New Speaker Series: 3 – Peacocking
Peacocking: Using Your Speaker Card To Attract A Mate An Audience
Much like how a male peacock uses his feathers to attract a mate, you too will need to be on top of your peacocking game to attract an audience. Let me set the scene…
It’s 9:30am and you’ve arrived just in time to grab yourself a coffee and a snack before the opening talk kicks off. You stroll around awkwardly praying you run into someone you know and by chance, your eye catches the state of The Wall! It’s currently blank and not very scary, but you know that this is just the quiet before the storm. In just over an hour each slot will be filled with speaker cards created by people hosting sessions and around The Wall will be a herd of people frantically taking notes, snapping pictures and planning their day.
You smile to yourself because soon, you too will have a card on that wall and for a brief moment, your name will be up there with the greats! Hell, you might even be one of the greats. Yes, you definitely are one of the greats, you’ve rehearsed your talk a hundred times, you’re ready.
The moment comes, opening talk done and dusted and you’ve just put your card on the wall. As you’re walking away, you can’t help but turn around and admire your speaker card one last time.
SH*T ! Which one is it! Panic starts to set in, “what if no one comes to my session because all the cards look the same!”. You start sweating, you have to take your card down! YOU CAN’T REMEMBER WHERE YOU PUT IT! WHY THE HELL DO THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME?!
Suddenly you wake up… *sigh* …It was all a dream. There is still a week to go until MeasureCamp. You still have time, you know what you have to do… time to pimp out your speaker card (cue “Eye Of The Tiger”)
Your Plan Of Action
Before you sex out your speaker card, you need to work out what you’re going to put on there. Start off by asking yourself some basic questions:
- Who is my talk aimed at? Beginners or seasoned pros? Maybe somewhere in-between? Perhaps everyone. (If you’re a first-time speaker, try and have a specific audience in mind.)
- What is the nature of the talk? Is it analytical, technical or business focused?
- Know your format. Is it a workshop, presentation or a discussion. Maybe it’s a combination.
- What are the themes of the topic? Google Analytics? CRO? Tag management? Sky Diving (it could be!)
- Space on the card is limited, so what’s the punchiest way in which you can describe your talk. Think elevator pitch, except you only have about 15 seconds and there are about 20 people in the elevator with you trying to pitch.
- Finally but most importantly, what is the title of your talk? I mentioned you’ll have about 15 seconds, what do you think the first thing a prospective attendee is going to read?
Right, you have your content nailed down, time to take off your J.K Rowling hat and put on your Picasso hat and paint the Sistine Chapel! You remember your dream right? If you can’t scroll up! They all look the same, don’t they? How are you going to make yours stand out?
- Firstly, print off the card before the day. Print off as many as you like. This is going to be your edge! The rest of the suckers won’t know what hit them.
- Draft out some designs, buy some stickers, “borrow” some colourful pens from your office and get creative.
- Colour is your friend. Almost all of the cards will be written on the day with sharpies provided by the MeasureCamp team. Add colour to the boxes if you have to!
- LED lights are quite cheap these days if you’re feeling brave. Stick on some LEDs and flash your way to a respectable audience size.
- Use contrasting colours. From the image above you can see the only 4 that stand out!
- There are no limits! Just get creative.
I don’t want to stifle your creativity by putting some preconceived ideas into your head about design so I will leave you with just one from the master himself, Phil Pearce!
Almost all session holders will give little thought to their speaker cards and frantically write them on the day, but the greats… the greats will know that a great session begins on the board, so start planning now. Unleash your inner peacock!
Good luck and Happy MeasureCamping!
