Provisional Finding on Speaker Request Hesitation
A LinkedIn post requesting speakers for a webinar received forty-seven reactions from people who wanted to be asked directly rather than apply through a form.
Provisional Finding on Speaker Request Hesitation Field Notes on Professional Visibility and the Application Threshold
Observation
A LinkedIn post was published. The post requested speakers for an online industry event scheduled for February. The post included a Google Form link. The post received forty-seven emoji reactions, eleven comments containing variations of the phrase "great initiative," and four form submissions.
The four submissions were received from three people who had previously spoken at events and one person who misread the form as a registration for attendance.
Finding 1: The Form Is the Barrier
The form asked for a name, a proposed topic, and a brief bio. These are the three pieces of information a speaker would need to provide regardless of the application method. The form did not add requirements; it formalized them.
The formalization was sufficient to prevent forty-three people who clicked "react" from clicking the link.
The form exists because the organizer wanted to manage inbound interest. The hesitation exists because applicants wanted to be selected without having demonstrated interest. These two positions are structurally incompatible in a way that the forty-seven reactions obscure.
Finding 2: The DM Is the Alternative
By Wednesday, the organizer had received nine direct messages. Seven of them began with a variation of "I saw your post and wasn't sure if the form was still open." The form was open. It remained open. It had been open for four days.
The DMs required more effort to send than the form required to fill out. This did not reduce their volume. The DMs offered the sender the option of being declined conversationally rather than via silence from a Google Form, which is a different kind of rejection and is preferred.
Finding 3: Visibility Has Acquired an Intermediate Step
In the second year of working from home, professional visibility migrated to LinkedIn, where the currency is reactions and the conversion rate from reaction to action follows a pattern that marketing teams would recognize and find discouraging.
The people who filled out the form were not the people who were most qualified. They were the people most comfortable filling out forms. Whether this is a selection problem or a form design problem is a question that produces lengthy discussion and no change to the form.
Governing Rule
A public call for speakers functions as a poll on who finds visibility comfortable rather than a competitive selection among available speakers. The reaction count measures awareness of the opportunity. It does not measure intent, qualification, or availability.
Four people applied. One of them wanted to attend.
The event is scheduled for February.