Q. What are “takeaways” in a program proposal?
A. Takeaways are the “free gifts” that your audience can take home with them when they leave your show. People want to leave a presentation with the ability to actually do something or to be able to show that they know something new. Your takeaways need to be tangible or observable, they need to be measurable, and your audience will need to be able to do some action – to be able to perform.
The best way of meeting these criteria in your proposal is by using action verbs in your takeaways – not passive verbs. For example, a good takeaway would be “People will be able to list the four theories of copyright uses in a reserve collection” instead of “People will understand the concepts of intellectual property in a reserve collection”, More examples and lists of good action verbs are located in the Program Proposal’s Handbook.
Call for proposals website: http://www.aallnet.org/conference/education/future-meetings/program-proposers/call-for-proposals.html