NSA Convention 2010: Advance Planning

Orlando World Center Marriott In a few short days I’m off to Orlando for my 6th National Speakers Association Convention. This one is being held at the Orlando World Center Marriott Hotel next to the Magic Kingdom.

Six years after my first convention I’ve learned that advanced planning is a necessity. So, in addition to following some great tips on attending conferences and lining up informal meetings with business partners and friends, I have planned my personal agenda. I’ve chosen from among the dozens of different break-out sessions that are on offer on the full agenda.

In addition to the main tent sessions at the start and end of each day, here’s where I’ll be spending my time. If you’ll be at the convention be sure to get in touch and say Hi.

Social Media Focus

This is clearly the year Social Media arrived at the NSA. The convention features ten break out sessions on different aspects of the topic. Since I’ve been speaking on Social Media I’ll be checking out many of these workshops to find out how some of the best speakers are addressing the issues.

Sunday July 18

10:00 – 11:15 am

Design Your Million-Dollar Speaking Engine, Robert Bradford, CSP, MBA

Challenge your business model to get more gigs at higher fees. You will realistically re-think your program, marketing, search engine optimization and audience—and act to improve all of them! Robert will demonstrate his ideas with hot-seat sessions for lucky attendees! After one of Robert’s previous presentations, an attendee used insights from the program to book $1 million dollars in business! By attending this session, you will learn to identify your islands of profit * Identify things you can stop wasting time on to make more money * Be able to tell prospective clients exactly why you should be hired over your competitors.

(Even though I’ll be focusing on social media, I’m willing to skip two sessions on that topic scheduled for this time to catch Robert. I heard great things about his 2009 session and at the end of day it’s all about finding gigs at higher fees.)

2:15 – 3:30 pm

How Social Media Can Help You Successfully Co-Produce a Major Public Event, Myra Corrello, PhD; Michelle Cullison and Jennifer Ledet

Ever thought about joining with your NSA colleagues to host a major public conference? Five members of the New Orleans chapter took on the challenge and lived to share it! In this panel, you’ll hear how they successfully used social media and technology tools to organize and plan the event, secure strategic partners and sponsors, generate product, gain long-term publicity and attract over 300 attendees and keep them all day. By attending this session, you will recognize and understand how these virtually free communication tools can help you coordinate, collaborate, promote, connect, publicize, recognize and, ultimately, monetize your time and investment * Understand how social media can be instrumental in attracting major sponsors for public events * Evaluate the rewards and risks of a public seminar by learning what worked, what didn’t, and what you should know before taking on a similar challenge with your colleagues.

(This promises the be one of key talks of the weekend for me. I believe that the speaking industry will be revolutionized by social media, helping magnify the impact of a speech before, during and after the event.)

4:00 – 5:15 pm

Selling with Social Media – Nine Techniques for Using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to Get Coaching Clients, Book Deals and Keynotes, Rory Vaden, MBA

You’ve figured out that social media helps you get a few extra readers for your blog—great! But how do you actually make any cash from all this hoopla? Rory Vaden shares practical advice, pragmatic techniques and straightforward methods for maximizing your time online. He shows you how to get referral business on LinkedIn, how to use Facebook to turn fans into coaching clients, and how he landed an A-list literary agent using Twitter. By attending this session, you will learn how to use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to generate referral business, repeat business and third-party testimonials * Use social media more effectively for better marketing, platform building and effective follow up * Create a powerfully efficient 45-minute to-do list to maximize your daily social media use.

(Another key talk.)

Monday July 19

1:45 – 3:15 pm

Social Media: From Conversation to Participation Sponsored by the Business Coaching PEG – Open to all attendees, David Mathison

David will show you how to leverage social media to move fans from conversation to engagement—to help you sell more products, earn more revenues and get more gigs—without professional PR. Learn how fans helped Mathison pre-sell 5,000 books in 11 days, got him featured in The New York Times, placed his book in universities and set up speaking engagements at the U.S. Embassy, the University of Missouri, Columbia University and the United Nations. By attending this session, you will learn how to engage fans to book you for more speaking opportunities and events—because they want to * Sell more products, services, consulting and training by enlisting fans as affiliates, resellers and distributors (in other words, the work that publicists, managers, agents, bookers and employees used to do.) * Have fans create content for you, and link to and virally spread your ideas, messages and products at no cost to you.

(This looks like a straight-on “make money with social media” talk. I’ll be interested to hear where the audience is on this and how directly they want to engage with money making social activities.)

3:45 – 5:15 pm

The Power to Inspire: The Non-Verbals of Dramatic Presentations, Michael Grinder

The average presenter informs. The good presenter persuades. The great presenter inspires. Michael Grinder’s discoveries will shatter some of your beliefs and replace them with practical tools to move your career to the next level. You will learn the effect of your gestures, pauses, how to mark off the stage and how to increase your intelligence and credibility. Bring a big bag to carry away your increased non-verbal intelligence from the “people whisperer.” The format will be one-third presentation, one-third demonstration and one-third rehearsal for reality. By attending this session, you will experience six least recommended ways to present material and one recommended way * Experience the flat, business-like voice pattern of credibility and the rolling, rhythmic voice pattern of approachability * Discover how people follow our eyes, not our hand. So where we look is where we want to gesture.

(I can’t make the WHOLE event about social media. Voice is a crucial way by which a speaker establishes credibility and communicates clearly. I’ll be interested to hear how Michael’s approach compliments what I’m learning from reading Kate Peters’ blog.)

Tuesday July 20

10:00 – 11:15 am

Meet the Pros: Speechwriting and Social Media, Ian Griffin

Social media add exciting new options to the traditional speechwriting toolkit. From researching audience interests to developing speech content, tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and blogs can save you time and make your speeches more compelling—if you know how to use them. Speechwriters can now leverage social media to greatly improve the value of their services in the planning, preparation and scripting of a speech. Then, once the speech is written, social media can magnify its impact beyond the confines of the auditorium.

(Well, I don’t have a choice on this one! The first time I’ve taken an active role in presenting at a NSA Conference – even if it is to a maximum of 18 people. Full details including a preview video and outline of the content are on my presentation home page for the event.)

4 Comments so far
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I love knowing I’m not the only one who poured over all the concurrent session choices and pre-planned my entire experience! I’m a newbie to the Convention, but I went to the Winter Conference so I know this planning time is imperative. I’m focusing this conference on one track: platform skills. My partner is also coming with and she’s focusing her sessions on marketing. Between us, we should come away with a to-do list that will take us to Christmas.

Hope to run into you this weekend!

Hope you will join me for my “Tweet This!” session Tuesday @ 4 p.m.

See you in Orlando!

Ian — this sounds like a wonderful event. I am going to look into NSA a little more myself. I know you’ll make a wonderful presentation and have a great session. Tell us all about it when you get back.

Hey Ian,

Thank you for the compliment of choosing my session. I am confident that you will have get tremendous value from it and that you’ll laugh and have fun. It will be a great time. I look forward to connecting with you in person at the conference!

See you in the stairwell,
Rory Vaden



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