MGCI Training - June Topic: Finding and selecting speakers...

If you want to bring more women on stage, there is a custom list of Microsoft Solutions Women in Tech Speakers @ Sessionize. If you’re missing an expert in a specific area, it’s absolutely worth reaching out directly and inviting them to submit a session, especially for local meetups. 

Local, recurring meetups are also a great “incubator” for new speakers. They give people a safe and supportive space to test their ideas and how they perform in front of a small audience. Over time, some of them grow into conference speakers, but it usually takes 1–2 years before they feel confident enough to submit to bigger events. And honestly, some never do, even though they have strong expertise. I’m trying to find ways to showcase those people as well, because they truly deserve more visibility.

For bigger events, we usually announce a Call for Speakers on LinkedIn, as we do not use other social media channels. We also use CommunityDays.org  to announce our events with the link to the session submission form. 

And one more thing, whether people like it or not, I personally reach out to speakers I really want to see at our events. If I follow someone’s blog or YouTube channel and know they bring real value, I want to meet them in person. And I know I’m not the only one. There are always more people in the community who would love that opportunity too. So I simply contact them directly. Usually, this is one or two speakers, and many of them have to decline due to schedule conflicts.

The remaining 40+ speakers are selected anonymously, and recently, they have been pre-selected by our community members, not organizers.