What You Need To Know About Submitting Session Proposals to IBM TechXchange 2025

By DAVID Jenness posted 5 days ago

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IBM TechXchange 2025, October 6-9 in Orlando Florida, is a conference developed with technologists for technologists. One of the most unique aspects of the conference is the curriculum is contributed by active practitioners in the IBM Technical Community. In 2025, no less than 60% of the content will come from active clients, IBM Champions, members of user groups, partners and academics. The VIPs of our conference are the developers, data scientists, architects, designers and engineers who use IBM products every day to solve business challenges for their organizations.

As a result, the Call for Speakers, open now through April 11, is our most important source of content for Technology Breakouts, Tech Talks and Panel Discussions. Below is information about the submission process and what you can expect if your session is accepted.

Why Should You be a Speaker at IBM TechXchange 2025?

IBM TechXchange 2025 speakers benefit in many ways from participating in the conference. Previous speakers have attested that gaining recognition as a thought leader has helped raise their profile and enhanced their career. Many appreciate the VIP treatment that speakers receive at the conference, including such special perks as:

A complimentary conference pass; additional conference passes are available for client speakers to bring your teammate(s)
Access to personalized coaching to boost your speaking skills
Exclusive conference swag to commemorate your involvement
Social media kit to promote your session and appearance at IBM TechXchange 2025

Submission Process Explained

This year, the Submission Process is open to all clients and partners who wish to participate. The Call for Speakers is open for two months, closing on April 11. All submissions are reviewed by a Steering Committee made up of IBM Product leaders and Technical Sales specialists assigned to each content area, or Track. Your submissions are carefully considered with the intention of offering conference attendees a wide selection of independent viewpoints. Keep in mind that the TechXchange audience demands technical content, not marketing pitches. Submissions from IBM partners that have a client speaker attached will receive extra consideration from the Steering Committee members. Our attendees want to hear how other organization are using IBM partner solutions.

We are asking for sessions in two formats: a 20-minute Tech Talk or a 60-minute Technology Breakout.

· A Tech Talk is a succinct discussion of a use case, case study or special interest topic regarding IBM technologies, which is shared by a single technology expert, advocate, or enthusiast. Ideally, you would conduct this presentation yourself.

· A Technology Breakout is an in-depth, technical session delivered by a client, partner, or IBM subject matter expert, that demonstrates or explores IBM products, architectures, client case studies and/or best practices. For these longer sessions, you can request your IBM rep co-present with you. The IBMer will need to secure approval from their manager, as well as approval from the Steering Committee.

The Submission Form

We made the 2025 session submission form as simple as possible. First, the form asks you to clarify the reason your submission is important for the TechXchange audience. This helps our Steering Committees prioritize and evaluate submissions. You will be asked to select (from a drop-down menu) the IBM product that your session features. This helps us match your submission to the appropriate conference track. Please select the most appropriate industry your talk fits in or pick Cross Industry. Finally, you will be asked to identify whether your session is Introductory, Intermediate or Advanced. We are looking to provide a mix of all three levels.

Here is the list of IBM products from which to select:

Let’s “click” through the typical flow for proposal submissions.

Most speakers will begin on IBM.com on the Call for Speakers page. It addresses good reasons to Speak at TechXchange and briefly describes the two session types we are requesting at this time. And near the bottom, you’ll see important dates. Click the blue button to get started!

Everyone is directed to a landing page within our Conference Speaker Management system (you'll need an IBM ID), and there is a basic page (example below). The blue button will launch a form to intake your session ideas.

The intake form has several mandatory fields. Take a moment to tell us why you think the session is valuable to TechXchange audiences. Also, be thoughtful about whether your session is Introductory, Intermediate or Advanced.

Once you have submitted the session details, the next window asks you to select the speaker for the session. Most likely, this is yourself, but understand that this is an important step in the process and your session will not be complete unless a speaker is attached.

The next window is the Intake Form for Speaker details. This data is essential for the TechXchange team to offer the free conference pass, so do please fill in all required fields.

Once you press the blue Add Contact Info button, you’ll see that the Speaker name now appears associated with your session.

Press Continue to complete your session proposal. The next window shows that your session proposal has been submitted. You can see the relevant data, plus submitter and speaker. You are done with this session, however, if you would like to submit additional proposals, click the Submission Home button and it will return you to the Call for Session landing page.

If you do return to the Call for Speakers landing page, you will see all your previously submitted sessions along the bottom. Click the Blue Button to start the process over again.

As advocates for IBM products and solutions, IBM Champions also have an opportunity to offer Professional Development concepts, to help Technologists advance their career through proven soft skills, such as project management, team building, communications and more. IBM Champions will see a slightly different Intake form, but the process is basically identical.

What Happens When Your Session Accepted

Sometime after April 11, when the Call for Speakers closes, the Steering Committee members will begin to accept the sessions they want to feature within their Track. If yours is selected, you will receive an e-mail notifying you that your session has been accepted. You will be invited to visit the Speaker Portal where you will sign the Speaker Consent Form, as well as provide a headshot and speaker bio, so attendees will understand your experience and credentials. Once this is done, you will be able to register for the conference using your complimentary speaker pass. There is no registration code necessary; the system knows you are an accepted speaker.

The Steering Committees are working to achieve several goals:

1. Offer Technical Learning taught by the people who know it best

2. Provide a curriculum broad enough to cover the major product areas, but deep enough to accommodate the beginner, intermediate and advanced user

With this in mind, the team may reach out to you to ask you to adjust your focus for your submission. In that case, we will work with you to help reposition your title and abstract. Steering Committees could, for example, request that you make your session Introductory, because we have too many Advanced sessions or vice versa. They may add a “Meet the Expert” session in the Sandbox for attendees to ask you questions about your session or invite you to sit on a Panel Discussion.

Speaker Coaching Program

All IBM TechXchange 2025 speakers will have access to free speaker coaching. In 2024, we engaged professional speaker coaches, Gary Lafferty and Glenn Anderson, along with IBM executive trainer Alexis Barba and IBM Lifetime Champion and Toastmaster, Paul Cortellesi. They offered virtual training before the conference, live sessions at the conference and one-to-one sessions in the Sandbox. Feedback from the 2024 conference was so positive, we intend to expand the program in 2025.

You will find links to the Three Speaker Coaching Videos from 2024 at the end of this blog.

Social Media Kit

The Speaker Portal is also your source for social media tools that you can use to promote your session and let the world know that you are an IBM TechXchange 2025 speaker. You’ll find an easy tool to create a TechXchange-branded social tile with your photo and company logo. Then you can post to LinkedIn and all your favorite social media platforms.

What Makes a Great Submission

TechXchange attendees are practitioners first, which means they want to know how things work. In our Surveys, they rated very highly case studies presented by clients, often in tandem with an IBM partner who helped with design and deployment. Consider telling the story of an application or project, beginning with the business need or market conditions driving change, through the discovery, design and deployment phase, to the business results and next steps. Leave time for questions and you have a great Technology Breakout.

Some examples of customer case studies from IBM TechXchange 2024 (click on the link to view the presentation):

Transforming Integration to a Micro-services and Event Streaming Architecture at Jaguar Land Rover

Global Payments' experience of End-to-End Transaction Observability with Instana in Hybrid Cloud

From Tradition to Innovation: Upgrading Insurance at Scale with WebSphere Liberty

TechXchange attendees are also eager to learn Best Practices and Tips and Tricks for getting more value out of IBM products. Presentations that enhance an attendee’s knowledge around a product or collection of products is also highly valued.

Some examples of Product-focused tips and Tricks that were also very popular at TechXchange 2024 (click on the link to view the presentation):

Automating WebSphere Operations: Best Practices and Lessons Learned using IBM DevOps Deploy

Building APIs in the AI Era

How Generative AI Can Optimize Guardium Policies

View two short videos featuring tips and suggestions for creating awesome sessions.

Also, you can view three Speaker Coaching Videos prepared for IBM TechXchange 2024. We will offer a similar program in 2025.

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