Write conference talk proposals

A proposal is only as good as Kite's understanding of the event it's going to, so Kite researches the event first. It reads the call for speakers page, the tracks or themes the organizers listed, the submission questions, the character or word limits, and the deadline. It then reads the agenda and session list from the previous year to see which kinds of talks were accepted.

That research usually shows what the review committee is looking for. Suppose a healthcare operations conference listed "staffing" as a track, and last year's accepted talks in that track were mostly case studies given by clinic operators, with titles that named a specific result. That tells Kite the committee favors practitioners sharing what happened at their own organization, and that a talk built around your product's features would struggle.

Kite also notes who the audience is, how long the sessions run, and whether the event is mostly for practitioners, executives, or a technical crowd. Every later decision about the angle, the title, and the level of detail draws on these notes.

If you haven't chosen the events yet, Kite can find them too. It researches conferences that fit your buyers, finds their calls for speakers, and lists the submission deadlines. The page on how to get pipeline from conferences and events covers that side of the work.

The talks that get accepted teach the audience something they couldn't learn elsewhere. Kite looks for that lesson in what your company has actually done, then checks that it fits the event.

Kite draws from your team's knowledge base for this. It looks at the problems your customers bring to you, the results of experiments and campaigns, the opinions your founders have argued in public, and the patterns Kite has found in your market research. You can add more by uploading slides or notes from a past talk, or by pointing Kite to them in your connected Google Drive.

From that material, Kite proposes two or three talk ideas for each event, with a sentence on why each one fits this audience and this committee. A scheduling software company, for example, might get these three options for that healthcare operations conference:

• What 40 clinics learned when they stopped letting providers book their own shifts
• The three staffing reports clinic managers check every Monday, and the one they should check instead
• Why scheduling tools fail in clinics with more than five locations

You pick one, change it, or suggest your own. Over time, the ideas you approve become a bank of talks your company can adapt for each new call for speakers instead of starting from a blank page.

An abstract that gets accepted tells the reviewer who the talk is for, what problem it addresses, and what the audience will be able to do afterward, in the first few sentences. Kite writes every abstract around those three points and fits it to the length each form allows.

Kite starts with the title, because reviewers often sort proposals by title before they read anything else. It writes a title that names the specific subject and the result, such as "What 40 clinics learned when they stopped letting providers book their own shifts," rather than a broad title like "The future of healthcare scheduling."

The abstract then follows a clear order:

• The opening sentence names the audience and the problem they face.
• The middle explains what the speaker did or found, with the detail that shows they've lived it, such as a number, a mistake, or a before and after.
• The closing states what attendees will leave with.

Most calls for speakers ask for more than one version. Kite writes the short abstract for the printed program and the event app, the longer description for the review committee, and three or four learning outcomes written as things an attendee will be able to do. When the form also asks for an outline, Kite breaks the talk into sections with rough timings that add up to the session length.

Kite keeps the product out of the abstract unless the event is about vendor products. Reviewers reject talks that read like sales pitches, and the speaker's credibility does more for your company on stage than a product mention would.

Answer each application question directly, in the space the form gives you, using specific evidence instead of general claims. Kite writes an answer for every question on the form, including the ones that don't fit neatly into the abstract.

Calls for speakers often ask questions like these:

• Why are you the right person to give this talk?
• What makes this talk different from others on the same subject?
• What level of experience should attendees have?
• Have you given this talk before, and can you share a recording?
• Is there a commercial interest in this topic?
• Is there anything else the review committee should know?

Kite answers each one from what it knows about the speaker and your company. For "Why are you the right person?", it names the experience behind the talk, such as "She has run scheduling for a 40-clinic network since 2021." For the question about commercial interest, it states the relationship plainly and explains why the talk stands on its own, because committees trust a clear disclosure more than a vague one.

You can paste the form's questions into the conversation, or give Kite the link to the call for speakers and let it read them. Kite counts the characters or words in each answer against the form's limits, so you can paste each one straight into the submission form. If the event uses a submission platform such as Sessionize or PaperCall, you submit the proposal there yourself.

A conference speaker bio should say who the speaker is, what they've done that makes them worth hearing on this topic, and one detail that makes them memorable, in the length the organizer asks for. Kite writes the bio for the specific talk, so the experience it highlights matches the subject.

To write it, Kite researches the speaker's public professional profile, including their current and previous roles, their headline, and their recent public posts. It combines that with what the knowledge base already holds about them, such as past talks and podcast appearances. Then it writes the bio in the third person, because that's what most organizers print.

Kite usually writes three lengths. The short version is one or two sentences for the event app. The medium version is a paragraph for the speaker page. The long version is used when someone introduces the speaker on stage. Each one leads with the experience most relevant to this talk, so the same founder might be introduced as a former clinic operations manager at a healthcare conference and as a two-time startup founder at a startup event.

If Kite has already learned the speaker's voice, it uses that voice for anything written in the first person, such as a speaker statement or a social post announcing the talk. The page on how to write in an executive's own voice explains how Kite builds that voice from someone's real writing.

Yes. A one-page speaker summary, sometimes called a speaker one-sheet, introduces a speaker to organizers and podcast hosts on a single page. Kite builds one from the same material it uses for the proposals.

A summary from Kite usually includes the speaker's photo and medium-length bio, two or three talk topics with a short description of each, a list of past events and podcasts, a few sentences on who the talks are for, and how to get in touch. Kite applies your brand's colors and fonts so the page matches the rest of your company's materials.

With a connected Google account, Kite lays the summary out as a Google Doc your team can edit and exports it as a PDF to attach to an email. It can also publish the summary as a web page with a shareable link. You send it to organizers when you pitch a speaking slot that doesn't have an open call for speakers, or attach it to a submission that asks for one.

Calls for speakers close months before the event, and each one has its own deadline. Kite keeps those deadlines on your team's event calendar, alongside each proposal's status: drafting, submitted, accepted, or declined.

You can ask Kite to check the calendar on a schedule, for example every Monday, and it tells you which deadlines are coming up and which proposals still need the speaker's approval. Kite sends the results to your Slack channel, or by email if your team doesn't use Slack. Kite can also watch a conference's website and tell you when the call for speakers opens.

When a decision comes back, tell Kite. It records which talks were accepted, which were declined, and any feedback the organizers shared. Kite uses those results when it writes the next round. If committees keep accepting your case studies and declining your trend talks, the next set of ideas leans toward case studies. When you correct a proposal, for example by asking for shorter titles or a different way to describe the speaker, Kite records that as a rule for later proposals too.