Speaker Guidelines

Speaker Availability:

• Educational sessions run Tuesday, March 20 through Thursday, March 22. Each session is one hour in length and speakers are required to fill it entirely, including 10 minutes for a Q&A at the end of session.
• Educational speakers are required to be available all three days as they may be requested to present twice.
• Date and location of your session will be released approximately six weeks prior to the conference.
• Special requests must be submitted in writing by November 2011 and are not guaranteed.
• Tutorial sessions will be held Monday, March 19. These run for five hours and will require you to have enough material to cover that time period and allow sufficient time for a Q&A. The session must be purely educational with no references made to a specific product or company.
• Virtual Data Center Tours run Sunday, March 18. They are one-hour presentations and will require that you have enough material to cover that time period and allow sufficient time for a Q&A. These Virtual Data Center Tour presentations are given in a PPT Presentation format, consisting of photos of your data center and a tour of the facility. They are meant to give the attendee a bird’s-eye view of your data center.

Presentation Content Guidelines:

It is critical that educational sessions at AFCOM’s conference are not an endorsement for specific vendors or products. Therefore, we offer the following reminders:

If the speaker is a vendor/exhibitor:

• If the speaker works for a company that sells products and/or services to the data center community, neither the presentation nor handout materials submitted can reference your company or products.
• When developing session content, vendors/exhibitors should not include “case-studies” as they typically only reflect how that vendor “saved the day” using their products or services. This would be considered a sales pitch and will not be allowed in the presentation.
• Your company name and/or logo may only appear on the first and last page/slide.
• Your company will be recognized in the biographical sketch included on the Memory Stick.

If the speaker is a manager or other user:

• Your presentation should not discuss specific vendors or products unless they are an integral part of the presentation (as it would be in a case study, a panel, or in describing the environment being referenced). Case studies are only accepted by end-users.
• If you do discuss the products you use, please mention other products you are familiar with.
• If at any time during your session you are specifically asked what products you use, by all means feel free to answer. The intent here is not to avoid discussing the product, but rather to be clear that you are only sharing your experience and that you are neither endorsing nor denouncing any product.
• Your company name and/or logo may only appear on the first and last slide.

Presentation PowerPoint Guidelines:

It is critical that PowerPoint presentations at AFCOM’s conference are legible and formatted correctly. Therefore, we offer the following reminders:

• All speakers must submit a PowerPoint file of their presentation (due: February 20, 2012).
• All PowerPoint presentations will be included on a Memory Stick for attendee distribution if received by February 20, 2012.
• AFCOM reserves the right to edit all materials.
• Speakers needing to update their slides after the Feb. 20th deadline must turn them in to AFCOM for approval on or before March 1st. All changes must be approved by AFCOM. Please note that any changes made after February 20th will not be on the Memory Stick provided to the attendees, and the speaker will have to advise the attendees of the change.
• These guidelines are in place so that your slides are legible and easy to reference if the attendee wants to print them out for reference. The biggest complaint in speaker evaluations is that slides are not legible due to dark backgrounds or graphics.
• Light or no background versions of the PowerPoint are preferred.
• Do not use page numbers.
• Use only black or dark text.
• Use large text wherever possible.
• Only use clear and legible graphics.
• Do not use graphics that cover text.
• E-mail the PowerPoint presentation(s) to: confserv@afcom.com. However, if the presentation is over 5MB, please notify confserv@afcom.com directly, and upload your files to our YouSendIt account: https://dropbox.yousendit.com/afcom 
• “Zip” all electronic files.
• Company name/logo can only appear on the first slide and last slide.
• No other handout materials can be distributed to your session attendees without prior AFCOM review and approval.
• Test the legibility of your slide by printing them six-up to a page.