Open content development to members; name-blind the review.
technique — attributed to Lauren Kotkin
After twenty years of in-house content curation, Exponent Philanthropy opened the process to member proposals. The selection was done name-blind: reviewers did not see who was behind the submissions. The technique solved two problems at once. It surfaced new voices that staff curation would have missed. It also let the team continue to bring back known voices whose messages deserved another hearing. The discipline matters because most call-for-proposals processes default to credential-driven selection that rewards the already-known. Name-blind review evaluates the content on its own terms. Both new and returning voices win on merit rather than on familiarity.
For conference programmers, association executives, and content directors thinking about opening content development beyond the in-house team. The technique is most useful when the team wants new voices but worries about quality control.
session-proposals, name-blind-review, new-voices, community-driven