Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Should panel moderators have to answer their own questions?

In Ta-Nehisi Coates Asks: Who's French? Who's American?, the New York Times recently interviewed the author about an upcoming panel he'd be moderating in New York about French and American culture. And one of the questions asked him to answer a question posed as the title of the panel.

From the interview, the question, and Coates's answer:
You’re moderating the opening panel, “When Will France Have Its Barack Obama?,” which features Jelani Cobb from The New Yorker, along with three French scholars, including Pap Ndiaye, the author of “La Condition Noire” and a founder of black studies in France. What’s your answer to that question? 
I’m going to let the folks on the panel talk. But I’d say that Barack Obama, to an extent that is not fully understood, is really a product of black institutions. It’s not like he ran from Hawaii. He went to the South Side of Chicago, which has a long, long political tradition. There was a community to root himself in. How does that happen in France? There you had the lack of a trenchant Jim Crow system, the lack of slavery on the mainland. The things that made racism so severe here actually gave black institutions much of their vigor. And there is a strong sense of community held together by those institutions. I could be dead wrong about this, but it would be tough to look for a Harlem in Paris. There are black neighborhoods, don’t get me wrong. But that’s not all Harlem is.
It's a good answer, making sure right from the start that he's waiting to hear what the panel says. But he does add some context and perspective on the panel topic.

It's also a good reminder to panel moderators. You might be asked to answer your own question, or the question posed by your panel topic--and that might come in an advance media interview, in a hallway conversation at the conference, or by a panelist or a member of the audience in real time, while the panel is ongoing. So when you're prepping your questions, be sure to prep your own answers to your own questions.

(Creative Commons licensed photo by the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan)

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, November 22, 2016

The Research Companion recommends our guide to moderating panels

If you're an academic researcher, it's fair to say that into your academic life, a lot of panel discussions will fall. Over time, you'll find that it's easy to stand out if you spend a little time learning the smartest way to approach this commonplace speaking task.

I'm delighted to say that The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels is among the resources recommended to researchers in The Research Companion: A practical guide for those in the social sciences, health and development, by Petra M. Boynton.

Boynton includes my ebook among resources for presenters considering different formats for presenting their work--a smart thing to consider before you send off your response to the call for proposals.

The book should be available now, or you can pre-order at the link above.

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, November 15, 2016

15 tips panel moderators can learn from the 2016 election

The election and its debates are well over, but moderation was a star--sometimes notorious, but still a star--in the 2016 presidential campaign. And while debates differ from panel discussions in many ways, they still offer panel moderators plenty of lessons. These posts share 15 key lessons you can use to improve your next moderation gig:
  1. 3 key lessons from Chris Wallace's debate moderation can be summed up this way: offer context, guide the conversation, and don't let the speakers evade direct questions.
  2. Panel moderators (and debate moderators) can fact-check on the fly--by asking the speakers to explain, confirm, or support their dubious statements for the audience. 
  3. You'll need to interrupt speakers from time to time, but it pays to assess how often you do that to female versus male speakers, a practice that brought criticism to Matt Lauer's moderation of dueling interviews with the candidates.
  4. Voters had opinions on how much time debate moderators spent on topics, and so does your audience for panels--so this post includes 4 things you can do in advance to figure out what your audience wants.
  5. Preparation's important for any panel moderator. Here are 5 tips from the presidential debate moderators on how they get ready.
  6. Whether moderators should ask or avoid tough questions became an issue in the presidential debates, and this post considers how panel moderators handle that conundrum.
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, November 8, 2016

Creating a "bone to pick" section in your next panel discussion

Moderators should make a habit of listening to great interviewers for fresh ideas on lines of questioning or ways to bring panelists to a better level of discussion. There's just such an idea in episode 201 of The West Wing Weekly podcast, a favorite of mine, in which the hosts interview the series director Thomas Schlamme.

One of the hosts, hearing a mild complaint from the interviewee, says jokingly something along the lines of "we'll put that in the 'bone to pick' section." And they did come back to that issue at the end of the interview.

Joke though it may have been, I picked up on it as something that would make a great thematic section of any panel of pros. It creates a line of questioning that will allow all panelists to respond about something negative or something that's been bothering them. And if necessary, it also can serve as a moderator's back-pocket tool, kept aside for that moment when you need to keep panelists on the topic at hand, yet give them a chance later to complain about an unrelated thread.

How to include it? At some point during your questioning, or (as they do in the podcast) just before the conclusion, say, "It's time for our 'bone to pick' section, where I'm going to ask each panelist to share a bone they have to pick with __________________. Start us off, Fred: You've got a bone to pick with...?" You as moderator get to fill in that blank with your industry's best practices, a major customer base, a particular policy, and more.

You also may want to hold this option in reserve. If the panelists or the issues are contentious, you might want to use a "bone to pick" section to corral and contain complaints. If so, when those arise from the panel, announce you want to put them in the "bone to pick" section and keep track of them. Then air the list and the discussion later in the panel.

(Photo from the Library of Congress Flickr album of mystery photos, circa 1923. It's perfect to use as the slide announcing your "bone to pick" session at your next panel, and in the public domain.)

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, November 1, 2016

3 key lessons for panel moderators from Chris Wallace

This election cycle in the United States has been many things, but it has certainly been a bonanza for moderators, yielding all sorts of tips and lessons. In 3 lessons every interviewer should learn from Chris Wallace's stellar debate performance, broadcasting insiders share 3 qualities that make sense even if you're moderating a panel discussion rather than a political debate. Wallace is the host of Fox News Sunday. From the article, the lessons are:
  1. Give context to provocative questions: "For example, on trade and open borders, here was Wallace’s question to Clinton: 'Secretary Clinton, I want to clear up your position on this issue, because in a speech you gave to a Brazilian bank, for which you were paid $225,000, we’ve learned from the WikiLeaks, that you said this, and I want to quote. ‘My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.’ So that’s the question… Is that your dream, open borders?'" That's a great example of a compact amount of context, along with a really short, specific question at the end.
  2. Guide the conversation politely but firmly: Speakers do wander, and the moderator's job is to bring them back to either the topic, or the time limit, or both. An example from the article: "When Trump veered from a question about immigration into discussion of Middle East policy, Wallace recognized that the commentary was still valuable and provided a brief extension: 'We’re a long way away from immigration, but I’m going to let you finish this topic. You’ve got about 45 seconds'." Pairing the warning signal--you're far from our topic--and pairing it with a specific time limit to wrap up the wandering makes for a great combination.
  3. Don't let speakers evade direct questions: "Wallace was politely relentless in pressing through these deflections and ended up pinning Trump down on one of the biggest questions of the moment: Will the GOP candidate, who often complains of a 'rigged election,' officially concede if the results fall in Clinton’s favor?....When Trump attempted to sidestep the question by talking about the media being 'dishonest and so corrupt,' Wallace interjected three times to force Trump back to the core issue of accepting defeat.In doing so, Wallace didn’t just continue asking the question; he took the time to eloquently explain the gravity of the issue." Go to the link to read the long, but well-phrased, question, and Wallace's follow-up, explaining just why the important issue could not be brushed off lightly.
(Creative Commons licensed photo by Donkey Hotey)

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.