CFP or Curation?

Education differentiation is a major pillar for advancing your conference’s competitive advantage. Most meeting organizers enlist the guidance of a program planning committee, whose members often resemble the target audience. They have the herculean task of assessing and slotting hundreds of speakers, sessions and poster submissions through a call for proposals process.

We’re seeing an uptick in associations that are revisiting the charge of these committees. Mostly, associations are looking for ways to ease the work, but make it more impactful on the quality of the conference program. Here are some of the program development process improvements we recommend:

1.    Adjust the term limit for being on the committee to two years. Rotate half off every year making way for fresh minds, yet retaining previous year knowledge.
2.    Instead of doing a broad call for presentations, get front-end advice from your committee on the topics that are most relevant now. Ask for proposals that map to that.
3.    Curate 25% or more of the conference program.
4.    Instead of asking for abstracts for completed research, allow research in progress so that your conference can better influence the future.
5.    Update your scoring rubric to grade a) originality b) relevance c) engagement plan d) ability to inspire action.

What changes are you making to upgrade your content development process? 
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June 2019
Video: Velvet Chainsaw's Sarah Michel with 5 Tips for Creating Winning Session Proposals


Models vary, but most meeting organizers include a conference committee of slotters and army of reviewers/graders for creating their educational programming. Progressive organizers are shifting to a blended model, where conference committees act more like content curators and advisors and less like graders and slotters.
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