“Conference submission season happens several times a year. Which means somewhere, right now, a reviewer is opening a proposal that says something like: ‘This session will explore the evolving landscape of identity…'”

Reader, reviewers are tired.

After years of reviewing conference proposals, I can tell you this: rejection is rarely about the topic and far more often about proposals that are unclear, mediocre, or just a little too eager to pitch.

If you want your submission to rise to the top of the pile, I have some suggestions.

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Use AI as a thinking partner, not a ghostwriter

Let’s start with the obvious elephant in the room: the use of genAI in drafting your submission.

• Using AI to help clarify your thinking? Completely reasonable. I use AI frequently to help find gaps in my reasoning and bias in my posts.
• Using AI to generate a full abstract from a handful of buzzwords? Painfully obvious and a signal that the author might not really know what they’re talking about.

Reviewers read hundreds, sometimes thousands, of submissions. Patterns jump out fast. When it comes to AI-generated abstracts, they tend to sound polished but strangely empty. The language is smooth, the structure is tidy, and yet by the end, you still don’t know what the speaker will actually say. (And no, I’m not talking about the use of em-dashes. Em-dashes are perfectly good punctuators and have been given a bad reputation.)

What works much better is using AI to support your thinking, not replace it. Use it to outline your ideas. Use it to tighten language. Use it to sanity-check the structure. But the core argument and the bulk of the thinking—the reason this session should exist—needs to come from you.

If your proposal could be swapped with someone else’s and no one would notice, that’s a problem.

Don’t turn your abstract into a template checklist

Let’s be clear about something up front: most conference review processes are absolutely looking for explicit signals about audience and outcomes.

Reviewers want to know who the session is for. They want to know what attendees will learn. And the eventual audience definitely wants to know: what’s in it for me? So yes, you do need to make those things visible. Be explicit about whether your session is introductory, intermediate, or advanced. Many otherwise solid proposals get marked down because the abstract promises depth but reads like a 101, or vice versa.

Where submissions start to struggle is in how that message gets delivered.

As generative AI becomes more common in the submission process, many abstracts are beginning to arrive with the exact same scaffolding:

“In this session, attendees will learn…”
“Participants will gain insight into…”
“This presentation is designed for…”

Individually, these phrases are fine. In fact, they exist because they convey useful information. But at scale, they create a different problem.

When reviewers read a hundred abstracts that all follow the same mechanical outline—same rhythm, same structure, same careful but generic tone—the proposals start to blur together. And fairly or not, that sameness raises a flag to reviewers: will the session itself feel just as cookie-cutter?

Strong submissions still make the value proposition clear. They just do it in the speaker’s own voice, with language that reflects real ownership of the material.

One helpful mental model: your abstract has two audiences.

First, there are the reviewers building the program. They need clarity on fit, level, and expected takeaways. Second, there are the (eventual) attendees. They are scanning for a simple question: what’s in it for me?

The submissions that stand out manage to satisfy both groups at once. They clearly signal outcomes, but they do it with enough specificity and personality that the session feels intentional rather than assembled from a template.

If your abstract could be swapped with another speaker’s by changing only the topic nouns, it probably needs another pass. To put it another way: you’re not filling out a Mad Libs. You’re making the case that your session deserves one of a very limited number of slots.

Use the space you’re given

Here’s another thing I noticed that puzzled me greatly. If the submission form allows 5,000 characters and you submit something the length of a tweet, reviewers are left guessing. I suppose this is the direct opposite of using a genAI to help you create a submission.

A good abstract gives enough detail to answer the questions reviewers always have: What specifically will the audience learn? Who is this for? Why now? Why this speaker? Why is this more interesting than the 20 other submissions on this topic? Remember that reviewers are building a balanced program, not just evaluating talks in isolation. If your topic is well-trodden, help them see what is new, different, or newly urgent about your angle.

Reviewers are also looking for signs that this talk is grounded in real experience. You don’t need a full bio in the abstract, but a light signal—deployment experience, research depth, operational lessons—helps reviewers distinguish between lived practice and theoretical commentary. Thin abstracts often signal that the talk isn’t fully formed or that the submitter didn’t invest much effort in the proposal. Neither interpretation helps your odds.

You don’t need to write a novel. But you do need to respect the space provided.

Keep titles short and meaningful

Shorter titles generally do perform better. They’re easier to scan and easier to place on a crowded agenda. But shorter should never mean vague.

A strong title gives reviewers and attendees a quick, concrete hint about what’s inside. You don’t need a paragraph. You do need a signal. One or two well-chosen keywords can make the difference between “unclear” and “immediately understandable.”

If a reviewer has to read your abstract to figure out the basic topic, the title isn’t doing enough work.

An abstract is not a white paper

Your abstract is not an incident report. It is not a market analysis. It is not a standards deep dive or a quarterly briefing. And it is definitely not a product pitch.

It is the beginning of a story.

At a high level, your abstract should make three things clear: what problem you’re addressing, why this audience should care, and what they will walk away able to do or understand differently.

Think movie trailer, not full script.

If your abstract reads like it belongs in a governance memo, reviewers may struggle to see how it becomes an engaging session.

Spell out your acronyms

You may live and breathe your corner of the industry. Your reviewers may not.

This is especially true for region-specific regulations, niche working groups, internal program names, and emerging specifications. The first time you use an acronym, even in an abstract, spell it out.

It’s a small move that signals something important: you know how to communicate beyond your immediate peer group. Your reviewers may need it, too.

Please don’t submit a dozen proposals

I understand the instinct. Truly. Surely if you throw enough ideas at the reviewers, something will stick, and you’ll get that free conference pass.

But submitting ten or twelve variations to the same conference rarely improves your chances. From the program side, it usually signals a lack of focus rather than breadth of expertise.

What works far better is selecting your strongest two or three ideas and investing real effort in sharpening them. Make the value to the audience unmistakable. Show that you’ve thought about fit, timing, and relevance.

Quality beats volume every time.

Match your content to the session format

One of the fastest ways to raise reviewer eyebrows is a mismatch between the format you selected and the content you propose to deliver.

Most conferences offer multiple session types for a reason. A panel is not a solo talk. A 20-minute session is not a 60-minute deep dive. And reviewers are absolutely looking at whether your plan fits the container you chose.

If you’re submitting a panel, include the panelists. Not “TBD.” Not “we will invite industry leaders.” Actual humans. Reviewers need to understand the balance of perspectives and whether the conversation is likely to be substantive.

If you’re submitting a short-form session—say, 20 to 25 minutes—be realistic about how many voices can meaningfully contribute. Five speakers in that timeframe usually signals one of two outcomes: either everyone gets three rushed minutes, or the session quietly turns into a single presenter with very expensive background decoration. Neither is compelling and your session will either be binned or you’ll be asked to reduce the number of speakers.

On the flip side, if you’re proposing a longer-form session, make sure the material has enough depth and narrative pull to sustain attention. Reviewers are asking themselves a simple question: will people stay in their seats for this?

Strong submissions show that the speaker has thought about pacing, structure, and audience energy, even if only implicitly.

The goal is alignment. When the format, the speaker lineup, and the scope of the content all reinforce each other, reviewers can much more easily picture the session succeeding on stage.

And when they can picture it clearly, your odds improve.

Submit as a vendor without sounding like one

Let’s talk about another red flag for reviewers: pitch decks as submissions.

Many of the strongest subject-matter experts in our field work for vendors. That, by itself, is not a problem. In fact, conferences depend on practitioners who are close to real deployments and real customer pain. What is a problem is when the submission reads like it’s trying to sneak a product pitch past the program committee.

Most large, non-vendor conferences operate under some version of the same rules:

• Don’t pitch your product
• Don’t use your product as the only example
• Don’t assume you can use your company template or splash your logo everywhere

If your abstract or your (eventual) slides feel like a thin wrapper around a sales story, reviewers will notice. And the proposal will usually not make the cut.

That doesn’t mean vendors can’t submit strong talks. It means the framing has to shift.

The sessions that land well typically focus on the problem space first, not the product. They draw on patterns seen across multiple customers or deployments. They acknowledge tradeoffs. They teach something the audience can use even if they never buy anything from the speaker’s company. This is your moment to be seen as a thought leader.

In other words, the value stands on its own.

A good gut check is this: if you removed your company name from the abstract, would the session still make sense and still feel useful? If the answer is no, the proposal probably needs another pass.

Another common misstep is relying on a single internal case study. Real-world examples are great,  encouraged, even, but they work best when they illuminate a broader lesson. Show the pattern, not just the product journey.

One additional credibility signal: if you’re presenting a case study, include the customer whenever possible. I know that isn’t always feasible—some organizations understandably prefer not to participate, and I’ve had former employers politely decline myself. But when a customer is willing to co-present, it materially strengthens the proposal. It signals that the story reflects real-world experience, not just the vendor’s point of view, and reviewers notice the difference.

And yes, plan on using the conference slide template if one is provided. Many programs require it specifically to keep the focus on content rather than branding.

None of this is about excluding vendors. It’s about protecting the attendee experience. The speakers who consistently get accepted understand this distinction. They show up as educators and practitioners first and let their credibility do the rest.

Read the instructions. Then read them again.

A surprising amount of what I’ve covered above is already sitting in most conference submission guidance.

Program teams usually tell you:

• what they’re looking for
• how the topic tracks are framed
• what the conference theme is
• how much space you have to make your case

And yet, every year, many submissions clearly haven’t taken full advantage of that information.

When I was in grade school, teachers had a habit of saying the same thing before every test: read all the instructions first. Not skim. Not assume. Actually read them.

It turns out that advice ages remarkably well.

If you want to improve your chances, start there. Use the fields you’re given. Answer the questions the form is actually asking. Make it easy for reviewers and future attendees to see the value of your session.

Final thought: make the reviewer’s job easy

Behind every conference agenda is a group of humans trying to build something coherent and useful for attendees.

The submissions that rise to the top tend to do one thing very well: they make the reviewer’s job easy. They are clear about the problem and specific about the audience. They are also honest about the outcomes and grounded enough to feel real.

And if you remember nothing else:

• Be specific about the audience and outcomes
• Match your content to the format
• Make it obvious this is not a product pitch

In a competitive year—and most years are—that clarity matters more than clever phrasing or buzzword density. Help the reviewer see the session. You’ll be ahead of a large portion of the field.

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Transcript

Introduction

00:00:00

Welcome to the Digital Identity Digest, the audio companion to the blog at Spherical Cow Consulting.

I’m Heather Flanagan, and each week I break down interesting developments in digital identity—from credentials and standards to browser quirks and policy shifts.

If you work in digital identity but don’t have time to follow every specification or hype cycle, you’re in the right place.

So, let’s dive in.

---

Why Conference Proposals Get Rejected

00:00:30

Conference season arrives multiple times a year. And somewhere right now, a reviewer is opening a proposal that begins with something like:

“This session will explore the evolving landscape of identity…”

At that moment, many reviewers are already tired.

After years of reviewing conference proposals—and now serving as a content chair for a large event—I can say this clearly:

Most proposals are not rejected because the idea is bad.

Instead, they fail because the submission:

• Is unclear
• Feels generic or middle-of-the-road
• Comes across as a thinly disguised pitch

Ultimately, the biggest issue is simple: the proposal doesn’t help reviewers understand what the speaker actually intends to deliver.

So if you’d like your submission to avoid the digital equivalent of the recycling bin, let’s talk about what actually helps.

---

Generative AI and Conference Abstracts

00:01:32

First, let’s address something increasingly common: the use of generative AI.

Using AI to refine your thinking is completely reasonable. In fact, I often use it myself to:

• Identify gaps in reasoning
• Check for bias
• Improve structure and clarity

However, there’s a major difference between using AI as a tool and letting AI write the entire abstract.

When AI generates an abstract from a few buzzwords, reviewers notice immediately.

Why?

Because AI-written abstracts often have the same characteristics:

• Polished language
• Very tidy structure
• Smooth transitions

And yet, strangely, they feel empty.

When reviewers read hundreds of submissions, patterns appear quickly. AI-shaped abstracts tend to blur together—and nothing stands out as particularly compelling.

What works far better is this:

• Use AI to outline your ideas
• Use it to tighten language
• Use it to check structure

But the core argument must come from you.

If your proposal could be swapped with someone else’s and nobody would notice, that’s a problem.

---

Who Is the Session For?

00:02:58

Most conference review processes are looking for very specific signals.

Reviewers want to know:

• Who is the intended audience?
• What will attendees learn?
• Why does this session matter right now?

And, of course, attendees want the answer to a simple question:

What’s in it for me?

You absolutely need to make those elements visible.

However, problems begin when submissions all use identical scaffolding, such as:

• “In this session, attendees will learn…”
• “Participants will gain insight into…”
• “This presentation is designed for…”

Individually, these phrases are perfectly fine.

But when reviewers read hundreds of nearly identical abstracts, the structure begins to blur together. Fairly or not, that sameness raises a concern:

If the abstract feels cookie-cutter, will the session feel that way too?

The strongest proposals do something slightly different.

They still communicate:

• Audience
• Outcomes
• Value

But they do so in the speaker’s own voice, with specificity and personality.

Think of it this way: your abstract actually has two audiences.

1. The reviewers building the program
2. The attendees scanning the agenda

Great submissions satisfy both groups at once.

And remember: you’re not filling out a Mad Libs template.

You’re making the case that your session deserves one of a limited number of speaking slots.

---

Use the Space You’re Given

00:05:00

Another pattern that frequently confuses reviewers is extremely short abstracts.

If the submission form allows 5,000 characters, and you submit something the length of a tweet, reviewers are left guessing.

And guessing rarely works in your favor.

A strong abstract answers several key questions:

• What specifically will the audience learn?
• Who is the session designed for?
• Why is the topic relevant now?
• Why are you the right speaker?
• Why is this more compelling than the other submissions on the same topic?

Reviewers also look for signals that the talk is grounded in real experience.

You don’t need to include your entire biography, but hints of credibility help, such as:

• Deployment experience
• Research depth
• Operational lessons learned

Very short abstracts often signal that:

• The talk isn’t fully formed, or
• The submitter didn’t invest much effort.

And if it looks like the speaker didn’t put in effort, reviewers are unlikely to do extra work to interpret the idea.

In short: you don’t need a novel.

But you do need to respect the space you’ve been given.

---

Titles Should Be Clear and Concise

00:06:18

While abstracts should use the available space, titles should generally be shorter.

Short titles perform better because they are:

• Easier to scan
• Easier to place in a crowded agenda
• Easier to remember

However, shorter should never mean vague.

A strong title gives both reviewers and attendees a quick signal about the topic.

Often, one or two well-chosen keywords make all the difference.

If reviewers must read the entire abstract just to understand the basic topic, the title isn’t doing enough work.

---

Your Abstract Is Not an Incident Report

00:06:59

Another common mistake is writing an abstract in the wrong style.

Your abstract is not:

• An incident report
• A market analysis
• A product pitch
• A standards deep dive

Instead, your abstract should function like a movie trailer.

At a high level, it should clearly communicate three things:

• The problem you’re addressing
• Why this audience should care
• What attendees will walk away able to do or understand differently

If your abstract reads like a governance memo or an internal report, reviewers may struggle to imagine it as an engaging session.

---

Spell Out Your Acronyms

00:07:47

Digital identity is an acronym-heavy industry.

However, not everyone lives inside the same niche.

For example, reviewers may not recognize:

• Region-specific regulations
• Niche working groups
• Internal program names
• Emerging specifications

Therefore, a simple rule helps enormously:

Spell out acronyms the first time you use them—even in the abstract.

It’s a small step, but it signals something important:

You know how to communicate beyond your immediate peer group.

And reviewers definitely notice that.

---

Don’t Submit Dozens of Proposals

00:08:37

It’s tempting to submit many variations of proposals to increase your odds.

But submitting 10 or 12 sessions to the same conference rarely improves your chances.

From the program committee perspective, it often signals:

• Lack of focus
• Lack of clarity about your strongest idea

A better approach is to:

• Select two or three strong ideas
• Invest time in sharpening them

Focus on making the value crystal clear.

Because when it comes to conference selection:

Quality beats quantity every time.

---

Match the Format to the Content

00:09:26

Many conferences offer several session types, including:

• Panels
• Short presentations (20–25 minutes)
• Long-form deep dives

Reviewers look carefully at whether your content actually fits the format.

For example:

If you’re submitting a panel

Include the actual panelists.

Not:

• “To be determined”
• “Industry leaders will be invited”

The speakers themselves help reviewers evaluate the balance of perspectives.

Similarly:

If you’re proposing a short session

Be realistic about how many speakers can contribute meaningfully.

Five speakers in 20 minutes typically leads to:

• Rushed presentations, or
• One main presenter with others as background decoration

Neither is compelling.

On the other hand:

If you’re proposing a long session, make sure the material has enough depth to sustain attention.

Reviewers are asking themselves:

Will attendees actually stay in their seats for this?

When format, speakers, and scope align, reviewers can easily imagine the session succeeding.

And that dramatically improves your chances.

---

Avoid the Hidden Vendor Pitch

00:11:11

Many experts in digital identity work for vendors, and that’s perfectly fine.

In fact, conferences depend on practitioners who work closely with real deployments.

The problem arises when a submission feels like a disguised sales pitch.

Most conferences follow rules similar to:

• Do not pitch your product
• Do not use your product as the only example
• Do not treat the talk like a sales deck

Sessions that land well typically:

• Focus on the problem space first
• Draw insights from multiple deployments
• Acknowledge trade-offs
• Provide lessons useful even if the audience never buys your product

A useful gut check is this:

If you removed your company name, would the session still make sense?

If the answer is no, reviewers will likely reject it.

---

Include Customers in Case Studies

00:12:21

If your session is a case study, consider including the customer as a co-presenter.

Of course, that’s not always possible.

Some organizations prefer not to appear publicly in this context.

However, when customers do participate, the proposal becomes much stronger.

Why?

Because it demonstrates:

• Real-world implementation
• Multiple perspectives
• Authentic operational experience

Reviewers absolutely notice the difference.

---

Read the Submission Instructions

00:13:11

This might sound obvious, but it’s surprising how often it’s ignored.

Most conferences provide detailed submission guidance, including:

• Topic tracks
• Conference themes
• Character limits
• Evaluation criteria

And yet many submissions clearly haven’t read those instructions.

Before submitting, take the time to:

• Read the guidelines carefully
• Use the fields provided
• Answer the questions the form actually asks

Doing this makes it much easier for reviewers—and future attendees—to see the value of your session.

---

Final Thoughts

00:13:59

Behind every conference agenda is a group of people trying to build something coherent and useful for attendees.

The proposals that rise to the top share one key trait:

They make the reviewer’s job easy.

Strong submissions are:

• Clear about the problem
• Specific about the audience
• Honest about the outcomes

In competitive years—and most years are competitive—that clarity matters far more than clever phrasing or buzzword density.

Help reviewers see the session clearly, and you’ll already be ahead of a large portion of the field.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to reading your abstract in a future conference submission.

---

Closing

00:14:47

And that’s it for this week’s episode of the Digital Identity Digest.

If this episode helped clarify things—or at least made the process more interesting—consider sharing it with a colleague.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

And if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can also find the full written post at sphericalcowconsulting.com.

Until next time:

Stay curious.
Stay engaged.
And let’s keep these conversations going.