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October 29, 2009
A darn good panel discussion
Readers of this blog know that I am no fan of panel discussions. (Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a whiny entry after suffering through a deadly dull session.)
So a couple of weeks ago, when I took my seat to watch a panel discussion on “Reputation Management in Today’s World” at the IABC Pacific Plains Exchange Conference, I was not optimistic.
The discussion started as these things do: Panelists were introduced, each one said a few words, and the energy level stayed low. But then the event started to take a turn for the better. After about 15 minutes, I realized that I was enjoying myself. The audience was participating. The discussion was actually interesting.
Once I realized that this panel discussion was beating the odds, I began to analyze what was making it work. Here are a few observations:
The moderator (Bob Brin, director of Padilla Gorilla , a division of Padilla Speer Beardsley) was dynamic, energetic and light on his feet. Rather than staying frozen behind a podium or sitting at the table, he stood in front of the panel near the audience, holding a hand-held mike. He moved around. He kept his eye on audience members, alert for interaction. He had a few canned questions, but was also flexible, riffing off what panelists was saying, letting the conversation go where it flowed.
All four panelists— Jennifer Kane, principal, Kane Consulting; Tom Keefe, enterprise communications manager, VW Credit, Inc.; Paul Omodt, vice president, crisis and critical issues, Padilla Speer Beardsley and Rachel Watkins, director, employee communications, Xilinx—were lively and articulate. They gave mostly brief answers. And they didn’t grandstand—they responded to the moderator, the audience and to each other.
Not every panelist felt compelled to answer every question. This is important: If every time a question is answered, you have to go down the line of panelists one by one, the format becomes repetitive and leaden. In this panel, things were lighter, more unexpected. You didn’t know who would respond next, and what that response would lead to. That created more energy.
Jennifer Kane, in particular, was terrific. She’s got the gift of using vivid metaphors to make a point. For example, in talking about the way companies approach social media for the first time, she cautioned that they tend to plunge right in and make a statement rather than listening to the conversation. “It would be like walking in the door at a party and shouting, ‘Hi, everybody! Aren’t I great! I want to tell you all about myself!’ That’s not a good strategy for parties and it doesn’t work in social media, either.”
In short, the session wasn’t the most exciting hour I’ve ever spent, but it was about as good as a panel discussion can be. And that’s high praise indeed.
Posted by Alison Davis at October 29, 2009 08:18 AM
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Comments
Thanks for the kind comments, Alison. It helps to have a fun group on the panel. Nice job of IABC PPR group putting it together. In our pre-game huddle, we specifically talked about avoiding the "round robin" wherein feel compelled to answer every question. I'm especially proud of the impromptu poll to see if we had any "snarky, evil" people in the audience playing off of Jenn's comment about about those who post with ill intent. Glad you could swing by sunny Mpls!
Posted by: Bob Brin at October 30, 2009 12:04 PM