Speak at Commsverse
70% of all our sessions are sourced from the amazing Microsoft Teams community
Content Tracks
This year we have consolidated Commsverse to allow us to concentrate our session offering to speakers and attendees where Microsoft Teams is at the heart of their field. Find out more about our tracks below.
Meeting Spaces
Meeting Spaces
Business Level 100
Technical Level 200-300
Calling
Calling
Business Level 100
Technical Level 200-400
Collaboration
Collaboration
Business Level 100
Technical Level 100-200
Viva
Viva
Business Level 100
Technical Level 100-200
Who we look for
It isn’t who we look for, it’s what we look for! Each year we decide on a theme for the event and design content tracks to complement the theme. We publish these here on our website and if you feel you have a strong contribution to a particular track then you may decide to submit this session.
We ask that you only submit content which you can confidently talk about using your own experience.
Who we don't look for
Community sessions are for community speakers. They are not for product vendors to use to pitch or demonstrate their product or solution. This includes associate speakers including customer success stories that involve non-native Microsoft products & services. If you have a product and want to demonstrate it to our attendees, please get in touch about our sponsorship opportunities.
Call for Content Open
Speaking at community events is a rewarding opportunity but requires investment from both the event and the speaker to ensure success. At Commsverse we aim to make it as easy as possible for community speakers to attend and share their knowledge. But for us to do that, it means you also need to meet us half way.
Your commitment to us
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You will promote your participation to your social followers
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You will present the session to the best of your ability
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You will attend physically to deliver your session
Our commitment to you
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We will provide hotel coverage for 2 nights
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We will provide transportation between hotel and venue
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We will support you with any coaching you need
Speaking FAQs
Submission Tips
We welcome new and seasoned speakers to submit their content Commsverse. The number of sessions we receive for review frequently exceed 150. With space for just 50 sessions, competition is high. Therefore, sessions that stand out in their relevance, uniqueness and quality have more of a chance of being selected than others.
Here are some tips to help you boost your submission’s chances of being selected
The topic of your session should be concise and easily relatable to the audience you are targeting. It should focus on a single discussion area. If your session is about “Getting the most out of your meetings”, then focus on meeting skills and try not to squeeze more content in that is not relevant to the headline topic.
Have an idea of the content you wish to share before submitting. We offer both 25 and 45 minute sessions. Duration is not important. The quality of your session content is. You might have high quality content that can be delivered in 25 minutes, but if you choose 45 minutes, this content will dilute and you will lose your audience to waffle and time filling. A great session is one that delivers impact. Do not sell yourself short by going long.
Of course, the opposite is true for sessions that need 45 minutes to deliver its impact and if you try to cram it into 25 minutes, your audience cannot keep up and you will miss out potentially critical information to land your session with the proper intent.
As a rule of thumb, if your session is a high level, introduction into a subject area, then it should be 25-minutes.
Session titles are a super important to capture your intended audience’s attention.
When attendees are scrolling through the conference agenda, they often make their decision on attending a session based on the title alone.
The goal of a session title is to pitch your session to your audience in a glance.
Between 10 and 15 words, roughly 70 characters (including spaces), is the optimal length for a session title. Titles should be in AP Style title case.
If you want to increase attendance at your session, the best way to do it is by piquing reader interest with a compelling session title.
It’s your first — and possibly only — chance to make an impression on a potential attendee.
Which of these two session titles makes you want to read the session description to learn more?
- What’s Next for Microsoft Teams Meetings?
- The Big Changes You Need to Know About Coming To Microsoft Teams Meetings
The second title works better because it exploits the curiosity gap — big changes are coming, but what are they? — and, using “you,” speaks directly to the reader. Once you’ve created curiosity in your reader, it’s only human nature for them to want to satisfy that curiosity. That starts with them reading further down into your session description.
Conference session descriptions can easily fall into the trap of being dull, leading attendees to believe that the presentation itself will be dull, too. If you have a session title that successfully exploits the curiosity gap, making attendees read your session description, you need to deliver by showing them why your session will be interesting:
- Spell out who should attend (new versus experts, vendors, etc.).
- Focus on your reader and what they’ll get from attending your session.
- Include specific learning objectives.
- Consider using bullet points to highlight important information.
The word count isn’t the challenge; using the right words is.
You must be able to deliver your session confidently and be the subject matter expert in the room. To do this requires you to have real-world, practical experience in the subject you are talking about.
Although we allow you to submit up to 4 sessions for us to review, we do not take quantity of submissions into account.
We strongly advise you to consider your topics carefully. If you feel you can only deliver one session confidently, then submit one.
It is not in any of our interests; you, us and our attendees to have sessions on the agenda that cannot be delivered effectively. What we mean by this is, if you have just read of a new feature in a blog and submit a session on it without actually having experience in using / deploying that feature, then it is better for us all for you to not submit that session. Sorry to be brutal, but we say this with everyone’s interests at heart, including yours.
Speaker FAQs
Put simply, no. We do not pay speakers to speak at Commsverse. We are a community event that thrives on volunteers from the community who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences with like-minded people free of charge and for the benefit of the adoption and promotion of Microsoft Teams.
A community speaker is someone who is acting in an independent capacity without their employer sponsorship. They volunteer their time to come and present and will share knowledge devoid of any product placement or employer evangelism.
If your session is about or contains references to a product or service the company you work for supplies, or you are a customer / supplier / partner of the company being asked to speak on its behalf, then you are not permitted to submit your session to the community call for content.
Please ask your company to contact us with regards to sponsorship instead.
We believe in quality, not quantity. The maximum number of sessions you can submit for the event is 4.
We allow you to submit sessions with up to one additional speaker for 45-minute sessions or greater. If selected, you may be required to share accommodation or pay a supplement for an additional room.
Depending on the track, there will be a selection of 25-minute and 45-minute sessions. This includes Q&A.
Call for Content opens on the 9th January 2023. It will remain open until February 14th 23:59 GMT. After this date we will evaluate the submissions with a view of issuing the offers to successful speakers on March 1st 2023.
For those who have been successful, you will be emailed on March 1st with your offer letter. You will have 7 days to accept the speaking offer. Details of how to accept will be in the offer email. We grant you 7 days to check with your family and employer that you can attend and deliver your session in-person.
If acceptances are not received within 7 days, the offer may be retracted in favour of reserve sessions.
Once accepted, this confirms your commitment to speak at Commsverse and we shall expect you to attend in-person on the date and time your session is scheduled.
We provide you with hotel and breakfast at the event hotel for the nights of the 20th and 21st June. We also provide a bus transfer between the hotel and the venue on the 21st and 22nd June. We also provide all your food and drinks at the venue along with an exclusive Speaker only dinner with free bar.
