Who Should We Invite to Speak at Conferences?

Full disclosure: I am always looking for opportunities to speak at international conferences and conduct training events around the world.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to investigating the question in the title. Who should we award these coveted invited speaking slots to?  Whose names and photos (some up to 20 years old) should we put on the promotional materials in an attempt to coax classroom teachers who are looking for professional development opportunities?  Buckle up, because I have a couple of rants prepared.

First of all, why do teachers go to conferences and PD workshops?  I used to think it was to get some ideas for how to become a better teacher, you know, hone their craft.  But when I log in to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, I see more and more "rah rah" life coaches who want to help you be the best you that you can be, and these people actually have followings so that tells me that there is significant demand for pumping people up and telling them they are great.  I'm not saying that many or most teachers go to PD events for this but I'm sure there are some who do. So maybe we need to bring in the Tony Robbins types.

Another reason to go is to stargaze.  Who doesn't want to meet the person that actually wrote the writing textbook you have been using for the past six years?  And sure, if they have something new to say and have adequate public speaking skills, give them a plenary spot.  But reading Geoffrey Jordan's hilarious post on big name speakers reminded me that many of these big names in the field are invited to speak so often it is virtually impossible to have something new and inspirational to share. So maybe we need to lower our expectations, grab our textbooks to get signed, and keep bringing in the same big names year after year after year to satisfy the stargazers.

Oh, let's not forget the academics.  Grad students and researchers also attend these conferences and they want to hear about some quantitative findings that will help them with their own research.  And who doesn't want to add ten new references to their thesis bibliography?  I'm getting tingly just thinking about it.  So maybe we need to get some people down from their ivory towers to drone on an on about their t-tests. Just not before lunch or we'll never get to eat...

Finally, some teachers go to hear about new ideas and perspectives on education but from other practitioners. Here's the problem.  These people aren't under the wing of any publishing companies and unless they have a large social media following or established track record sharing their classroom successes and failures at conferences, how would any organizing committee think to invite them? So maybe we need to put together a database of people and share it, especially if these people are accomplished speakers who can keep an audience's attention and leave them satisfied. 

Let me know if you'd like to start putting together a database or add some good people to an existing database that I don't know about yet