Listen up, event organizers.

I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about them. Not really, but I've seen a lot of na?ve organizers in my career. They're great people with great ideas and great love for a community, but despite that, they often fall into several patterns. If you'll entertain some guidance from someone who used to do this sort of thing a lot, here are some tips for avoiding them.

Set your speakers up for success

Your attendees really want your speakers to do well. They want the presentations to be good. They want the speakers to enjoy themselves and present well. Frankly, your singular job is to do everything you can to make that happen. At most tech events (unless it's more an expo/fair setup), the speaker content is what everything else hinges on. But to really execute it well, it takes actual work and time investment from both speaker and organizer. Too often organizers run the CFP and then wash their hands of the whole presentation segment of the event leaving speakers to navigate it on their own. That's not how one creates an amazing experience, though.

To start, be sure speakers have all the context they need for the event. One of my worst bombs I had was due to being told originally the presentation would be lab-style with 30 attendees max. Two days before the event where I was to give this two hour presentation, organizers informed me they had made the executive decision some time ago to expand attendance for the workshop and that it was actually for 200 people. I had no way to properly alter the content, so frankly it sucked. The organizers also didn't provide proper context to attendees. It was a deep dive, advanced level presentation, but attendees didn't know that, so about 90% of them came in lacking a lot of core knowledge they really needed to understand the presentation. (Bonus points for that one: I was running a 102 fever even with fever reducers. When I told the organizers I may not feel up to presenting, they responded that wasn't an option and they would make sure I had plenty of water on hand. So, generally not great overall...) Please make equipping your presenters and attendees a top priority! To be moderately transparent, this incident was with a huge premier tech even organization, so don't think anyone is immune to falling into this.

Related to that, be sure speakers have good A/V setups and their presentations will work well in them before the event starts. Before the event, either hire a contractor who is responsible for making sure this stuff is in order or make sure someone on your team owns this task. We're fortunately past the worst years (I remember around 2008 trying to find the "right" DisplayPort adapter for everyone's laptop was a perennial task at conferences...), but always make sure before the event you ask speakers what sort of equipment they will be bringing to present with and make sure you're equipped to handle that with adapters, chargers, and so on. Try to grab speaker's slides and put them in the cloud in case of equipment failure. Ensure audio setup is working well and has fallbacks in case of failure. I can't tell you how many rooms I've been in that had a single mic that someone accidentally left on and killed, but the staff couldn't get me another mic for 15 minutes for various reasons. Be proactive about this, and you'll save everyone headaches (you included)!

Final tip in this one: offer guidance on slide preparation or practice sessions if needed. Many speakers are too afraid to ask for help with this, but if it was offered, they would likely take you up on it. Even offering some casual "presentation office hours" leading up to the event where some experienced speakers can spend some time helping folks navigate how to structure their presentation, design their slides, etc. would be helpful for folks who are new to the craft. I was never able to do this, but I think offering some time in the venue the day before for dry runs of presentations (with an audience of your team if you can swing it!) would have been a very helpful thing. I just never had the money to have the room for the whole day before my events (only the evening for A/V and other setup), but if you have the ability, think about offering that.

Be proactive about real inclusion

Look, I know DEI is a hot button topic because...well, a lot of reasons that I won't waste the pixels on. The real truth is that actually inclusive, ethnically and socially united events are simply better. When people of all groups aren't simply "allowed" to be in the space but are given a seat the table, when everyone is included and not just tolerated, the event is improved. The conversations are richer, the presentations are better because they're often from perspectives that are new and different for attendees, and not to mention the secondary effects of creating safe spaces for diverse interactions that include a built in common ground. If you desire to actually create a better environment in our society for everyone, you've been given a gift here. By having technology be the common ground, it removes the awkwardness and the contact vacuum that is often times the first hurdle to overcome to building these bridges. OK, I digress...

But if you want real inclusion, you have to be proactive about it. This was not something I was good at early in my organizing career, but I eventually got better. You have to go out and pitch your event to groups that can move into spaces where you may not have reach. That means sending your CFP information to groups like Black Girls Code or AnitaB or something like that (side note: that means also doing the work to follow up on these reach outs). If your community has specific groups that work with under-represented folks, then use them! They want you to create space for these folks and will help you do it. But what you can't do is just toss the information into (what you think are) "public forums" and expect these communities to participate. Often times, those spaces aren't "public" spaces to these folks.

Likewise, understand how location, pricing, etc. will affect these efforts as well. Eventually we made our events free (paid for by sponsorships) and you would not believe the stories we heard from poor college students or single moms who said the only way they could attend events like this if they were free. Finding ways to maximize networking opportunities, especially amongst these communities, should be a core concern for your team even if you can't make your event free. At least consider offering a "free space" for networking (e.g., an expo hall with sponsor booths so sponsors derive a marketing benefit from this wider audience) or free events in the evening that others can attend.

Bonus point on this one, try to facilitate specific concerns as best you can. For example, eventually we had a number of moms coming to our events, so we made sure there was space for a nursing room. Can you afford childcare? Think about offering it. Likewise, we always made sure the venues were handicap accessible (even if that meant paying for the more expensive event room by 2x...!).

Don't overemphasize the "social"

Don't take this to mean ignore socializing and networking. This is sort of targeting events where presentations are the "meat" of the event versus something like an expo, meetup, or summit. But in the events, please don't silently make social "the thing?. I've been to a few events (some post-COVID...) that rush through the presentations and treat them as second class because what the organizers have decided is that everyone is really there for is the networking and after parties and the Professional Social Interaction?. A lot of your attendees are there to learn, not to listen to Jeffrey from StartupThingy.io tell them how their product is going to change their life. Likewise, a lot of folks especially in tech aren't super social. At the least, don't present an event as an educational opportunity and run it like speed dating.

All of the various offerings around your event should be even quality or simply just don't offer them. No one is making you do a social hour. If it's going to be mediocre, then skip it. If you just want a networking event, then forego the presentations. If you're going to just phone it in, don't do it (or, do like I often did, and let a sponsor run it since they'll do it well if their name is attached to it!).

Side note on this one: please don't make alcohol a core ingredient of your event, no matter how you run it. There are so many reasons it's a bad idea (e.g., the possibility of several types of incidents even in the absence of "over" consumption, the possibility of an alcoholic/recovering alcoholic feeling excluded or tempted, and so on). Having alcohol present is, obviously, fine and possibly even advised to attract some folks, but I've been to a couple of events where the only social happenings were environments that were created largely for alcohol consumption (e.g., they were giving out free shots, had beer pong contests, etc. as part of the conference event offering) that were very uncomfortable.

Realize you, dear organizer, are merely a vessel

You and your event are vessels to promote sponsors, educate attendees, promote discussion, and to promote speakers and their interests. You are not the reason people are there. Do not develop Main Character Syndrome? and think this event is basically your birthday party with better slide presentations. I can't tell you how grating it is when event organizers think they're Jimmy Kimmel or something and monolog between sessions about themselves or their projects or their companies. I recently attended an event like this, and it was extremely cringey. Please do not do this.

As always, I like to offer my hand of help if you need it. I haven't organized an event in about a decade, but I'm 100% willing to try to help you navigate anything I can. Ping me via email, and I'd be glad to answer anything I can!