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Speaker Submission & Selection Process

The MHD Planning Committee scoured (aka stalked) other Dreamin’ Conferences to see what they did in their calls for speakers. We plucked elements that we loved from different teams and put them together into our Mile High version. A big ol’ cowboy hat tip to our friends at Southeast Dreamin’, Texas Dreamin’, Northeast Dreamin’, and WITness Success (to name a few) for the inspiration for our process!

 

Still have questions? View our FAQs.

Submissions

  • The submission deadline is May 31, 2023.

  • Submissions do not guarantee a spot, see below for the evaluation process.

  • You may submit multiple session ideas, but you can only present one session.

What We're Looking For

  • Salesforce product / feature demonstrations or best practices

  • Lessons learned / success stories

  • Case studies

  • Group workshops

  • How-to guides

Session Guidelines

  • Sessions will be 20 minutes or 45 minutes in length. Please keep this in mind when submitting your abstract.

  • If you are planning to have a co-presenter, please add their info with the submission.

Please Avoid

  • Selling a product or service

  • Plagiarism

  • Sessions unrelated to Salesforce

Evaluation Criteria

Once the ‘Call for Speakers’ has concluded on May 31st, one member of the MHD Planning Committee will take the contents of the submissions and anonymize the title and abstract submitted. This will remove identifying information such as names, company information, or Trailblazer Community awards (such as MVP, Golden Hoodie, Champion status, etc).

Then, the information will be passed on to a MHD subcommittee members who will vote on each submission on a scale from 0 to 5. (Note: The person who anonymizes the data will not participate in the voting process.)

The team's evaluations are scored based on a couple of factors. The individuals on the team look at the content of the abstract and title and provide a score based on the following questions:

  • Does the session provide relevant information to the attendees?

  • Does this session stand out from others that may be covering the same topic?

  • How many people would be interested in the topic?

  • According to the abstract, what value would I receive by attending this session?

  • Who benefits from the session, and at what level in their Salesforce journey would these people be?

Selection Process

After all of the subcommittee members have had a chance to rate each session, the team comes together and chooses sessions.

  • The first pass of sessions will fill 75% of our session slots blindly. This means we have no information about the person presenting, only the information in the title and abstract.

  • After those sessions have been selected, the team fills in the names of the speakers and removes any speakers that may have been chosen more than once.

  • The process is repeated until 75% of the sessions have been selected without any duplicate speakers.

  • We will populate the demographic data of the selected speakers to understand which groups have been represented.

  • The remaining 25% of the sessions will be populated by looking at their aggregate score as well as demographic information to ensure that we have intentional inclusion and representation throughout our selected speakers.

    • Some of the demographic information that the team will be looking at includes

      • First-time speakers at any event or function

      • Underrepresented groups in tech, for example:

        • BIPOC speakers

        • Female, Trans & Non-binary speakers

        • Speakers with disabilities

Selection Notification

​All people who have submitted a presentation will be notified via email within 2-3 weeks after the submission deadline. If your session is selected you will need to accept your speaker invitation within 1 week of notification. While your session may not have been selected for a theater-style session, you may be asked to present your session in a different format.

Presentation Preparation

If you have been selected to speak and have accepted the invitation, you will need to complete a form with additional details about yourself / presentation to have added to the Mile High Dreamin’ website and event app. The speakers will need to provide a first draft of their slides to the team to review by the given date provided in the notification email. Feedback on the session will be provided and optional coaching sessions will be provided to help with filling out presentation information. Two weeks before the event, final slides will be sent in to the team for final review.

Presentation Benefits

There are so many benefits you’ll receive from being a speaker at MHD!

  • You will be sharing your awesomeness with our community.

  • You’ll also receive a complimentary ticket to the event.

  • We’ll post your profile on the MHD website and share your cool presentation on social media.

  • The best part is that you will get to hang out with 400+ amazing Salesforce people in Colorado at the end of August.

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