How to facilitate a conference session |
Posted: March 6, 2023 |
The call to facilitate a panel session at your industry conference comes unexpectedly. “Would you mind? No big deal. A few speakers, some intros, some Q&A. You know the deal. Cool?” “Sure. Why not.” Now what? Well start with these tips about being a great facilitator. A conference facilitators’ role is to ensure everyone gets the most out of their time. When selecting a conference facilitator in Melbourne, it is important to consider their experience, expertise, and communication skills. You may want to ask for references or review their past work to ensure that they are a good fit for your event. There isn’t one way to be a good facilitator or master of ceremonies. You don’t have to have a professorial knowledge of the subject matter being discussed. If you recognise the importance of the role and work through the following you will do a great job. BeforehandConsider calling panellists in the lead up to explore what they want to say, learn a bit about their background and their relationship to the topic and other speakers. Find out something about them that isn’t included in their bio, which is likely to be dry as dust. At the conference, the speakers were comfortable. This might mean sorting out their audio-visual needs with the techie, pouring them some water or going over the format. Ask them what they’d like to have brought up by you. What the speakers do not want to hear from the facilitator is: “I’m just doing this as a favour. Let’s just get it over with.” Get the session started – pronto!Start and finish on time. It’s tempting to wait for stragglers but don’t. It sends a bad message to all concerned and is plain rude to those who have turned up. Starting late means that your speakers will be cut short, Q&A time will be sacrificed or you’ll run over time. None of these options is OK. Get the show on the roadwelcome people, explain any truly essential housekeeping and more importantly establish ground rules so people know why they are there and what to expect. Re-establish the overall theme or session topic, intro the speakers and outline the format. If you want audience participation (we sure hope you do) be clear that participation is expected and that the audience has huge influence on how worthwhile the session will be. If organisers insist on housekeeping – sponsor thankyous, exhibitor plugs, dietary options etc – leave it to the end of the session. Mentioning this stuff at the beginning saps energy and wastes precious time. Introduce the panel session topic in your own way.Do you have opinions or experiences relating to the topic to share? Is the topic being discussed in the news? If so, weave this into the introduction. Look like you give a damn about the issues. “One thing I’ve always found fascinating about … “When I saw that we were talking about X, I knew there was one question I wanted an answer to… “You’ve probably seen what our Prime Minister had to say about X recently. I wonder if the panel have any differing opinions… Without saying much, you’re looking informed and engaged. Good. Introduce speakers your own wayThis means doing more than reading the given introduction in the program. Add some observations of your own. Perhaps you have some observation about the person’s employer, expertise or have worked with them before. If so, draw on it. Try to look and act as if you are familiar with them. Don’t be afraid to beef up a humble introduction or downplay an introduction that is over-the-top. Generally speaking, a shorter introduction is better than a longer one. An audience only needs to know the aspects of the speaker that are relevant to the current topic so judge what is and isn’t relevant. Less is more. We do NOT need to hear their university degrees being listed. Keep the bastards honestA good facilitator challenges assumptions, asks people to explain, counterbalances and plays the devil’s advocate. (aka advocatus diaboli in Latin). Be willing to play devil’s advocate in all directions – not just when someone says something that you find disagreeable. Tease out more details.
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