Frequently Asked Questions About Our Programs

We ask that someone from your group welcome participants, thank them for coming, then introduce our speaker(s) to the group by reading a specific biography that we provide. Here is the introduction for Dr. Fran Kaplan (PDF download).

If there are other presenters you need an introduction for, contact us directly

For facilitated dialogue programs, we also send a document with facilitator bios and headshots for you to share with participants in advance of the program.

The farther out, the better. Our schedule often gets very busy!

At least a month in advance is a good rule of thumb for booking stand-alone presentations.

For larger programs, especially Deep Dive Dialogue series, we may be booking many months out. In these cases, our policy is first contracted, first served. So even if we’ve discussed available dates, we can’t guarantee availability until you’re ready to commit.

Besides limits on how many slots we have available for the programs themselves, we need enough time for planning. Our booking staff works part-time hours, so we’ll need to budget enough lead time to allow for emailing back and forth to work out all the practical details and get the paperwork done. Once everything on that end is finalized, we send the information over to our presenters and they need time to prepare the content for your program. So the more advanced notice you can give us, the better!

Before you promote the program, please make sure that we are under contract with you. Some of the steps we take during the booking process are necessary before we can truly commit to speaking at your event, and it doesn’t look good for anyone to have to announce a cancellation because we got too far ahead of ourselves. If you’re antsy to promote the program because it’s coming up quickly but some paperwork is still pending, just ask us if we’re comfortable with you moving forward on promotions.

Once you’ve got the green light to promote, please use the following resources. We ask that you not use information found elsewhere, even from speaker social media profiles, as these are often not the most updated sources.

Please refer to your contract to confirm who will be presenting, and use the appropriate resources below!

Titles:

If you list titles and affiliations for speakers at your event, please use the following language and do not reference any other organizational affiliations:

• Dr. Fran Kaplan: Founder, Nurture LLC – OR – Founder & Lead Trainer/Consultant, Nurture LLC

• Other speakers: Please check with us

Photos:

Dr. Fran Kaplan Headshot

If there are other presenters you need a headshot for, contact us directly.

Bios: 

We have bios of many different lengths available for promotional use, all of which are available in this document (PDF download). Please do not edit these or come up with your own versions without approval. If one of these will not work for some reason, please let us know what you need or the changes you’d like to make, and wait for us to confirm whether those changes are okay with us.

See our FAQ on “How should I introduce the speakers at my event”, above, for the bios that you should use when introducing us. These are slightly longer than the promotional bios.

Presentation Blurbs:

If we are presenting one of our common program topics we can provide you with a short description of the program. If you want to use anything else or your program is custom, please consult us. If you write a draft of what you had in mind, we are happy to review and approve or edit. While we can often get back to you faster if you have a draft we can review, we’re also happy to write something from scratch for you!

For formats like panel discussions, we don’t need as much oversight of programs descriptions. We are most concerned about reviewing material for programs where we are presenting our own original content.

Our presentations are multimedia: they include video clips with sound, still images, text, animations, and sometimes even music. These elements help us to engage and support audiences in learning about challenging material.

Planning ahead to ensure that our clients can provide the right A/V setup for presentations and workshops is crucial to this engagement and learning.

Here’s what we need:

• Our Laptop: Ability to plug our Mac laptop directly into both the audio (speakers) and visual (screen) systems.

• Computer Location: Our laptop set up on stage next to or in front of the presenter so they can easily see it. We bring our own remote clicker to advance slides, but we still need direct access to the computer itself while presenting to manage the audience response system and other multimedia elements.

• Visual: Very large screen everyone in audience can see clearly, whether LCD/LED monitors or a projector with projection screen.

• Audio: Good quality sound system that everyone in audience can hear clearly.

• Microphones: 1 microphone per presenter. Lavalier preferred, handhelds are okay.

• Wifi: Access to onsite internet that will remain accessible throughout the presentation time. If there are firewalls in place, we need to ensure in advance that our audience polling program will work.

• Tech support: A person experienced with your A/V system speaks with us ahead of time, meets us in the program venue to help set up 40-60 minutes ahead of the program, and stays through the presentation (or is nearby and accessible by phone) in case of need during the program.

We ask that clients send us a photo of their space and A/V set up in addition to talking with us about the specifics, so we know what to expect.

If you can’t accommodate our standard setup, please let us know before booking the program. We can often find a way to work within your space, but exceptions to our standard setup usually require extra planning and a visit to your space ahead of the program.

In most cases, we allow a little time at the end of our programs for Q&A. We use one of two methods:

Mentimeter:

For many presentations, we incorporate use of an audience polling system called Mentimeter. In these cases, we can also use it for participants to submit their questions, in which case the presenter will see the questions on their computer and answer them that way. We suggest that you still have a few notecards on hand, and offer to hand them out to anyone who doesn’t want to answer questions on a smartphone.

Notecards:

If we aren’t using Mentimeter, we ask that clients hand out index cards to all audience members at the beginning of the presentation and let them know to write their questions down on them as they arise. Please make specific plans for how you will hand out the cards and how you will collect them at the end. For example, with classroom seating, you could ask participants to pass them down to the end of the row and have someone collect them there.

If you want to keep a tight control on how much time we spend on Q&A, we suggest that someone from your team be in charge of managing the Q&A cards. You can read them through, help cluster them together if appropriate, and hand them to the presenter one at a time for as long as time allows. If you aren’t worried about how long we go, feel free to hand them to the presenter all at once or as you receive them.

Other approaches:

For very small and informal audiences, we are okay with taking questions directly from the audience verbally, if you prefer it. That said, there are many reasons we usually avoid this approach. We find that with a sensitive topic, people feel more comfortable asking questions anonymously. We also don’t always have time to answer all questions, so using written questions makes it easier to select the ones that are likely to be valuable to the most people in the room, to group clusters of similar questions, and to ensure individual participants don’t accidentally use up all the Q&A time with long comments instead of questions.

In general, we prefer to handle setting up the online meeting so we can ensure settings are enabled correctly and everything goes smoothly.

If we are doing a presentation as part of a larger event (like an online conference), we understand the need to keep everything on one call. If you are hosting the call, this will require:

• Some extra discussion about tech setup (regardless of platform)

• A test session prior to signing a contract or promoting our appearance, to ensure our technical needs can be met in your environment (if it is a platform we haven’t used before)

Given these extra requirements of time and effort, we charge a small additional fee when our clients are hosting on their own platform.

Most of the time, we use an audience response / interactive polling system called Mentimeter to keep our programs engaging, and we ask participants to submit their questions on the same platform.

Sometimes for shorter programs (1 hour or less), we ask participants to enter their questions in chat on the call. In this case, our moderator is able to help sort through chat to pull those out.

We have 3 different options for sending joining information to participants. You will need to select the one that fits your situation:

• Internal audience: If the program is for internal staff training and you know about how many people will come, we will send joining emails with all the information you need, which can be forwarded directly to those involved, and explicit registration isn’t necessary. (This only works well if everyone is in the same email domain, so sending out a mass email won’t look like spam.) In this scenario, we send emails as follows:

  • • A week before the call: an email with all the joining information and attachments with detailed instructions. If you want this first email sooner, just let us know!

    • 1-2 days before the call: a reminder with the link and the code for participating in online polling (if applicable)

• Client manages registration: If you prefer to manage registration yourself on another platform (EventBrite, SignUp Genius, the system embedded in your website, etc), select this option. We will provide the joining information and link so you can plug that information into your system’s automated emails.

• We manage registration on EventBrite: If handling registration is a challenge for you we can manage registration for you on EventBrite for an extra $150 fee. EventBrite allows for more visual elements like photos, longer program descriptions, speaker bios, etc. They do require participants to create a user account to sign up for the event.

Please note: Regardless of registration approach, the links to our online sessions should not be posted anywhere publicly, and we will ask that participants not share them with others.

We provide a guide and instructions for joining the program. Most people are able to join without a challenge.

We also provide a technical support person / moderator for each program, who is available to answer technical questions shortly before and during the program. Having trouble joining? Can’t hear the sound? Our moderator can help participants troubleshoot. (If there is a large influx of questions for some reason, naturally they will need time to work through all of them!)

In a worst case scenario where the call goes down (such as an internet outage at the presenter’s location), we will be happy to reschedule for a future date at no additional charge. We don’t anticipate this being a problem, but need to be realistic that nothing is guaranteed when it comes to technology.

We are careful about what we agree to regarding recordings because:

• The topics we present on are challenging and can easily lead to misunderstandings if material is edited or used out of context, so we need to control how our material is presented.

• We have spent years and many thousands of hours developing our subject matter expertise and the multimedia elements of our presentations. This is how we make our living, so we can’t afford to let recordings of our programs freely circulate.

That said, we value being able to ensure that everyone in a group can see the same material, even if a few people can’t make it on a specific day. For groups that want to give participants a chance to see the program if they simply couldn’t make it the day-of, we provide an add-on option for temporary access to a recording. Here’s how we approach that:

1. We agree on how long you need access and what it will cost*

2. We take care of making necessary edits to adjust portions that only work well “live” and post the recording to a hidden YouTube page (one where you need the link to find it)

3. We send you that link and you share it with the original group the program was shared with.**

4. The recording remains up for 2-4 weeks following the date we send it to you, depending on our agreement; we confirm this date at the time we send it along so you can post the date along with the link. After the end date passes, the link no longer works.

* Default rates are $200 for 2 weeks of access, with an extra $100 per week thereafter. If you need more than a month’s worth of access, we need to discuss, as the intention is for this to be short term access. We reserve the right to adjust prices up or down based on the unique context of your situation.

** The understanding is that we’re making sure your entire group can see it; not expanding the audience to a wider group. This means you’re welcome to share the link using mailing lists that target your specific audience. We generally ask that you refrain from posting it publicly, as it can be very easy for it to be forwarded to a much wider audience that hasn’t paid to see this content. If public-facing channels are the only way you have to reach your original audience, we can discuss further how we might approach that.

If you need longer access or to control the recording directly, we will need to discuss with you to determine if we can agree on a plan and a price point. We have occasionally agreed to have clients host a recording on their company intranet, for example, with specific agreements about how long it will be available.

We do not allow recordings with indefinite access, and generally avoid posting recordings in public locations. We are more likely to make an exception for a program where we appear as a panelist (or similar) than when we are doing a full-length presentation.

When we host programs, we record by default for internal review and in case you decide to purchase this add-on after the fact. Only our presenters and whoever is introducing us show up on this recording; participants don’t need to worry about showing up in recordings.

In order to balance our desire to make our programs accessible to as many groups as possible while also ensuring we can earn a living doing this important work, we use a sliding fee structure based on organization type and size.

Since our pricing is on the complex side, we provide an explicit price quote once we’ve talked with you about what you want and need. If you want to peek under the hood, you can see our current fee schedule for online programs here.

If the price we quote is more than you can afford, there are a couple ways we can help. First, we are happy to help you identify some creative ideas for funding the program or partnering with another organization to share the cost. Secondly, if those efforts don’t pan out or aren’t realistic for you, please feel free to negotiate. We can’t promise that we’ll be able to agree to a lower price, but we make our best effort to work with you. Be transparent about what works for you, and we’ll do the same.

For programs that are less than 10 miles round trip for our speakers there are no additional expenses for travel. For all other programs, the following travel expenses may apply:

• Mileage Reimbursement: We charge the federal reimbursement rate of $.58/mile, calculated in advance.

• Direct Travel Expenses: For trips that require hotel accommodations, train tickets, and/or plane tickets, clients need to cover the cost of these expenses. They will be purchased by us and reimbursed by Client OR arranged and paid for directly by the Client in consultation with us. For travel by train or plane, we travel Coach in the USA or Business internationally.

• Per Diem: Applicable for programs outside of our area, per diem is calculated for each day the speaker works, including travel days (beyond 90 miles), to cover meals and incidental expenses (like airport parking) at the Federal rate for your area.

We will send you invoices via email. We also accept checks mailed to the address on the invoice.

Most short programs are billed 50% of the base fee upfront and the remainder plus travel expenses and reimbursements afterwards. If your organization has a policy preventing payment prior to service completion, we invoice 100% afterwards. Larger programs generally have a custom fee schedule.

We prefer not to accept checks in person at events, as the person who handles our deposits is not present at most programs. That said, we can flex if your organization has a standard policy.