Speaker Benefits Guidelines

Speakers form the nucleus of COMMON educational content and must work between conferences to research, develop content and create their material.

Qualifying Sessions

Regular sessions, seminars, labs, case studies and Webcasts with one or two Speakers.
Labs regardless of number of Speakers.
Vendor Product Sessions with one or two Speakers who are attending without using an Exhibitor Corporate Badge.

Non-Qualifying Sessions

Roundtables, panel discussions.
Sessions with more than two speakers.
Birds of a Feather discussions.
Sessions presented by Speakers who are attending with an Exhibitor Corporate Badge. (See last section on this page)

Amount of Benefit

A Speaker Credit shall have no monetary value but shall represent a percentage of fixed registration fees for the conference.
Speakers must present one (1) or more sessions in order to receive the Volunteer Registration Rate*.
Speakers must present a minimum of two (2) sessions to be eligible to receive the first Speaker Credit.
Speakers will receive one (1) Speaker Credit per session unit consisting of at least one hour for two (2) or more sessions presented up to a maximum of five (5) sessions.
No speaker shall receive more than four (4) Speaker Credits no matter how many sessions they present.

There will be only one Speaker Credit awarded per session unit. If there are multiple speakers for a session, the Speaker Credit will not be split. The Speaker Credit will go to the lead speaker. The lead speaker will be, by default, the first speaker listed in the agenda. If there are two speakers for a two-unit session, by default the Speaker Credits will be divided between the speakers.

If there is an IBM speaker and a non-IBM speaker giving a session, the Speaker Credits will be, by default given to the non-IBM speaker. IBM Speakers are compensated under a different policy.

*Note: If Speaker does not stay in the Conference Hotel, the $200 non-conference hotel differential will be added to the Volunteer Registration Rate.

Usage of Speaker Credits

Each Speaker Credit can only be utilized for the following:

Twenty-Five percent (25%) off the published Volunteer Registration Rate up to a maximum of One Hundred percent (100%).

Speaker Credits must be used to defray the costs for registration in whole credit units up until the point that the remaining registration balance is zero.

Speaker Credits can only be applied to the volunteer registration costs for the Annual Meeting at which the speaker is presenting the sessions.

Speaker Credits Usage Summary

Sessions Presented

Benefits Earned

1

Volunteer Registration Rate

2

1 Speaker Credit = 25% off Volunteer Registration Rate

3

2 Speaker Credits = 50% off Volunteer Registration Rate

4

3 Speaker Credits = 75% off Volunteer Registration Rate

5 or more

4 Speaker Credits = 100% off Volunteer Registration Rate

Transferability

Speaker Credits may not be transferred to another speaker or another COMMON Annual Meeting.

Exhibitor Corporate Badge

If a Speaker uses a corporate badge from their exhibiting company, that Speaker forfeits their first four (4) Speaker Credits.

The President may designate a volunteer, paid staff, or other individuals to be responsible for the designation of the types of sessions.