Learning to maintain a healthy speaker profile

When was the last time you looked at your speaker profile and thought, “This actually represents who I am”?

For years, I have been speaking at conferences, user groups, and community events. I submitted session proposals, stepped on stage, refined my talks, and moved on to the next one. But somewhere along the way, I neglected the one place where my speaking identity lives publicly - my Sessionize profile. If you have read my earlier posts about exploring public speaking and submitting session proposals, this post is the natural next step: what happens after you build the habit of speaking and submitting - and how do you keep your speaker profile alive and honest.

What Sessionize is and why it matters

Sessionize is the platform many conferences and user groups use to manage their call for papers (often referred to as CFP). As a speaker, your Sessionize profile is more than a static bio page. It is your public portfolio, your submission engine, and your personal brand in the speaking world. Event organizers often browse speaker profiles long before they send invitations. A well-maintained profile shows your current expertise, demonstrates your speaking activity, and helps organizers match you with their audience.

Think of it as your speaker CV - but one that should evolve with your content.

If you are not familiar with Sessionize, the Sessionize Speaker Playbook  is a great starting point for understanding the platform and how it works for speakers.

Your bio is not your LinkedIn profile

Your Sessionize bio and your LinkedIn About section serve entirely different audiences with different questions in mind. One mistake I see often - and one I made myself early on - is treating them as interchangeable. It is tempting to paste the same text and move on, but that misses the point.

• Your LinkedIn bio answers: Who is this person professionally?
• Your Sessionize bio answers: Why should this person speak on this topic?

CFP reviewers are not evaluating your career trajectory or your leadership philosophy. They are scanning dozens - sometimes hundreds - of submissions and asking themselves whether you have the credibility and experience to deliver a compelling session on the topic you proposed. They want to know what you work with, what you have delivered, and why your perspective is worth 45 minutes of an audience’s time.

That means a good Sessionize bio is shorter, more focused, and more speaker-credibility-driven than a LinkedIn bio. Lead with your current role and what you help customers do - because that signals relevance to the topics you submit. Mention your community involvement and speaking experience early - because that builds confidence in your ability to deliver. And skip the career chronology, the personal philosophy, and the details that make a great LinkedIn profile but add nothing for a reviewer deciding between 30 session proposals on the same topic.

I keep both bios maintained separately. They share some DNA, but the framing and emphasis are different - because the audience is different.

The acceptance rate reality

Acceptance rates on Sessionize are something I do not talk about often. Despite having a profile for years and having spoken at numerous events, the number of sessions formally accepted through Sessionize’s call for papers process is small. Looking at my Sessionize profile , most of the events listed are ones I added manually - invited sessions, internal events, user group meetups, and conferences that used different submission platforms.

That acceptance rate gap can trigger a familiar voice. The one that whispers: “You are not really a speaker. Real speakers have dozens of accepted sessions. You are faking it.”

That voice is imposter syndrome, and it is wrong.

The reality is that many experienced speakers have a surprisingly low acceptance-to-submission ratio. Different events use different platforms. Many invitations arrive through personal connections, not CFP submissions. Community events and user groups often do not use Sessionize at all. And some of the most valuable speaking I have done - workshops, internal sessions, customer events - never shows up in a traditional CFP acceptance list.

The number of green “accepted” badges on your Sessionize profile is not a measure of your worth as a speaker. It is one data point, not the full picture.

Managing the inner voice

The best advice I have for dealing with imposter syndrome around your speaker profile is to reframe what the profile represents. It is not a scorecard. It is a portfolio. And like any portfolio, its value comes from what you choose to include and how you present it - not from what a system automatically tracks.

Every session you have delivered, every audience you have stood in front of, every nervous first minute that turned into a confident closing - that is your real speaking history. The challenge is making your Sessionize profile reflect that truth.

Creating sessions vs updating existing ones

Creating sessions versus updating existing ones is the most common dilemma for any active speaker, and one I have gone back and forth on myself. Early on, I treated every evolution of a talk as a reason to create a new session entry. The result was a profile full of near-duplicates - sessions with slightly different titles covering essentially the same ground. It was confusing to organizers and confusing to me when I tried to figure out which version to submit.

The opposite extreme is just as problematic. I have seen speakers update the same session entry so many times that the title, abstract, and actual content have drifted apart completely. The session description promises one thing, but the talk delivers something else. That disconnect erodes trust with organizers who selected the session based on what the abstract said.

Update an existing session when:

• The core topic is the same
• You are refining the talk, not reinventing it
• You want to maintain a consistent speaking history
• You are polishing delivery, not changing the content direction

Create a new session when:

• The angle, audience, or promise of the talk has changed significantly
• The session title or abstract no longer matches the content you actually deliver
• You are introducing a new narrative, new demos, or a new storyline
• You need a “fresh” session for events that require new submissions

A good rule: if the session would confuse an organizer who saw the old version, create a new one.

I think of it like software versions. Minor updates - same session entry. Major rewrite - new session entry. The version number does not show on Sessionize, but the discipline of thinking in terms of incremental refinement versus a fresh start has helped me keep my profile coherent.

Handling events that require new sessions

Many events ask for “new” sessions - but “new” is rarely defined. The safest approach is to create a new session entry with a new title, a refreshed abstract, and a new angle. If you want to preserve history, duplicate the existing session, update the copy, and hide the original. This keeps your speaking timeline intact while meeting the requirement.

Showing and hiding sessions

Sessionize gives you visibility control, and using it strategically keeps your profile clean and focused. I learned this the hard way. At one point, I had over a dozen sessions visible. Some were outdated. Some were event-specific. Others no longer reflected the topics I wanted to be known for. When I looked at my own profile through the eyes of an organizer, the signal was buried in noise.

Think about what a profile with 15 visible sessions communicates versus one with four or five focused ones. The first says “I speak about everything” - which really means “I am not sure what I stand for.” The second says “Here is what I bring to your event, and I am confident about it.” Organizers scanning profiles are making quick decisions. A curated selection makes their job easier and your positioning clearer.

Show sessions that:

• Represent your current expertise
• You are actively submitting to events
• Are polished and relevant

Hide sessions that:

• Are outdated or retired
• Were specific to a single event
• Do not reflect your current direction

Hidden sessions are not deleted. They stay available if you need them later, but they do not clutter your public profile. I try to keep three to six active sessions visible at any time - enough to show range, not so many that it creates noise for organizers browsing my profile.

There is also an emotional side to this. Hiding a session you invested hours in - one you wrote, rehearsed, and delivered with pride - can feel like admitting it no longer matters. But it does still matter. It is part of your history. Hiding it is not erasing it. It is making room for the sessions that represent where you are going, not just where you have been.

The reuse dilemma

Reusing sessions is not only normal - it is essential.

A session becomes great because you deliver it multiple times. You refine the story, sharpen the demos, and learn where the audience leans in or checks out. Repetition is how a good talk becomes a signature talk.

But there is a flip side. We have all attended a conference, seen a familiar title, and thought: “I have already seen this one.” If possible, we switch rooms. As speakers, we owe it to the audience - and to ourselves - to avoid becoming predictable. A session should not become a museum exhibit. It should evolve.

If you find yourself wanting to ask the audience “Has anyone seen this session before?” - stop. That question signals that the session probably needs a refresh, not that the audience needs to justify your reuse. It breaks the flow, signals insecurity, and puts the responsibility on the audience to validate your content choices.

The balance I try to strike: deliver a session multiple times to make it great, but refresh it before it becomes stale. The content evolves, the profile stays clean, and the audience gets the best version of what I have to offer.

Your profile as a speaking archive

Making Sessionize my single source of truth for my speaking history is something I feel strongly about and continue to work on.

Sessionize allows you to add events manually - not just the ones where your session was accepted through a CFP. I use this feature to record conferences, user group meetings, workshops, and events where I spoke but that operated outside the Sessionize ecosystem. Events like the Microsoft Tech Summits, Global Azure Bootcamps, and Windows Management User Group sessions I have done over the years - none of these went through a Sessionize CFP. But they are all part of my story. And the practical value of keeping them in one place adds up quickly:

• One place to look when someone asks where you have spoken
• A timeline that shows your growth as a speaker over the years
• Reference data you can reuse for bios, CVs, event applications, and your own blog
• Evidence that your speaking history is broader than what the acceptance badges suggest
• A ready-made source for submissions outside Sessionize - when an event uses a different platform or asks you to email your abstract, you have polished, up-to-date text ready to copy rather than writing from scratch every time

I have taken this a step further by building a Hugo shortcode that pulls sessions and events directly from Sessionize’s public API and renders them wherever I need them on my site. This means my blog always reflects my current Sessionize profile without manual duplication - when I update a session on Sessionize, it automatically appears wherever the shortcode is used.

But I will be honest - maintaining this is a challenge. It is one of those tasks that is easy to postpone and hard to catch up on. It requires you to track events as they happen rather than reconstructing them months later. I have experienced the frustration of trying to remember exact dates, event names, and locations from sessions I did years ago. The further back you go, the harder it gets.

A sustainable maintenance routine

For a long time, my approach to profile maintenance was reactive. I would update my bio the night before a CFP deadline and scramble to remember which sessions were still relevant. Halfway through, I would realize my abstracts referenced product features that had changed months ago. The result was always the same - rushed updates, missed details, and the nagging feeling that my profile was never quite accurate.

What changed was accepting that this is not a task you do once and forget. It is an ongoing practice, like keeping your CV current or backing up your files. The routine I have settled on is not complex, but it only works because it is small enough to actually do consistently. Every time I confirm a speaking engagement - whether it is a conference, a user group session, or an internal event - I add it to Sessionize immediately. Even if the event is months away. I update the details once it is over, and I make a note of it in my OneNote so nothing falls through the cracks.

After every speaking engagement:

• Add the event to Sessionize if it is not already there.
• Note the date, location, and which session you delivered.
• Capture a quick reflection: what worked, what to improve.

Twice a year (I aim for January and June):

• Update your bio to reflect your current role and focus.
• Hide sessions that no longer represent your direction.
• Refresh abstracts on active sessions - small updates go a long way.
• Check that your links, social profiles, and contact information are current.

Before CFP season:

• Reduce visible sessions to your strongest three to six.
• Rewrite abstracts to match current product reality and your current expertise.
• Consider whether any retired sessions deserve a fresh version with a new angle.

The cost of skipping this is not dramatic - it is gradual. You do not notice the drift until you open your profile six months later and realize it describes someone you were, not someone you are. And by then, catching up feels like a project instead of a habit.

This is not glamorous work. But it is the kind of maintenance that separates a profile that works for you from one that works against you.

Connecting the dots

Maintaining a speaker profile is part of a larger journey I have been writing about - the journey of putting yourself out there, growing through discomfort, and discovering what you have to offer. If you have read 5 reasons you should promote yourself, 5 reasons you should start a blog, or my post on building a LinkedIn posting strategy, this post is another piece of the same puzzle.

Your Sessionize profile is a living document. The goal is not to constantly reinvent yourself - it is to present a clear, current, and compelling picture of who you are as a speaker. Reusing sessions is healthy. Letting them stagnate is not. Adding events manually is worth the effort. And imposter syndrome will always try to convince you otherwise - but your profile, maintained with care and honesty, tells the real story.

Could I be better at it? Absolutely. But the fact that I am thinking about it, writing about it, and refining my approach means the profile is alive. And that is the whole point.

–Jesper

Header image attribution: Image created with help from Microsoft Copilot