultimately compiling the schedule. After the program is built, you then have to push the schedule out to the attendees – real or prospective – to your website and, probably, via a mobile event app. If you are still using spreadsheets or... Read more »

Speakers want easy Call for Abstracts software

Posted August 31st, 2018 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers.

Potential speakers for your conference are busy people. One thing they do not want is to receive the Call for Abstract as a PDF, print it, fill in the fields and then scan it and send it back. Not much better is getting a call for abstracts via survey software. Since call for abstracts are often long, the applicant may have to leave the desk for a while only to find that the site timed out and erased their work! Even if the form is filled out in one sitting, surveys cannot be updated – so if there is a... Read more »

What do your Attendees Think?

Posted January 31st, 2018 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Mobile Event Apps, Onsite, Resources Trade Show, Speakers, Surveys, Trade Show, What's New.

Have you ever been frustrated by the difficulty of getting accurate feedback from your conference attendees? Surveys, of course, are still the most popular and robust way to see how your attendees think about your show, but they can suffer from poor response rates. Fortunately, the rise of social media and mobile technologies give you more options than ever to capture the pulse of your attendees. Here are some options you may want to consider:Better Surveys. Despite its problems, surveys are still the best way to get feedback. There are many ways for you to improve surveys. The first big... Read more »

How to get started with Conference Management Software: Part Five – Developing Your Conference Program Schedule

Posted April 3rd, 2017 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, What's New.

Event technology can provide a bewildering range of choices for the meeting planner. A good place to start making sense of the range of options is to look at how software can be utilized at the various stages of the event lifecycle. This series has been looking at the the lifecycle from the point of view of an association’s annual conference. We are now at the point of looking at tools that can help you in your day-to-day work in the months leading up to the conference. About the time of your previous annual conference, you may have already opened... Read more »

How to get started with Conference Management Software: Part One – Choosing Your Speakers

Posted January 18th, 2017 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, What's New.

Navigating through the myriad of event technology choices can be one of the toughest assignments a meeting professional can face. Just breaking down the possibilities into categories can be a daunting assignment itself. A helpful way to approach this problem is to see how software can be utilized at the various stages of the event lifecycle. Many activities for next year’s show begin right after the current one ends. To keep things simple, we will look at the lifecycle from the point of view of an association’s annual conference. This week we will look at choosing your speakers. Opening Up... Read more »

How to Find Great Abstract Peer Review Software for Your Conference

Posted August 22nd, 2016 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, What's New.

There are few aspects of speaker management that can be more painful than the process of conducting a peer review from an open Call for Papers. If the review is conducted in the classical way, the planners will find themselves buried in a bewildering collection of PDFs, Word docs and spreadsheets. Hours upon hours can be spent communicating with the review team, collating information and somehow trying to make sense of it all. In between all of this manual work is the need to give proper consideration to all the submissions and being fair in the final judgments of which... Read more »

How to Use Your Online Registration to Make Your Conference Program a Success

Posted May 6th, 2016 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Online Registration - Keys to Success, Speakers, What's New.

Ever plan a conference where some rooms are overflowing while other rooms sit mostly empty? Did you ever have to face angry attendees that were turned away from a highly anticipated presentation because the session could not sit another person? Planners know that the latter case can seriously “ding” your overall conference survey scores because people do not forget the sessions they were forced to miss. Fortunately, you can use your online registration form to solve many of these problems. By letting attendees build their itinerary at the time of sign up, you can get an accurate picture of what... Read more »

How to Increase Audience Engagement with Mobile Session Question & Answer

Posted April 7th, 2016 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings, Meetings Technology, Mobile Event Apps, Speakers, What's New.

Have you ever heard of “Death by PowerPoint?” This generally refers to a presentation that makes poor use of slides. But what it really means is that the speaker bored the audience. However, even if the slides are well made, a lack of crowd interaction can result in disinterested attendees. Most meeting planners are well aware of this phenomenon and go to great lengths to alleviate its effects. Traditional techniques often involve cumbersome methods such as someone walking around with a microphone receiving questions from the crowd. Other variations including a line of people behind a mic or someone collecting... Read more »

Make Your Call for Papers Easy to Use!

Posted June 9th, 2015 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers.

Potential speakers for your conference are busy people. One thing they do not want is to received the Call for Papers as a PDF, print it, fill in the fields and then scan it and send it back. Not much better is getting a call for papers via survey software. Since call for papers are often long, the applicant may have to leave the desk for a while only to find that the site timed out and erased their work! Even if the form is filled out in one sitting, surveys cannot be updated – so if there is a... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: An Easy Way for Your Attendees to Ask Questions

Posted April 27th, 2015 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Mobile Event Apps, Speakers.

It is common practice at conferences to mix presentations with questions from the audience. Despite the fact that most attendees have smart devices and phones, the questions from the audience are still mostly handled in an old fashioned way. These low-tech styles include: A “moderator” walking around with a microphone and finding the nearest person with a raised hand to ask a question. Not only is this slow and time consuming, but is rather arbitrary and not very democratic. Another way is for a group of people to hand out cards to the audience and then pick them up during... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: How to Streamline your Call for Papers Review Process

Posted February 24th, 2015 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Speakers, What's New.

There are few aspects of speaker management that can be more painful than the process of reviewing submissions from an open Call for Papers. If the review is conducted in the classical way, the planners will find themselves buried in a bewildering collection of PDFs, Word docs and spreadsheets. Hours upon hours can be spent communicating with the review team, collating information and somehow trying to make sense of it all. In between all of this manual work is the need to give proper consideration to all the submissions and being fair in the final judgments of which presentation is... Read more »

Checkout EventRebels’ New Website!

Posted February 11th, 2014 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Meetings Technology, Mobile Event Apps, Online Registration - Keys to Success, QR Codes, Speakers, Trade Show, What's New.

EventRebels is very excited to introduce our new website, designed and built by our friends at Ainsley & Company. Besides having an exciting new look, the site has a number of new features that you may find of interest. Most exciting is four new product videos! These short videos give you a quick, but thorough, offering of our main product lines. There are videos for: EROnline, the most robust conference software in the industry. ERShow, our online interactive trade show and exhibitor management software. ERSpeaker for call for papers and speaker management. There is also a video that introduces our... Read more »

Ways to Keep Presentations Alive After the Conference

Posted October 3rd, 2013 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Speakers, What's New.

So you had a great conference. The attendees were rewarded with great presentations and interesting speakers. So that attendees can refer to the talks after the show, you might provide a bunch of paper handouts. However, this approach produces a tremendous waste of paper, most of which is lost or even tossed before the plane trip home. So how can you use the Internet to keep your presentations alive after the conference? Here are a couple of ideas. You should have a series of web pages that show information about the program schedule, presentations, and speakers. Users should be able... Read more »

Simplify the Assembly of Your Conference Schedule

Posted April 30th, 2013 by K.C. Hopson & filed under Event Rebels Blog, Speakers, What's New.

One of the most arduous and time-consuming tasks a planner faces is putting together the conference schedule. Vast amounts of data have to be collected and processed. The data ranges from session information, speaker information and bios, travel needs, A/V needs and so forth. Ultimately, all this information needs to be organized into the conference schedule and then made available to the attendee. Traditional methods of managing speakers and the schedule have focused on dozens of huge spreadsheets and uncountable amounts of data copying. Call for Papers and Speaker Management software slashes the amount of time spent in this process... Read more »

Posts Categorized: Speakers

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