Following are the goals set by the ILTA Conference Co-chairs, which direct all aspects of the educational program development:

Overall Conference Goals
Align the strategic goals of conference with those of the organization

Collaborate with all supporting structures of the organization to align and integrate programming

• Strengthen the team approach to staff/officer/volunteer involvement
• Create educational content that is an extension of programming that happens pre- and post-conference

Maintain high value, affordable conference

• Set registration fees for members and vendors that align with our expenses
• Provide value for vendor sponsorships

Provide consistent internal and external communication

• Communicate organizational and conference goals to the conference team
• Facilitate communication among all officers and their supporting teams
• Mentor and monitor the conference team to ensure consistent quality of deliverables
• Improve communication with our speakers to ensure consistency of deliverables
• Develop and deliver an external communication plan that reflects the value proposition and the ongoing ROI analysis

Increase networking opportunities

• Align networking opportunities with organizational structure (regions, peer groups, focus groups, professional strata)
• Target networking events to attendees who have limited opportunities to connect with their specific peers
• Communicate (market) networking opportunities across various organization venues (website, listservs, conference brochures, conference e-news, officer communications to specific constituencies)

Balance vendor interaction to our culture and member needs

• Observe desired vendor speaker ratio as stated in the educational program goals
• Work with vendors to ensure marketing focus centers around educational and product offerings
• Provide adequate opportunities for members to visit the exhibit hall
• Communicate the value of vendor/sponsor contributions to the conference

Demonstrate our focus on the latest technology to assist in conference planning and implementation

Strengthen the sustainability program/policies in conference planning and implementation

Increase international participation

• Market to international members
• Encourage international membership on panels

Maximize collaborative opportunities with the Law Department peer group/attendees to gain further value from their ‘client-focused’ perspective.

Goals for Educational Program
Deliver high-quality sessions

• Define and apply consistent standards for session planning across all content
• Define the focus of each track in specific, qualitative terms and match session content to the track focus
• Develop fresh, relevant, diverse content
• Develop content that attracts decision makers
• Define the target audience for each session, and match session content to the audience
• Define the technical depth for each session and match the session content

Manage the speaker population

• Maintain a member/vendor speaker participation ratio of 65/35
• Seek out the best qualified speaker(s) on each topic
• Seek out, mentor and manage new speakers to ensure a fresh, diverse speaker population
• Define and document speaker management to support the conference team in selecting and mentoring their speakers and developing their content
• Define and publish session presentation types (presentation, panel, roundtable discussion)
• Develop educational content to include a minimum of 25% at an intermediate or advanced level
• Refine the selection and mentoring of moderators to ensure quality panel sessions