What’s your interest in or overall perspective toward moderating a panel? Well the leadership and creative opportunity for panel moderators has fascinated me actually for forever. In related discussions, often speakers preparing to moderate panel events (on Zoom or offline) have said many panel programs are not very clear or engaged…or they sometimes come across as inside-baseball-banter or sense of competition. My behind-the-scenes commitment has been to coach emerging moderators through core leadership and content tactics that have helped panel teams see team cohesion from the audience’s vantage point — and be stronger, more thematically relevant, and engaged for their audiences.
And this July, IT’S HERE (!)
I’m tickled-pink to say an e-resource kit dedicated solely to supporting the leadership and content creation needs of panel moderators will be born at LiveYourTalk.
I’m EXCITED, with the 7 main sections & the problems they solve jotted down here.
Your welcome orientation (video)
Underscoring your core objective as panel moderator: to lead + support your panelist team, helping them prepare for and ultimately encounter their audience from layered readiness e.g. designing themes and line of questions; assessing stage design + audio; storytelling + message; setting run-of-show and time constraints; and managing live-time dialogue with proven techniques at your event.
1 Panel Moderator leadership scope: envisioning the big picture for your audience.
2 Line of questioning design tool: recognizing + prioritizing key themes, messages, & ultimate trajectory of your panel’s event.
3 Run-of-show template: providing a draft discussion-flow with time constraints; themes/questions per your work in section #2; and selected Q&A format for your panelists to review and offer initial feedback as a group.
4 Oral storytelling & scene-crafting guide: building the clear, simple stories that cater to how your audience absorbs the spoken word e.g. the listening mind hears & absorbs 800 words per minute. This guide helps you form chunked, scenic storytelling to compete with the audience’s inherent capacity to absorb far more each minute than what you or any speaker can articulate (average speaker utters 125 to 150 words per minute).
5 Dialogue management techniques: helping you as moderator assert effective facilitation to honor your panel’s expertise and attain an accessible experience for your audience.
6 Cautions when Zoom is your venue: considering linguistic & other energy concerns (…dreaded ‘ums and uhs’) when engaging through screens.
7 Inspiration: finding encouragement as you and your panelists encounter each phase.
8 Support for your growth beyond panel moderation: providing a speech preparation checklist as your steady helper with future solo talks. (SECTION COMING SOON)
Circular images from LiveYourTalk’s Panel Moderator Leadership Kit (coming July2020)
Feature image October by Patrice-Photographiste, Creative Commons License