2021 Ascend National Convention Speaker Guide

Below are highlights from the Speaker Guide, click here to download the complete guide.

 Technology Platform

  • Socio: Socio is where you’ll find all of the community interaction for the convention (once you register). You’ll be able to connect with attendees, post onto the event feed, add and view other convention sessions that your pass gives you access to.

  • Restream: Restream is a live streaming studio which is integrated with Socio. Sessions will be hosted on Restream. Some sessions may be hosted on Zoom.  If you would like to attend sessions that you are not speaking at, you can see the latest agenda at this link.
    For your speaking session, you will receive a personalized link to join your session. There are more details later in this Guide.

 Speaker Checklist

  • We will work with you (and your fellow speakers if you are part of panel) to design a detailed run of show (ROS) 

  • ROS along with details of your session (topic, description, speaker information) will be shared separately 

  • Each day’s agenda will run as a series of sessions, where attendees will click on separate links to attend each session, and each session will be broadcast individually

  • This makes is easier for speakers because we will have a quiet space in the broadcast studio to do any final technical checks before each session, and before we broadcast to a live audience

  • You will be provided a personalized Restream link for all of your sessions

  • If you are a moderator or contributing to the design of your session, you will be invited via email to schedule a technical session at least 1 week prior to your session

  • Please arrive at your session, using your personalized link up to 45 minutes prior to the official start time of your session, and no later than 20 minutes prior, to conduct any final technical checks

 Speaker Assets & Firewall Information

  • Session Recording
    Socio platform by default records all sessions. Our convention guests find the recordings immensely valuable. Therefore, we are hopeful that as a speaker you would give us the consent (via the speaker form below) to share the recording with the convention community. For any reason, if you are unable to grant consent to share, Ascend will honor the request and not share the recording. 

  • Speaker Form
    Please complete this speaker form within 5 business days of your receiving this email (unless you are given a different deadline). 

  • PowerPoint Presentations
    We request all speakers to use this Ascend National Convention template. 

  • Videos 
    Video files can be sent by WeTransfer or shared in a cloud drive with NCPlanner@ascendleadership.org  (CC: convention@ascendleadership.org ) 

  • Other Media
    If you have other media that you would like to share during your session, please feel free to share through a cloud drive these assets to ncPlanner@ascendleadership.org (CC: convention@ascendleadership.org )

IMPORTANT NOTE ON FIREWALL: We request that you test the socio platform (and Zoom if applicable) in advance to ensure that these platforms are not blocked from your servers. Should they be blocked, please inform Ascend immediately so we can work together to find a solution in a timely manner.

 Session Guidance

  • Audience Engagement
    We encourage you to consider leveraging tools such as polling to engage with the attendees. If you would like to integrate polling, please inform the planning team in advance so that the polls can be set up and tested. You are also encouraged to think about other ways to make your session / presentation engaging in a virtual environment. 

  • Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Credit Eligible Sessions
    If your session is CPE-credit eligible, the session moderator will be given instructions for sharing such information during the session. In addition, two distinct CPE codes will be projected on the screen at different intervals during the session. These codes are required to complete post-convention CPE-eligible session evaluation survey. Upon successful completion of the survey, respondents will receive a certificate of completion from Ascend. 

  • Evaluation Survey 
    At the end of each session, a short evaluation survey will be provided for the attendees to collect real-time feedback. This is different from the above-noted CPE-eligible session survey. 

  • Housekeeping
    We will share housekeeping information at the start of each session to ensure that your experience and the experience of the attendees is seamless. 

  • Learning Objectives
    All convention sessions accompany a short description with at least 3 learning objectives to set expectations for the audience. We request that your talking points and presentation are centered around the agreed upon learning objectives with Ascend. Please ensure that your presentation / talking points are commercial and bias free. 

  • Session Hosts
    All convention sessions will be assigned an Ascend leader to host the session. His/her role will be to welcome the attendees, introduce the session/topic/speakers, and at the end, close the session by thanking the speakers, sharing Ascend call to action, announcing the next session, etc. Host will be introduced to the speaker(s) before of the convention.