@nprofile1q... When elected chair of a professional organization many years ago, I called each of the 250+ members by phone to encourage them to submit proposals for presentations at the annual conference. I used what I knew about their areas of interest to persuade them that other members would be interested to hear about their work. People were quite receptive when I spoke with them. It was a surprisingly easy and successful way to introduce new content and participation into the annual conference at a time when participation was flagging a bit. Many of those who had not previously participated just needed a little friendly encouragement.

The organization already had a presentation format called “roundtables” where a young researcher not ready to stand up in front of an audience could sit down with a group of 6-8 at a round table to discuss their work more informally in a series of back-to-back sessions of 10-15-minutes. Attendees moved around to different roundtables that interested them during a continental breakfast when a moderator rang a bell to signal it was time to move to another table. This made room for others to hear about each topic of interest to them. Some members who had not previously participated chose this format for their first presentation; others were comfortable enough for standup presentations at concurrent sessions at their first time presenting. Thereafter we had no problem filling in a program for the 3-day conference.