Mobile World Congress - Making the right calls to secure your speaker slot
Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the must attend event for any wireless company. Taking place on February 14-17 2011 in Barcelona, Spain, the show is unrivalled in showcasing the companies and latest developments of the dynamic mobile industry.
The 2010 event attracted more than 49,000 mobile professionals from 192 countries, a majority of which were C-Level executives. Catching the attention of such an important group is crucial but with over 1,300 other companies trying to do exactly the same how can you stand out from the crowd?
One opportunity is to secure a speaker slot available at the show. However, with the deadline for submissions seemingly getting earlier every year, companies now only have less than a week (deadline July 30th 2010) to submit their entry.
The slots are developed independently from the Congress sponsorship and exhibition and are therefore completely free. Potential speakers do not have to be exhibiting at the event to secure a slot. Indeed, if you are successful you will be given a pass for the whole event!
What are the organisers looking for?
Speakers are chosen on a number of different criteria.
• Topic relevance
• Originality (of both topic and presentation format)
• Newsworthiness of the content proposed
• Proven ability and prominence of the speaker in the industry
• Strength of the reference offered
Standing out from the crowd
With so much competition how can you make your submission stand out from the crowd? The following five tips will help you focus on what you need to include to be successful:
1) Relevance – Remember that audiences do not want to hear a 20 minute presentation of you promoting your latest products. Focus on issues and topics that are affecting the industry and will make your audience sit up and take notice.
2) Strong controversial angle - A key component to making your submission stand out from the crowd is including something out of the ordinary. Delegates attending the show want to hear the views challenging current thinking – they’re not going to attend a presentation to hear something they’ve heard a hundred times before.
3) Focus on the future – Talking about future trends is another key aspect of a successful submission. Audiences want to hear your opinions on what the industry will look like in two years time, not in two weeks time. Make sure you have plenty of predictions to capture the imagination of delegates.
4) Customers - Bringing a customer will always help to endorse the views you are expressing as well as making your submission stand out. You can also suggest a panel discussion – recommending panel members (with their prior approval) to join you and a subject area to discuss really helps to boost your chances of making into the line up.
5) Newsworthiness – With hundreds of journalists, analysts and bloggers attending the event alongside industry professionals, the need for your presentation to be newsworthy is crucial. Your topic should have the potential to deliver quotable, exciting sound bites that can easily be transferred to an article, blog or report.
With these five areas covered you should be in a position to fill out the submission form. If you want to increase your visibility at MWC please do not hesitate to contact us.
Posted by Andrew Chatterton on July 27, 2010 at 4:19 AM
