Skip to main content

Once upon a panel

Ever so often one gets to be on a panel or see a panel as part of a conference. Here are my tongue in cheek observations.

1. See the topic. Again. And again. Underline it.
2. Now, stick to it.  With Fevicol.
3. Do not go here and there like a jumpy cat. Stay on point. The topic.
4. If you have never seen, held or spoken into a mike in your life, please see one and then come on the panel. Don't behave as if its the first time someone gave you the mike and hold on it for dear life. It is not a straw though you are drowning.
5. If people don't listen to you anyhow, the place to try and validate it is not on a panel.
6. There are other people in a panel as well - if you had to be given a voice to speak by yourself, they would have invited for the damn keynote.
7. Moderator, your job is to moderate. And that includes stealing mikes, ensuring panelists don't share their life story or meaningless information or ramble along. Thou shall herd the cats into the fence known as the topic.
8. Panelist, when the moderator says, keep it short, keep it really short
9. Do not take yourself so seriously as a panelist. Likely you spoke the same thing in a previous conference and you will speak the same in the next one. Its alright. Nobody is taking you seriously anyway. Ever heard of a panel discussion that changed the world? No right? Exactly.
10. Let the audience feel, I want to hear him/hear say more and not, I wish he/she stops rambling
11. There is a time limit - for you and the whole panel. The idea is to make that time meaningful and not stop it like a summer in a desert craving for water.
12. When you say, I have a sentence to add. Add only a sentence. Not a word more. And a simple sentence at that, not a paragraph disguised as a sentence.
13. If you all agree, then we needed only one panel member. So, disagree. Debate. Shake it up. Or agree and make it better. Remember, yes, and.
14. Did you hear the audience applaud? Nod their head? No? They are probably asleep or bored. Or they just disappeared into their phones.
14a. Now just to hear them applaud, dont crack a joke, please. Especially if it is a whatsapp forward. We have all read and deleted it. Make a genuine humourous point, make them laugh at you - yes, please.
15. The panel is not your Oscar/Grammy moment. So, give your thank you speeches elsewhere.
16. This is not your appraisal either. So spare us the list of stuff you did in one year.
17. It is not your, "Tell me about yourself" moment in the interview either.

What I like to hear on a panel is authentic voices. Simple. Genuine voices. And if they want to talk to you after the panel, maybe, just maybe you touched a chord. Or if you get another invite. Else, you know...

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why does elearning exist?

 Elearning is one of those niches that does not deserve to exist. Yes, it was a novelty 20 years ago, but not now. It cannot exist. But somehow it does. Disclaimer: I used to head a content team once upon a time. And I used to ask those whom I hired - tell me the last thing you learnt from an e-learning. The answer is - pretty much nothing (and this is a good decade ago).  Why?  If you want to learn a recipe, you go to Youtube, or Reels or something like that. If you are terribly old fashioned - as in, you read - then you go to a website and read the recipe and make it.  Most other things you learn by doing or learning on the job or asking an expert.  If you have to learn something in depth, then there are other ways.  So, where does e-learning fit in all this? E-learning is one of those products that the customer hates, but has no choice, because someone has decided it is the best way. For instance, you have to learn a new CRM or some other product - you w...
Post a Comment
Read more