Share Your Story at the Higher Ed Summit

By Kathleen Lueckeman, Senior Director, CRM and Director, Graduate Admissions, Wayne State University

Are you working on something innovative for your school? Time-saving for your users? Success-oriented for your students? Share your work, gain some exposure for your institution and showcase your expertise by speaking at the Second Annual Higher Education Summit, on June 5-6, co-hosted with Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.

The Call for Session Proposals is now open. The submission form will be available only until Feb. 28th, so put together your proposal and submit it right away.

As Nicholas Zinser shared, “I feel like every institution has a story to tell. Whether you’re on the bleeding edge of what the Salesforce platform offers, or you’re an excellent use case for your particular service offering, presenting offers the opportunity to create a dialogue with your colleagues.”

Below are some tips to making your submission stand out:

Tout Your Innovation

We are all users of Salesforce solutions, but we want to know about your “secret sauce.” Explain how you are innovative so attendees can take inspiration from your work and apply it to their own business processes.

First Things First: A Clever Title Helps

While we all are wary of slick marketing, a fantastic title definitely gets your submission noticed. Don’t belabor, it but definitely give some thought to enticing your audience.

Talk Strategy but Provide Context

Attendees want to understand strategy from thought leaders and it’s important to flesh out the strategy with context. Don’t forget to include the factors that led to your strategy.

Explain the “Why” but Focus on the “How To”

Our community is rapidly maturing but there is so much to learn with Salesforce. That’s why it’s important to describe how you did something. Explain how you will provide tangible takeaways that attendees can implement when returning to the office.

Refer to Case Studies

Attendees love to hear how other schools have approached the common challenges we all face and many speakers use case studies to demonstrate their innovation. If you have one, refer to it in your proposal.

 Lessons Learned and Pitfalls to Avoid

Since your sharing your experience, consider including what you learned in your process. Be sure to include any pitfalls, if you have them.

Here are some practical tips that may help as well:

• When filling out the submission form, please write your bio, abstract and session description in the 3rd person as it would be listed on Salesforce.org’s website. The preferred format for abstracts is a few lines about the subject followed by the key takeaways and what attendees will learn from the session.
• You may submit multiple proposals, however, please keep in mind that Salesforce.org will limit the number of speakers from any one institution at the Summit.
• Collect all the information you will need in advance to simplify the process.
• Try to keep your title short – no more than ten words or approximately 50 characters.
• Print/save a copy of your submission for future reference.

Jim Gilbert from George Mason University explains why he encourages others to present, “I speak at Salesforce events because it gives me an opportunity to talk about all of the great things that my team is doing with Salesforce, and gives me the opportunity to hear what others are doing as well. As a school with a small org, I think it’s worthwhile to show that Salesforce can make a difference, even on a small scale.”

So, get ready to share your story with the community. Submit your session proposal for the 2014 Higher Education Summit today.