EIGHT TIPS FOR CONFERENCE PRESENTERS

We’ve been on the road a lot lately attending conferences around the country. The primary benefit we get from these sessions are the conversations we have in the hallways and receptions, as well as meeting new sources we can use to feed our insatiable need for content for this website.

But of course, we also attend scads of concurrent sessions and plenary speeches, as well. And often they are captivating and even inspirational. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, we published a management update about a plenary speech we heard from Mary Guy, University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, and past President of the American Society for Public Administration, that was  given at the joint Southeastern Conference on Public Administration (SECOPA) and Northeast Conference on Public Administration (NECOPA) in Norfolk, Virginia. It was a great talk, focused on the critical nature of public administration work and the role of everyone at the conference in turning the “wheels of democracy.”

That said, more often than we’d like, we find ourselves frustrated by conference speeches and sessions which have inviting titles, but don’t really bring us any news that we can use or that satiates our curiosity about an important topic. While our biases about what makes good and bad sessions may not be true of everyone, we believe they’re generally reasonable. So, here are a handful of our recommendations for anyone contemplating a stint as moderator or presenter at a future public sector conference.

1)    Avoid unreadable slides. We can’t really understand why anyone puts up slides in which the type is so tiny that nobody – even in a small room – can possibly see the numbers and the words which are often pointed out by the speaker with a computer cursor on the screen. It’s understandable that data on these slides may be the culmination of months or years of work. But when they’re unreadable, they become a distraction that sets us to speculating about what session we’ll be attending next.

2)    While we’re talking about slides, even when they’re readable, we’d suggest that speakers avoid the temptation to read verbatim from them. Not to be snarky, but if everything in a presentation is already on the slides, we’d be just as happy getting a copy to read ourselves. We know, of course, that an actual live session provides the opportunity to ask questions and that often adds value, but that leads to our item number 3.

3)    There’s often a promise made by a speaker or a moderator of a panel that there’ll be time for Q&A at the end of the session. But in a remarkable number of instances, the speakers go on longer than anticipated and so there’s no time for questions or room for only one or two at most. We’ve moderated enough panels to know that it’s tough for moderators to get a long-winded speaker to wind down. But we recommend emphasizing as strongly as possible the importance of keeping to schedule.

4)    If someone makes a comment instead of asking a question, this is a great opportunity for a moderator to turn the comment into a query for a panel. There are often lots of smart people in the audience with good things to say, but most of the people in the room are there to hear the thoughts of the people on the stage. Moderators could do a service to audience and presenters by giving the latter a chance to add on.  

5)    Concrete examples in presentations are the cherries on top of the ice cream. Even when the topic is heavily academic, providing actual examples that support findings make talks more engaging. Hypothetical examples are good. Real-world examples are even better.

6)     Most often, speakers are provided with microphones, but we find that many forget that when they turn to look at a slide or let a hand-held mike drift away from their mouths, they can’t be heard. In addition, it’s often hard, even in a small room, for the audience to hear questions that come from their fellow session attendees. That’s why we wish it were standard practice for presenters or moderators to repeat a question that may be minimally audible before answering it.

7)    If you’re on a panel and another panelist is talking, listen, react and, at least, appear to be engaged. In webinars and at conferences, we worry when panelists look distracted or even bored when fellow guests speak. If audience members get the impression that the panelists aren’t interested in one another, they’re less inclined to be interested themselves.

8)    One more note about slides. If they are full of formulas that are perfectly comprehensible to some attendees, it’s likely that they’ll be unfathomable to many others. It might be worthwhile asking the audience if they are capable of making sense of the equations, before going into them in depth. And if many aren’t, then get right to the conclusions, and leave out the formulaic methodology.

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