https://youtu.be/CREVlnZaohs

In this interactive session, we’ll demystify the proposal review process and walk you through what reviewers are really looking for. From crafting a strong session title to clearly defining audience takeaways, you’ll gain practical guidance to strengthen every part of your submission.

We’ll also share common mistakes and how to avoid them, plus walk through a live example to show how a proposal can be improved in real time.

Transcript

From Idea to Acceptance: How to Submit a Winning Annual Meeting Session Proposal

Cecelia Walls:

Hi, everyone. I’m gonna give everybody just a moment to hop online. And we’ll get started. I see some of you are already introducing yourselves in the chat. Be feel free to do so. That’s excellent. Hello, everyone. Alright. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today for From Idea to Acceptance, How to Submit a Winning Annual Meeting Session Proposal. My name is Cecelia Walls. I’m the assistant director of learning here at a, before we get started, here are just a few quick housekeeping notes. The session is being recorded and will be available after the webinar. Webinar. We encourage you to submit any questions you might have throughout using the Q and A tab on the right. If I see some coming up in the chat, I might move them over. So if you don’t see your question, in the chat any longer, it may have gotten shuffled to the Q and A tab. And we’ll save some time at the end for questions, which I’ll help direct to our panelists. And if you aren’t if we aren’t able to get to every question today, we’ll do our best to follow-up with any additional resources after the session. I am delighted to be joined by three colleagues who bring firsthand experience with the proposal review and session development process. Yvette Clark is our director of conferences and meetings here at AAM, and she will walk us through how proposals are reviewed, and what reviewers are looking for when evaluating submissions. We are also joined by two members of the Content Advisory Committee, Susannah Carroll is the Director of Collections, Curator at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and Katie Ryman is the manager of education and public programming at the National Museum of Industry in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They will share practical guidance on building successful proposals, including what strong submissions have in common and some of the common pitfalls that can prevent an otherwise good idea from being selected. Our goal today is to help you better understand the process and give you some practical strategies for turning a good session idea into a competitive proposal. As many of you already know, the annual meeting receives far more proposals than we can ultimately accept. And we have a limited number of session slots which means reviewers have to make difficult decisions every year. So a strong proposal isn’t just about having an interesting idea, It’s about clearly communicating why that topic matters who it serves, and what attendees will gain from the experience. One thing that makes AAM’s annual meeting unique is our focus on practical field relevant learning, and reviewers are looking for sessions that help museum professionals solve real challenges. Learn from one another, and leave with ideas, tools, and strategies they can apply in their institutions. So whether you’re representing a museum, an academic institution, institution, a nonprofit, or what you’re one of our valued industry partners, the proposals that tend to resonate most strongly are those grounded in real world practice and actionable takeaways. So the end of today’s webinar, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how proposals are evaluated, what reviewers are looking for, how to strengthen your session description and learning outcomes, and maybe some common mistakes to avoid during the submission process. With that, let’s get started, and I’ll turn things over to Yvette.

Yvette Clark:

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. So thank you, Cecelia. One of the things that is really crucial is how our proposals evaluated. All proposals go through a peer review process. The reviewers are actually practitioners from across the field, and they read and score submissions independently using a shared rubric. Scores are then discussed collectively and content and the content advisory committee builds a balanced program from the highest rated, most relevant proposals. It’s not just one person deciding. Which is descollectively,uce individual bias. So some will keep strong points alignment, clarity, practical value, perspectives, and completeness.

Susannah and Katie?

Susannah Carroll:

Thank you so much, Yvette and Cecelia. That wonderful to be able to join you all today. Just to go back to what Yvette was saying, they’re very specific things that we’re looking for. Certainly, in the previous slide, we talked, she talked about alignment. It’s really significant that you’re aligning the content of your session to the meeting themes, designated tracks, and attendee needs We’re looking for submissions, that connect the to the theme, by addressing current issues, emerging trends, and innovative practices, as Cecelia said, that are relevant to the museum field. And your session should explain how it contributes to the broader conference conversation. So some questions you might want to ask are why is this topic important now?

What emerging challenge or opportunity does the session address How does it advance conversations happening across the museum field?

Them those questions might help you align your, session your submission with, the overall museum AAM themes.

Katie Rymon:

If I may jump in in terms of clarity. We saw a lot of submissions and as Yvette said, there we get so many, and it’s broken down across a wide number of us who are on the content advisory committee. Clarity is really important. We had a lot of great ideas but getting your proposal to from idea phase to explaining exactly how it’s going to happen as sometimes as you get caught up in the excitement of planning having this great idea or planning out this proposal, there’s specifics of exactly how you can apply what you’re teaching to your institution is something that really needs to be kept in mind at the at the forefront when you’re formulating proposal.

Susannah Carroll:

And, of course, we’re certainly seeking practical value. Attendees come to the conference to seek creative solutions for challenges. Oh, sorry, Katie. Were you

Katie Rymon:

No. No. No. Go ahead.

Susannah Carroll:

Okay.

Katie Rymon:

I’m just nodding along because I agree.

Susannah Carroll:

We certainly want to be inspired and have all the attendees be inspired by, your designs, your new projects for the museum field. So when thinking about infusing your session with real world use from fullness, consider the attendees. Consider who’s attending, consider their needs. So they’re gonna ask questions like, how can I do this at my institution? What mistakes should I avoid? What resources can I use to help me get started, and what measurable outcomes can I achieve? So, and we’ll go over that again too. But you the strongest proposals that we’ve seen have memorable case studies and lessons learned They have tools, templates, resource lists. I love a resource list. Replicable practices, and also actionable recommendations. So when the attendee leaves your session, they’re walking away with the next steps of how to do something similar at their organization.

Katie Rymon:

Yes. In terms of practical value, scalability is great. We saw a lot that came from well-known larger institutions, but Quest continue to come up along the lines of, is this something that could practically be applied to a smaller museum, even a midsized museum? Or something like we saw a lot of submissions for house museums. So when you’re when you’re gathering up ideas for practical value, is this something that is able to be scaled either up or down depending on the needs of the institution? And

Susannah Carroll:

Yeah. And, also, when talking about your session. Going back a bit to clarity, but also in practical value.

Try so instead of saying participants, will learn about community engagement, something very broad, say something like you know, after this session, participants will be able to identify three strategies for a blank, evaluate approaches for measuring blank, and develop action plans, things that are very actionable. That help, show the practical value of your session. And also to continue with what Katie was saying about bringing in different voices, different scalability, and also different perspectives. We’ve we tended to select fewer single speaker sessions we value learning from different viewpoints, and so sometimes that’s seen more as, bringing in multiple perspectives. That allow you to talk about a little bit more complex topics. So we often saw the cross sorry, cross departmental or institutional panels, community partners, different types of museums, art, history, science, different geographic regions were represented, and, as Katie said, different institution sizes. So it was really interesting to hear from these various perspectives. And those were the more successful.

Katie Rymon:

Yes. And to round out with the clarity coming into completeness, as Susannah was saying, the more specific outcomes you can hope to achieve through your proposal, the more complete the proposal seems. And it was really something that we were looking for. There were a lot that we had read through, that were great ideas but didn’t have that really strong finish. To what is the full circle that is going to come out of this session. So just keeping all of these things in mind and having a really good idea of what you want to get out of that, and make it, consistent. Across the entire proposal is a really necessary step in getting a winning proposal. Yes. And don’t just go for the catchy title. Because we did see some of those which were intriguing, but then it kind of fell apart a bit in the in the body of it. But yes.

Yvette Clark:

And I just wanted to add, when people are looking to possibly build some of these voices from different segments of the community. If you’re looking for someone to help round out your panel, you can definitely use Museum Junction to solicit contributors, and I think that will also help as Susannah said that single presentation, presenters are know, it’s really difficult when you don’t hear multiple voices.

Susannah Carroll:

Yeah. And we’ll just read that last box there. The reviewer test. Can I quickly explain who this is for, what they will learn, and why this team should lead it?

Yvette Clark:

Next slide.

Susannah Carroll:

This slide really helps you, I almost said curate, but organize your, proposal. Into a clear, format. So certainly title. This is usually the first thing that we’re gonna see the reviewer sees, so make sure that it’s easy to understand. That it’s outcome focused, avoid jargon, buzzwords, acronyms, internal organizational language. We do love clever work word play, but when it’s unclear, you lose you lose that edge, I would say, for your obsession. Yeah. Yeah.

And there were some really exciting ones like collections reimagined. But I would say a shift towards something like building sustainable collections workflows with limited staff and resources. Because that tells you you’re talking about collections, but you’re talking about collections workflows. You’re talking about the makeup of who is involved in, in this project. So it’s a clear kind of outcome focused, topic. Title, I should say.

Katie Rymon:

For the description, we definitely want the reviewer definitely wants you to show the problem, your approach, and the attendee takeaway like we said in the other slide. Those are the really strong portions of the proposal. Some of the, proposals that we did read through were a little, vague, or trying to be too broad. It’s okay to narrow, really narrow your scope and narrow your focus.

Susannah Carroll:

Yeah. So if you think about, in terms of the problem, you’re showing the problem, what challenge exists? What are we trying to solve for? And then the approach what’s the session gonna cover? How did you address that issue or challenge or opportunity? And then also be sure to identify the takeaway what attendees will gain, Is it gonna be those tools and templates, frameworks, what I resource list. That that was my favorite.

So yeah, be clear about what the attendee is gonna gain from it. And then also the box at the bottom we’ll replace will explore with concrete promise of what attendees will do or take away. So make sure, again, that your focus is on the outcomes. Participants will learn how to. A Attendees will leave with this the session provides tools for. Blank. Because reviewers are, we want to understand what the challenges what your proposed solution is, or what you tried at your museum, and why attendees should even care, and what’s the practical value of this of attending your session? So, that that description should have a lot of, should follow that, trajectory that they have that the slide shows of showing the problem, describing the approach, and identifying the takeaway. Yes. What we learned yes.

Yvette Clark:

And also the mistakes so that, you know, sometimes that that really helps round out the session as well. The wins and the losses. Next line.

Susannah Carroll:

Oh, also, I’ll just jump in. I’m sorry. Really quickly say that that we received a bunch of different session formats. People select what format they believe their session should be. And it’s always good to have a more dynamic engaged just interaction of session, have that described in your proposal.

So, it’s helpful if you figure out what makes the most sense for your content. Is it a facilitated discussion? Is there does it include a case study analysis? Are there gonna be exercises and audience participation? Or is it more of a small group problem solving or workshop? Type of session? And that’s really for you to determine what how to best deliver the information and how the attendees will benefit. The most from it. And as we said before about the speakers, we just do like to hear multiple perspectives. Highlight your partnerships, the diverse roles that were involved in the project, even different disciplines if it happens to be relevant to your proposal. And can represent different institutions of varying sizes as well. All those all those voices. But with industry partners, sometimes it can sound like

Yvette Clark:

Commission.

Susannah Carroll:

the corporate presenter is.

Katie Rymon:

Mhmm.

Susannah Carroll:

proposing their product. So for corporate presenters, make sure that there’s a client side, a museum side representative at the session. Certainly, audiences will be more engaged and understand the product better. If there’s a real-world case study and if they can weigh in on how the product can be used, especially if there’s two museums of different sizes using the same product, those staff from those museums should be represented on the panel, and their perspectives shared and explained.

Katie Rymon:

Yes. You took the words right out of my mouth, Susannah. And, also, sometimes, you in that instance as well, it is good to show, like, maybe the successes and the things that weren’t so successful in a case study because an industry partner that works for one museum may not work and another or institution may not work in another one, and those are, better at helping the participant understand if this is something that will be meaningful to them or not. So common pitfalls to avoid.

So we talked about some of these already. Common a very common one is too broad, so you’re trying to cover everything instead of solving one defined problem. I think we all kind of struggle with that sometimes in the museum world. We all want to be everything and to everyone all the time always and have so many interesting things to talk about. So the real challenge sometimes is to narrow down that, focus. And that also leads into, there’s some a pitfall of vague outcome. So not a clear learning objective or practical audience takeaway. So as we’ve, mentioned previously, really identifying those outcomes for your audience will go a long way with your session proposal and make it a lot more meaningful Generic description. So language, it sounds conceptual but does not actually explain this section or session. Excuse me.

This can also go into jargon kind of language. We want to make sure that we’re using clear language to explain what we’re going to do. And, Susannah, please feel free to jump in at any point if you if you have any, anything else to add. But, yeah, the clearer we can be in our proposals, the better. And it helps the reviewer also score and discuss your proposal the clearer the language is and the and the more precise. And as we mentioned also with on the industry partners slide, the speaker roster needs to have purpose. Iti t’s great to list people, but we really want to know what everybody’s contribution is, why they’re on there, so we want to make sure that your roster everybody on there has a purpose, for that presentation.

And then, if it’s incomplete or unpolished, this one kind of goes without saying, but it’s always important to make sure that we highlight it in the value of proofreading, sharing it before you submit it, getting an extra set of eyes on there. I know when I write things, I think it looks perfect, and then somebody else reads it. And I find all these thing typos that I’ve missed or there’s conflicting information. So just really reread it, go over it, edit it. Have other eyes look at it before you submit and make sure we avoid those conflicting details or missing information or just rushing to submit it at the at the last minute. And then also for industry submissions, include a concrete museum example like Susannah said, and a museum voice, so we can really show the practical application of using that industry partner.

Yvette Clark:

Alright. Just to expand also, please don’t rush. Rush through the process. Have your have it reviewed. You don’t have to rush to get it submitted. Be the first one to submit. As long as it’s in by the deadline, that’s when you want it to be in, but you do want it to be complete. So please don’t rush through it. It is being evaluated. As Katie said, a lot of times, you give a great title, and it doesn’t have the substance throughout, and can be eliminated. Just on you rushed. So please take your time.

Susannah Carroll:

Yeah. And, before you submit, this is a really helpful five question check is the title specific and outcome focused? Does this description show problem approach and takeaway? So, why does this topic matter as well? Are the learning outcomes clear and practical? What will attendees learn and be able to do after the session? Does the format invite active participation? And does every speaker add a distinct and relevant perspective? So running through those questions before you submit, they’ll even help you develop your session. But it there’s certainly useful, guidelines to check before you submit.

Cecelia Walls:

Alright. Thank you all so much for that kind of background information on how proposals are, reviewed and what the process is. We do have a couple of questions in the q and a, and I have a couple of additional ones that I’ve come up with that folks might be interested in hearing about. But let’s do the q and a questions. And audience, feel free to continue adding questions in there. First one is from Jim. Do you ever suggest collaboration between proposed speakers? I had an opportunity to work with other professionals at a conference after being connected by the committee for a conference. If that do, we put folks together after proposals come in?

Yvette Clark:

Technically, no. It’s usually a collaboration of the of the individuals themselves.

Cecelia Walls:

And prior to the proposal, going in, they’re just so many proposals that come in and so many proposals that we have in house that

Yvette Clark:

Right.

Cecelia Walls:

there’s not a lot of staff that work in the meetings department. We have how many of that?

Yvette Clark:

Three.

Cecelia Walls:

Three people who actually put on the annual meeting, which blows my mind every time I think about it. It blows a lot of people’s minds. The next question comes from L’Fonche, and is there any reasoning as to why a proposal may be accepted for a video versus in person session? What within a proposal might determine that on the reviewer’s side? Yvette, I’m gonna throw that one back to you as well.

Yvette Clark:

You’re saying, well, why would it be a video? I was gonna say yeah. I’m sorry. They’re we’re all in person. Sorry about that.

Cecelia Walls:

I think they’re asking yes. Is there a yes. That we do not have video presentations. We only have in person. Yeah. No, it’s okay. Yeah. We do we only do in person sessions during the annual meeting. The next person is from Alison. Question is from Alison. We are planning to submit a proposal from a local Houston based institution. Will the conference also incorporate any local tours? And if so, what’s the process for proposing that?

Yvette Clark:

Doing a conference. Okay. That’s through the local host committee. I’m sorry. Is that my question? It’s my question. Through the local host committee. So if your museum is participating in AAM, it’s a great way Please look on the website and join the local host committee. You have to be a member of the local host committee I’m saying that multiple times, in order to

Cecelia Walls:

Yes. Yes.

Yvette Clark:

do experiential at your institution. So that information is there. And, if you have any questions about that, you can reach out to me directly as well.

Katie Rymon:

I can add to that just anecdotally. The National Museum of Industrial History, we’re located for the AAM in Philly. We’re located about an hour out the committee. And we had an excursion the day before the in person, conference started. So we had a bus load come up and view some of the museums, including ours. In the Lehigh Valley. And it was, it was great. It was great to get, to meet other industry professionals, and it’s wonderful that the AAM offers that through their host committees. So I encourage you if you’re local to the to the hosting’s in the hosting city to take advantage of that.

Cecelia Walls:

Absolutely. That’s a great opportunity. From Maggie, Is it possible to adjust an idea after submissions? Such as changing the session format if the reviewers think it would not work for the proposed session type but would fit for a different type. That’s

Yvette Clark:

Technically, you can change your title We allow editing in that way. But if you’re trying to go from, let’s say, a session to a poster or vice versa, it’s technically, we don’t do that.

Cecelia Walls:

and then Alfante, added a separate question to clarify. They say, sorry, prerecorded sessions. We had done prerecorded sessions couple of years ago. Are we doing prerecorded sessions? This year?

Yvette Clark:

No. We actually are not doing any pre sessions. We are, live and in person or as the younger people say, IRL in real life.

Cecelia Walls:

Awesome. From Emily, is the local host committee already set if we know sites, museums, orgs that might like to participate, is it too late, Yvette?

Yvette Clark:

It is not set. It is not too late. You can join. Just have your institution sign up. There’s a form to complete. It’s a really simple Jotform that, you can complete, and you can start the process, to have an experiential. And those are performed on the Wednesday prior to the, conference beginning, or we’re looking at Sunday possibly. So there’s still lots of time. And we also have a show your badge program that you can participate in as well so that, attendees are able to, see your institution not only on that Wednesday for, a complete tour, but they can also, visit throughout the entire week. So it’s a great opportunity.

Cecelia Walls:

Great. From Megan. We are planning to invite multiple museums to collaborate with us on a session proposal. We are new to this process, Processions with multiple speakers, do you have any on guidance on who should submit the proposal? Do you just submit one?

Yvette Clark:

The person who is

Cecelia Walls:

Katie? Oh, sorry. Yvette.

Yvette Clark:

To I’m sorry. The person who is the most focused and who will do the work. You want it to be as complete as possible, and that person needs to be as responsive because there will be follow-ups. And we also will be sending out emails for that person or whoever the lead is to ensure that they are completing the process throughout. So you do want someone who will take ownership

Cecelia Walls:

And, yes, you only submit one proposal per session. From Emily. Can you outline what level of a attendee engagement would tip a sixty-minute session into more of a one twenty-minute workshop format, considering a level of engagement that’s more q and a driven and asking the attendees to brainstorm ideas as part of an exercise. Would you consider that to be a sixty-minute session or a workshop?

Yvette Clark:

Is this me again?

Cecelia Walls:

It can be any of you.

Yvette Clark:

Engagement. Engagement. Engagement.

Katie Rymon:

Go ahead, Yvette. Sorry.

Yvette Clark:

I’m sorry.

Katie Rymon:

No. Go ahead.

Yvette Clark:

Right. Engagement and if there is any type of breakout or if you’re looking to, break up the session and have a type of response where the audience is in small groups, there may be a need for a longer amount of time. You just want to make sure that it’s, productive time. It’s not just you’re taking two hours of an attendees course time for something that could have been a sixty-minute talk.

Katie, you might want to expand on that. I’m sorry.

Katie Rymon:

Oh, no. That’s fine. Yeah. That’s exactly what I was going to say. If you’re trying to do more of a workshop where there’s breakouts or there’s a project that like, a mini project or you’re running through an idea, I would go more for the hundred and twenty minute. Suzanne, I think we had more hundred- and twenty-minute proposals than sixty minute. They’ll for this past one, if I’m correct. And, if I can remember correctly, and it so, yeah, if it if you don’t feel like you’re gonna be doing that much working during the session, a sixty minute is fine. But as Yvette said, if you’re doing, like, purposeful work, I would expand that to a hundred and twenty minutes. Minutes.

Cecelia Walls:

So that this is also for you, from Amy. Is it okay to submit the same proposal for two different sections or themes? If it fits both themes. Apologies if this has already been answered.

Yvette Clark:

Would say no. Because we’re looking at the proposal as a hold, so as a whole. So it’s going to be evaluated on the merit that it’s submitted, and really you submit it once. Just you don’t want to denied twice. So if it doesn’t have if it’s not as concrete as it could be.

Susannah Carroll:

Yeah. And correct me if I’m wrong. AAM staff but, we did as long as the proposal was clear, and had clear deliverables, sometimes if they things if a proposal didn’t fit the subtheme, that it was originally at identified as, it wouldn’t necessarily fully hold it back. It would just be internally when we’re when the committee was selecting proposals. They would try and have aa pretty even combination of different subthemes.

So it didn’t I wouldn’t say it would exclude your proposal if it’s not totally matched up to the subtheme. Just make sure that it’s clear and the reviewers can identify where it might be better placed.

Cecelia Walls:

Alright. I have a couple of additional questions that I think would be good to answer. Yvette, do reviewers see the names of presenters or institutions?

Yvette Clark:

No. That is it. They are blind reviewed.

Cecelia Walls:

So if you want to say, give a little bit of a description about what, kinds of people might be presenting? How would you express that in a blind review? And Katie and Susannah, you’ve read a lot of these. So you might jump in here with that.

Yvette Clark:

It would be the background years of service. The institutions that they possibly well, not institutions, but the type of work and how it’s contributing to the presentation as a whole. It just wouldn’t be a demographic quote, unquote, with you no names.

Katie, you might heard Susannah.

Susannah Carroll:

We definitely didn’t see names. The body of the proposal might say some might specify the museum, but we didn’t see the names associated with you know, who is presenting, for example.

Cecelia Walls:

Right. So someone would want to write, a mid-career professional with twenty years’ experience in collections management, speaking on the topic of you know, moving a collection from one storage area to another, something like that. A couple of other questions have come in. Veronica asks, are there certain topics that are of high interest given what is happening in our field? Katie, Susannah, do you have any insights into what kind of maybe topics we would like to see.

Katie Rymon:

Well, when we did it last year, we had a wide array that fell under our subcategory. And so all the reviewers are broken out into different sessions that fall under these different subcategories. And so a lot of what we did with, Museum Odyssey last year had to do with interpretation, collections management, education, but within all of those larger topics, there was a wide range of how that was dealt with or expressed from a lot of different types of organizations.

So as long as you’re hitting the key themes that are relevant to today, really, we want a variety of topics because what one institution might be experiencing is not necessarily the same as another, but they’re all really valuable in shaping, what we do in an in as an industry as a whole. Yeah.

Cecelia Walls:

And I see a couple of questions came in through the chat, so let me hop over there really quick. Four workshops. The submission seems to suggest it is for museum practice and essentials track. But mine seems more in alignment with innovation and future readiness. Is it okay to submit it as a workshop for something other than museum essentials.

Yvette Clark:

Yes. As long as you have the substance of your presentation in the panel to sustain one hundred and twenty minutes of time, you can.

Cecelia Walls:

Second question from Frank For the workshop, does it require a project that has been implemented, or is it okay to be under deployment, or for a potential project not started yet.

Yvette Clark:

Yes. It can still be in process.

Cecelia Walls:

And from Katherine, do projects presented need to be from US institutions? I work with a UK based company, and we work globally.

Yvette Clark:

It’s fantastic. We international is wonderful. We are excited to have you submit.

Cecelia Walls:

And from Megan, do you have any insight on a general range in the number of session attendees? We want to make sure our session’s audience participation is realistic. So per session, how many people typically attend aa session?

Yvette Clark:

Oh, that’s I mean, it just depends. We had up to 300 people in a session as large as the room was. And overflow. And it just depends on the topic category, and if it’s enticing to our attendees. You can never know. You build it and hope they come, but, in general, we do try to set the rooms for somewhere around, 150 to 300 people.

Cecelia Walls:

And, Yvette, can you share the link to register for future host committee in the chat? This person can only find the link for past Toast Committee. And if

Yvette Clark:

Sure. Okay. Sure.

Cecelia Walls:

She can’t find that presently, we’ll send it out in the email afterwards. If we can’t get ahold of that right away. And from Maggie. And this is for Susannah and Katie. Any recommendations for making a strong and competitive for both on more main mundane projects such as or storage solutions, things that maybe aren’t as creative or flashy as programming or exhibitions. What’s the best way to get those ones across?

Susannah Carroll:

Mean, I think those things are creative and flashy, but I’m biased. Yeah. If there were partners that helped you figure out how to communicate to the of the team your progress with that. So, if there was any social media maybe that was involved. If there were any other departments that were significant to your project, I would say invite them to be on your panel assuming that they’re contributing unique information if you tried a if you surveyed a ton of vendors and found something that worked well. I mean, even just being able to speak to different challenges you solved on a beer budget is super helpful, especially if there’s someone else on your panel from maybe a similar-sized museum or similar resourced museum that also solve similar challenges. So if the if the project is similar in different museums, having a panel where you talk about what your museum has done to sell that very similar prompt. Challenge is I think would make it a more robust session.

Cecelia Walls:

So Katie and Susannah, if you could give one piece of advice to first-time submitters, what would it be?

Susannah Carroll:

I think for me, certainly, making sure that the attendee is leaving with next steps or resources to use. That really stood out to me when the proposal addressed the value and significance of the project. In terms of what the attendee would walk away with.

Katie Rymon:

And, also, there’s really, to trust yourself in your submission, we were kind of keeping track of what types of institutions we heard from. And just seeing what the variety was for the submitters versus what the attendees were going to hear who they were going to hear from. So if you’re a really small institution and you don’t think you have anything significant to, I’ll put that in quotes, significant to offer to at such a large platform as AAM. You’re wrong. You do. You have creative solutions and great community partnerships. So just make sure you don’t rush your submission and really think about how it ties into the mission. But every type of museum organization and every size has really valuable things to contribute. To these conferences.

Cecelia Walls:

So Amy asks, is having a single presenter acceptable for a presentation if the rest of the team cannot travel from the museum? Okay. Let me just check the chat one more time. I don’t

Yvette Clark:

Of course, the best-case scenario is to have the entire panel there, and the submission should stand on its own with one presenter, but we would know, encourage you to have your colleagues attend as well.

Cecelia Walls:

See any other questions? And the Q and A. Any other last suggestions, recommendations, tips, and tricks for the group before we close out?

Yvette Clark:

Don’t be afraid to submit. You have a voice. I want to echo that. Don’t be afraid.

Cecelia Walls:

Yep. Alright. I would like to thank Susannah, Katie, and Yvette, for joining us today and offering these great tips and tricks for everyone who are in the process of drafting their proposals right now. Yvette, give us a deadline again real quick.

Yvette Clark:

September 26.

Cecelia Walls:

September 26. So just over a month from now, everybody should have their proposals submitted. And, yes, we are recording this session, and it will be available in the next few days. You should receive an email on that. And I want to thank all of you for attending, and we hope to see you in Houston in May. Thank you, everyone.

Yvette Clark:

Thank you all.