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Benefits of inviting a guest speaker to your recurring or one-off event:
🎢 offer an engaging experience to attendees,
❓give community members direct access to a researcher to ask questions,
🌺 attract new members to attend,
🤝 you get to make a connection with a researcher whose work you admire.
Though it requires more advanced planning, once the logistics are in place, there is not too much overhead.
Planning & Speaker Communications
Outreach
When you first reach out to a potential guest speaker, be sure to:
❓ explain what the Cohere Labs community is,
🤗 explain your role as a volunteer lead,
📅 provide a few potential date presentation dates/ times to help move planning along. *Live Cohere Labs support is only avaialble M-F, 9am-5pm ET (with some exceptions)
Feel free to CC Madeline (madeline@cohere.com) and/or Brittawnya (brittawnya@cohere.com) on outreach emails for organizational visibility, but make it clear the message is coming from you. Knowing who the invitation is coming from will provide important context to the speakers, and they will look favorably upon your volunteerism and initiative to give back to your community.
Here are some email outreach templates to help you get started.
🗓️ Public events should be scheduled with at least 2-3 weeks' notice so we have time to promote the event.
Feel free to copy the template below and make it your own!
Outreach Email Template
Dr. X,
My name is [your name] and I’m a lead of the [your group/event] in the Cohere Labs community. The Cohere Labs community welcomes ML researchers from diverse backgrounds and various levels of experience. The community has many up-and-coming researchers and provides them a platform to collaborate in a way many traditional institutions are unable to. [More information about your specific group]
As a volunteer organizer within the Cohere Labs community, I collaborate with peers to plan and execute programs we feel will support the learning and development of community members around the world, at all stages of their research journeys.
We would love to have you present [subject/paper name] to the community and allow the researchers to learn about your work and the exciting research direction it presents. Might you be interested and available at one of the following times?
[Option 1]
[Option 2]
[Option 3]
[more information about the format of your event, eg. quick intros, present for 30-40 mins, questions for 20-30 mins, as moderated by you are one of your peers]
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Here are a few talks we have held in the past:
1. Lucas Beyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbKvfGN4efs
2. Micheal Tschannen : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUwY4IvfLmQ
[Add in group-specific links if available]
Regards,
[your name]
Confirming Details
Once a guest agrees to present, we need to confirm a few more logistics. You'll want to ask the speaker for the information below and add the information to the Community Event Spreadsheet
Confirm date and time, including length of the talk (typically 1hr total event time)
Request the name of the talk they will be giving
Confirm the structure of the talk (eg. I will briefly talk about the Cohere Labs community before introducing you and handing things over. Once you finish your talk, I will help facilitate a Q&A from the audience, as time allows.)
Solicit a photo, brief bio, social media and weblinks to help promote the talk
Let them know if you plan to record the talk and how the recording will be used (eg. shared internally with community members). N.B. Depending on the nature of the talk, we may be able to post it to Cohere’s YouTube channel and the Cohere LabsPodcast, Exploring the unknown, together. This is decided on a case-by-case basis.
Ask them to sign on to the call 5-10 minutes early to ensure the technology is working.
Promoting the Event
Brittawnya will create a graphic to promote the event. Unless otherwise discussed, this will be used on the Discord event listing, and shared on social media.
📣 Promote the event on Discord:
Post to #announcements telling everyone about the event and letting them know what to expect.
Share a link to the Discord event listing, and encourage them to sign-up in advance (if this is how your event is set up).
You can tag @everyone for the initial announcement,
Plan to post reminders a few days before the event and on event day
Please refrain from tagging @everyone for subsequent reminders.
Also post to any channels that are relevant to your event, though avoid tagging folks too often.
Brittawnya will promote all guest speaker events on social channels; once ~1 week prior to the event and again ~1 day prior.
🐥 Re-tweet the Cohere Labs posts about your event or make your own. You can also re-share on LinkedIn.
Hosting
Post-Event
Be prepared to host your event.
👋 introduce yourself
Eg. My name is X. I work at X doing X. My research interests are in X. As part of the Cohere Labs community, I lead X.
💙 introduce the Cohere Labs community (if hosting a public event)
Eg. Cohere Labs is Cohere's research lab that seeks to change where, how and by whom ML research is done. Our community is a space where researchers, engineers, linguists, social scientists and lifelong learners connect and collaborate with each other. Learn more and join our community by visiting cohere.for.ai
👏 introduce your guest
🎤 moderate any questions from the audience
*establish with your guest in advance if they want to take questions throughout the presentation, or leave them until the end.
🗒️ be prepared with questions of your own in case the attendees are slow to participate
Take the call in a quiet environment with few audio and visual distractions.
🙌 Thank you note: After the event, send a thank you email to the guest within 1-2 days. Include specific feedback (eg. something they said that stuck out to you, a positive comment you saw on Discord in ref to the talk, etc.)
⚱️Post-event artifacts: These can include slides, event recordings, or notes taken by a lead or attendee during the event that include any relevant links that were shared. We save these to our shared google drive and post them here, on the Resource Guide mini-site. You can then share a link to the mini-site on Discord in a post that highlights any key takeaways or learnings. *If a recording was taken, Brittawnya will upload it to our shared google drive and let you know when it's ready. It will be up to you to further share it.
📽️ Recordings: When it makes sense to do so, Brittawnya will prepare and release recordings to YouTube YouTube videos are up within 1 week of the event (often sooner), though podcasts are often not released for some weeks. These are then shared publically via our social media channels. Be in touch if you have any questions about this.
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