Choose appropriate speakers

Cafe Scientifique Burlington

Our presenter was unable to make it at the last minute. I had set up the advertising, the web page links, the food, the bar, the questions…everything before I left on vacation for our Café Scientifique program, "Food Pathogens: Is there an app for that?" The day I arrived back in town was the evening we were to have a program. Blinking on my phone was a message that said that the guest speaker was not able to make it—he had another commitment.

Not having a lot of time to panic, I set out to find a replacement. I contacted our speaker’s company, a private, entrepreneurial business, and asked to talk with the lead technician. We had a brief conversation and, with a lot of encouragement on my part, he agreed to tackle our evening program.

The new speaker arrived a little bit earlier than most speakers so that we could go over his talk. We agreed that it was okay to say he didn’t know about certain areas of the content. I discovered, when talking with him, that while he was comfortable with the mechanics of the technology, he wasn’t as familiar with the consumer point of view.

When I introduced the speaker, I mentioned that he was a technician, that the original guest speaker was not able to attend, and that we would do our best to keep the conversation going about this technology. Luckily, a group of college students arrived with their professor. Apparently food safety was the area in which the professor taught! We asked her to assist with answers and whenever else she felt comfortable chiming in.

Although the evening went well, I realized in hindsight that finding an academic to speak on this topic might have been a better first choice. The focus of the evening should have been on the societal implications of the technology—which is clearly what the audience was most interested in—rather than the technology itself.

Lessons learned:  Gauge what your audience's interest as you plan your speakers.