SPEAKER
RESOURCES

Welcome XPONENTIAL 2021 Speakers!

We are excited you are joining this year's educational program. We look forward to working with you to deliver meaningful insights and actionable information at this year’s event! Please refer to the following information for more on speaker policies, materials submission detail, panel preparation and answers to general inquiries.

• General Information
  • Registration
  • Materials Submission Process
  • Speaker Ready Room
  • Best Practices for a Successful Presentation
  • Speaker Training Webinar
  • Promote Your Session!
• Standalone Presenters
• Moderators and Panelists
• XPONENTIAL 2020 Program Questions

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GENERAL INFORMATION

REGISTRATION

We are excited for you to join us at XPONENTIAL 2021. Upon acceptance into the educational program, you will receive a confirmation email regarding the date and time of your presentation, as well as a code to use during the registration process, which will equip you with a full-conference pass. All sponsored Enterprise and Government Solutions and Solutions Theater speakers should contact their coordinator to ensure you are properly registered via the sponsor company.

It is important that all speakers pre-register for the event, so please begin the registration process as soon as possible. If you are unsure of your registration status, please email the Industry Education team at education@auvsi.org.

MATERIALS SUBMISSION PROCESS

Use the AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2021 PowerPoint slide template which may be downloaded here.

PowerPoint presentations and related resources for the in-person event in Atlanta will need to be uploaded to ORCHESTRATE, the instructions can be downloaded here.

Video and Presentation files should be submitted with the following file naming convention:

• XPO21_PresentationTitle
• XPO21Video_SessionTitle

Submit Here

SPEAKER READY ROOM

The Speaker Ready room is located at the Georgia World Congress Center on Level 1 in C110. It will have computers and technicians to assist with testing your presentation. If you do not submit your presentation in advance, you are asked to bring it to the Speaker Ready Room on site to ensure the quality of your presentation(s) including fonts, bullets, outlines, animations, etc. The Speaker Ready Room computers are configured with the same hardware and software as those in the presentation rooms. All presenters are asked to submit their final presentation revisions no later than 4 hours prior to their presentation time. 

BEST PRACTICES FOR A SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATION

To ensure that AUVSI provides the best possible experience and a consistent approach to all our presentations, we ask our speakers to incorporate the following into every presentation:

• Presentations should be high-energy, informal and engaging. Work in activities and opportunities for audience participation. Consider including a polling tool, a unique Twitter hashtag, or even group exercises to maintain engagement.
• Presentations outside of the Enterprise and Government Solutions track should remain product/service agnostic. Educational sessions should NEVER become a sales pitch and violators will not be invited to speak at future events.
• Be commanding and capture the audience’s attention
• Be bold, confident, and present your material as the expert that you are—own it!
• Be aware of time.
• When using PowerPoint, remember these key points:
  • Keep it simple. Limit text, bullet points, transitions, and builds.
  • Use high-quality graphics, including photographs.
  • Have a visual theme, but avoid using PowerPoint templates
  • When using charts ask yourself “How much detail do I need?”
  • Choose your fonts and color scheme wisely. Make sure to space your text and use easy to read fonts. For the in-person event, remember you may have audience members seated in the back of a large space.

SPEAKER TRAINING WEBINAR

If you missed or would like to rewatch our speaker training webinar, you can view the recording at any time.

You can also download the presentation from the speaker training webinar to see what to expect the day of your session and how to come prepared!

PROMOTE YOUR SESSION! 

As a speaker at AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2021, we are pleased to offer tools to help you promote your participation to your network of contacts. Please visit the Speaker Promotional Toolkit for images, sample social posts and invitation language you can use in your marketing efforts!

Download Toolkit

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STANDALONE PRESENTERS

XPONENTIAL will feature numerous standalone presentations throughout the week on a variety of topics. All presentations will have a Program Chair that will introduce each presentation/presenter as well as managing time.

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MODERATORS AND PANELISTS

• If there is a change to the moderator or panelists, please reach out to education@auvsi.org as soon as possible. We will need updated speaker agreements and speaker details before making the change to the program.
• Some Panels will include a few slides or video. If your session is planning to have materials, please review the submission process.
• Each day of the Educational Program will feature a All presentations will have a Program Chair that will introduce each presentation as well as managing presentation time.

Moderators

Thank you for agreeing to dedicate your time and talents to moderate an XPONENTIAL conference session. Your role as moderator is critical to the success of your session and the conference program. We hope you also enjoy this opportunity to connect with new contacts and demonstrate thought leadership.

When collaborating with your panelists, please consider these points:

• SET THE OBJECTIVE—Set the primary objective and vision for the panel discussion. With what new understanding should the audience walk away? For example, you may discuss business or customer benefits, the possibilities and field results of a new technology, market drivers, current and projected adoption, current issues, practical applications and more.
• STRUCTURE THE SESSION—Structure the time allocated for the session, how much time you'd like to spend on introductory remarks (as the moderator), individual remarks, moderated questions and Q&A with the audience.
• PREPARE YOUR PANEL—Prepare a list of questions you plan to ask during the session. Most panelists will feel more comfortable if they can prepare at least a couple responses.
• SET GROUND RULES—Set the ground rules about contextual sharing vs. promoting or selling company/product information. Comments and experiences relevant to the dialogue are great, but they need to save the sales pitches for their virtual booth.
• ENCOURAGE ENTHUSIASM—Encourage speakers to command attention, be bold and engage the audience thru storytelling, case studies, factoids, descriptive language and future projections.
• PLAN TO MEET—At a minimum, plan to meet your panelists one week before your session to make introductions, reiterate the vision, structure and ground rules and obtain AV support, if needed. AUVSI will help coordinate pre-event meetings as needed. Please email education@auvsi.org if you have additional questions.

Panelists

A member of the XPONENTIAL 2021 team and/or your session moderator will touch base with you before the event about your session's content. Plan to participate in at least one discussion about your session’s format, direction, and planned questions from the moderator. Meetings will be scheduled and facilitated by your moderator and/or AUVSI staff in April.

Panel sessions at XPONENTIAL are discussion-based which means the use of multi-media materials is discouraged. Any plans for video or slides will need to be discussed with your session moderator and AUVSI.

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XPONENTIAL 2021 PROGRAM QUESTIONS

We realize that preparing for this event is on the forefront of your mind. If you have questions, please reach out to our Industry Education team at education@auvsi.org.

Industry Education Team

Keely Griffith
Director of Industry Education

Shannon Whitney
Education Manager

Kimberly Peicker
Program Manager

Rachel Whitmire
Program Coordinator