Even luckier than going to a lot of conferences is that I get invited to speak at a lot of conferences and try to accept every invite I receive, cause you never know when the invites will stop coming.

When I speak I talk about a slew of different topics with interesting examples that almost always involve myself as a case study. I dont do this because I am an ego manaic (an argument could be made) but because I am the only person who can really tell you what was going through my head when I dreamt up whatever idea or concept I am talking about.

I was at a conference recently and I sat through two separate presentations from two people with nothing memorable to their credit explain (as fact) why Zappos sold/merged with Amazon and the best part was that the two speakers who spoke one after the other had opposite opinions…and this makes perfect sense because well, the only person who can really tell you why the sale/merger really happened is Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) and some of his business associates…and this got me thinking about how easy it is to be a social media talker and how few social media doers there are.

I am using Social Media as an example here cause it is easy and makes for a snappy title but in reality I am talking more about people in general.

So still with the conference speaker example (and I can come up with many more examples if you want them) why not make some minimum requirements to speak at a conference….something like you need to have done something.

Pretty outrageous huh?

…and by something I don’t think it even has to be a successful “something” since you can learn more from people failing then you can from the stuff where everything goes well. Conference presentations should be about your projects and learnings from the time YOU did something and not a new spin on something you read in INC or Fast Company.

If you can’t point to a handful of url’s showcasing your accomplishments and you are not willing to present about yourself then what are you really talking about?

Sure there are exceptions like people talking about Metrics and such but even that can come from a personal angle with personal insights.

If the goal of a conference is to teach or inspire then the goal of the conference organizers should be to invite doers and not talkers because people who “do” are usually the ones that inspire…and people who talk, well they are just talking.

P.S. If you are reading this and thinking I am being harsh and making it harder for people to “break in”. I see it as the opposite and if you want to become a doer as apposed to a talker just go out and do something, make some content, stop repeating other peoples stuff and discover something on your own…I promise, you will sleep better at night…and get more of those conference invites to sleep with others.