Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Calling on the audience: The other half of the moderator's job

You may think that corralling the speakers and keeping them on time is your main job, but in fact, it's only half the job description for a panel moderator. The rest involves calling on the audience and keeping the question time a major part of the sparkling discussion for which you are aiming.

I'm a big fan of allowing at least 50 percent of the panel time for questions. It's the best way to make sure your audience isn't dissatisfied by the end of the session...and often, it's the last thing that speakers think about. So it falls to the moderator to make it happen. Here are more tips for keeping questions fair and frequent:
  • Have some starter questions or follow-up questions in your back pocket: If the audience is slow to speak up or there's an obvious gap in an answer, make sure you jump in with a question of your own. You'll find several creative lines of questioning in my ebook, linked below.
  • Alternate calling on men and women: Both male and female leaders call on men more frequently. Create some balance by alternating genders when you are calling on audience members.
  • Move around the room: Don't just call on the people waggling their hands furiously in the front row. Call on people in the back, middle, and on the sides, so all can see they have a fairer chance of getting a question in edgewise. And don't call on the same person twice.
  • If there are a lot of questions, batch them: Let's say one person asks a question about an important aspect of the topic, and you can see others with their hands still up, or looking as if there's more to say on that score. You can pause the speakers and say, "If there are other questions on this specific topic, let's hear them all now before the panel responds." Feel free to put off questioners who use this opening to ask something off-topic.
  • Call on statement-makers to ask a question: Take a leaf from the book of call-in radio show hosts and interrupt a long-winded statement-maker with, "May we have your question?" If there isn't one, say, "Thanks, then, for sharing those thoughts. It's a big issue," and move on with a "Next question?"
(Creative Commons licensed photo by Geek Girl Con)

Need more coaching on how to be a better panel moderator? Order the new ebook The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels. At just $3.99 and available in many formats, it's a great back-pocket coach to take on stage with you in your smartphone or tablet. Find more tips on public speaking on The Eloquent Woman blog.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Yes, you can: Avoiding "what she said" on a panel

Repeat after me: If you want sparkling discussion on a panel, at some point, someone needs to disagree with--or at least differ from--someone else.

Unfortunately, too many speakers wind up saying some version of "what she said" when they attempt to chime in on a point. Also called "down-the-line" questions because that's how they move through a panel, the tactic is not just repetitive and boring for the audience, it uses up valuable time for new and different thoughts. (And it may mean your speakers aren't working hard enough.) What can a moderator do?

In Panel Discussions and Dissent, Cate Huston shares one tactic used when she was a panelist:
Speaker panels can be a bit overwhelming, because there end up being so many people on stage, which makes them a special problem. We did an interesting thing for the speaker panel at 360iDev which I think is worth talking about.  
Any question was supposed to be taken by only one panelist, and then there was a separate section of three people (including me!) for strong opinions. One of us was supposed to weigh in after, only if we disagreed.
Notice that was "one," not "all," for the responses.

Moderators can really shine when a panel has "what she said" syndrome. Here are a few more things moderators can do to avoid the problem:
  • Tell the panelists in advance that you don't want any repetitive chiming in. Even if it sounds obvious, believe me, it isn't.
  • Announce at Q&A time how you want the answers to unfold. Try "On this panel, we're going to ask the panelists not to answer questions all the way down the line, unless they disagree with the first respondent. We want to allow time for many views, so speakers, help me out." Or, try this: "Only one speaker will answer each question, so we can keep the discussion moving forward. Speakers and audience members, help me keep this rule enforced." In this way, the audience becomes a guarantee that your speakers won't slip around that rule, and the speakers are on notice, with witnesses.
  • Give the audience a chance to disagree: After one panelist answers a question, turn to the audience and say, "I wonder if there are any dissenting views on that score from the audience?"
  • Ask a challenge question: "What if that weren't possible--then what would you do?" or a similar follow-up question might provoke different views from all the panelists.
(Creative Commons licensed photo by Geek Girl Con)

Need more coaching on how to be a better panel moderator? Order the new ebook The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels. At just $3.99 and available in many formats, it's a great back-pocket coach to take on stage with you in your smartphone or tablet. Find more tips on public speaking on The Eloquent Woman blog.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Panel moderators, channel Sheryl Crow and ask for "My favorite mistake"

Sheryl Crow's My Favorite Mistake isn't just one of my favorite songs. It's among my favorite themes when I'm moderating a panel of speakers at a conference or meeting.

Just to be clear, I have an important rule for asking a panel of speakers to disclose their favorite mistakes: The mistake must be one of your own doing--no taking potshots at others' mistakes, just your own. And the more important the panel, the better. I moderated a group of public relations women who--along with me--had won Washington Women in Public Relations's "Washington PR Woman of the Year" award on this very theme, and the session was a smash hit. There's nothing as electric as listening to a group of speakers who have hit their professional stride describe the boulders they threw in their own paths.

If you are the moderator, here are a few more considerations to keep in mind with this provocative theme. You may wish to limit social media posts during such a session, to further encourage the panel's frankness. Get yourself and the panel ready for equally open questions from the audience--once the panel opens up, you can expect the audience to do the same. And certainly, the moderator should discuss the topic with each panelist individually, or with the entire panel as a group, so there are no surprises. This isn't a topic to pull out at the last moment with no notice, and you'll get better answers if you let the panel get used to the idea ahead of time.

You'll find many more panel themes and creative lines of questioning for panels in my ebook on moderating, at the link below. Start thinking about your own favorite mistake if you're going to moderate such a panel. It makes a great statement if the moderator is as willing as the panelists are to disclose that mistake!

(Creative Commons licensed photo by Cliff)

Need more coaching on how to be a better panel moderator? Order the new ebook The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels. At just $3.99 and available in many formats, it's a great back-pocket coach to take on stage with you in your smartphone or tablet. Find more tips on public speaking on The Eloquent Woman blog.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Creative lines of questioning for moderators: Redeem this

I've got creative panel themes and creative lines of questioning for moderators--15 of each--in The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels. But I admit that my favorite line of questioning is cribbed from NPR Fresh Air radio host Terry Gross. I'm happy to give her credit: The host of an hour-long interview show about the arts, society, politics, and more, Gross is a deft interviewer, and an on-air interviewer is a great model for a panel moderator--particularly a panel moderator who needs to learn to interrupt, ask questions, and serve as a true guide for the discussion.

Gross from time to time asks her interview subjects to "redeem this," and I think that's a great question for a group of panel speakers. Here's how it works: Ask each speaker to pick an unpopular practice, item or tool that they happen to like a lot, and redeem it--telling the audience why they think its charms have been unfairly overlooked. As moderator, you also could choose the item or practice to be redeemed and ask the panel to defend it.

What would that look like? Here are a few examples I can think of:
  • An IT specialist might redeem a much-hated piece of software
  • A food critic might defend the street hot dog or similar fare
  • A television producer might justify a famously bad sitcom
You could ask each speaker to redeem something specific, or ask all of them to redeem the same thing. Think of topics that qualify as professional guilty pleasures, or things everyone uses but no one will admit to using, or out-of-fashion but once popular approaches. All are potential fodder for a "redeem this" panel theme or line of questioning. Have fun with this one! It has the advantage of surprise, and will yield unusual answers from your panel. And isn't that what the audience is hoping for?

Go here to read more NPR Fresh Air interviews. Who knows what lines of questioning or themes you'll find for your next panel? Find 14 more like this one in my ebook, which you can order at the link below.

(Creative Commons licensed photo by Adam Schwelgert)

Need more coaching on how to be a better panel moderator? Order the new ebook The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels. At just $3.99 and available in many formats, it's a great back-pocket coach to take on stage with you in your smartphone or tablet. Find more tips on public speaking on The Eloquent Woman blog.