A great audience Q&A – straight after a presentation, or run without slides as a panel discussion or fireside chat – can really make an event. The best Q&As at events are engaging, entertaining, and reveal information that is often really valuable to the audience – since it is very often the only chance they get to drive the topic of conversation.
However, we’ve all been in audience Q&A sessions that are totally flat. The worst sessions are those that simply don’t have any questions because nobody wants to speak up (or the content so far has elicited no interesting discussion…) Half the room are likely to be introverted and have no intention of asking a question. For them, the presence of the roving microphone in their corner of the room is giving them heart palpitations. They are desperate for someone else to ask a question, just in case the silence sees the mic thrust upon them.
And as we’re talking about roving mics, it’s worth saying that this whole process just feels a bit basic. The poor junior members of the team are racing to get the mic to the audience member randomly selected, who invariably starts speaking before it arrives so has to start again, before running off a two-minute diatribe indicating that they think they should have been on stage in the first place.
So this all sounds a bit negative, but then I opened by saying how important and entertaining the best audience Q&A sessions were. And there’s the rub – getting such a simple thing right can create a huge swing in how people view the whole event, so it’s worth spending some time on.
Hence, in true Buzzfeed style, here are five really easy ways to create amazing Audience Q&As at Events:
1. Use audience Q&A tech
Let’s get this up there straight at the top of the list, since it was always coming… Interactive Q&A technology (yes, like Glisser and a number of other good products) makes a massive difference. In fact, in terms of the ratio of ‘event benefit’ to ‘ease of implementation’ it’s got to be one of the most effective features we can offer. Having audience members tap questions into their phone (nothing to download of course), see them on the big screen, and upvoting each other’s’ questions creates loads of engagement, involves the introverts, and captures plenty of content for post event reports, blogs and social media.
It’s ridiculously easy to set up (I think about 90 seconds is our record), moderate, and it puts smiles on people’s faces. And it doesn’t mean you have to ignore those that want to ask in the old fashioned way if that’s what they want – it’s an easy extra rather than a replacement.
2. Seed questions
I’ve mentioned this in previous blogs but it’s so important. It’s the single biggest tip I give to anyone using our presentation software for audience Q&A, or anyone running any Q&A for that matter.
My experience across 15+ years of events is that as much as people like to get involved, far fewer like to go first (it’s a bit different with an audience kids who invariably will be itching to go first – it seems this curiosity is drained out at adolescence and never returns).
As a result, whether you are using an audience Q&A app or just a roving mic, it’s really, really important to seed questions for each Q&A session.
It’s not cheating, it’s just a question of getting the debate going and informally telling the crowd it’s okay to enter it. And if you’re seeking to encourage audience interaction, it’s far better than the questions are seen to come from them, rather than a list that the chairperson or panel host has “pre-prepared, just in case we didn’t get any questions” (Tip 2.5: Never say this if you want to actually get any audience questions from that point on. We find that during an interactive presentation withaudience Q&A, seeding a question about one-third to halfway through the presentation is the optimum time. By then, many other audience members will have had some thoughts about what they want to ask, and your prompt will encourage them to follow. Then the floodgates will open.
And of course, if the questions are flowing already, you’ll not need your seed questions.
3. Don’t overdo the moderation
The majority of event organisers and presenters ask whether we can moderate audience Q&Athrough Glisser – which of course we (and you) can. We totally get it – the fear that some idiot will hijack the Q&A feed and turn it into a rolling list of expletives and emoticons. Alternatively, it may be a session where audience Q&A is to be encouraged, but there are certain (perhaps difficult) subjects that aren’t to be discussed in this particular forum. We agree – that’s exactly what moderation is for.
However, it’s really important that a moderator is not overzealous with the ‘reject’ button, and here’s why: At event after event we’ve seen a huge amount of positive sentiment come from audiences using the Q&A feed in a more light-hearted way, and events have benefited because of it.
We’ve had audience members bonding over the colour of a presenter’s tie, or making connections across different locations about the quality of the biscuits during a 3-city virtual event. And of course, we’ve had the ‘funny’ questions (of various quality) and the ‘banter’. In the main, this has made people smile, encouraged participation, and given people a good feeling about the openness of the event. Does it distract from the presenter or panel? Maybe a little bit. But aren’t we really running the event for our audiences?
4. Keep the pace up
PowerPoints are the chance for your presenters to demonstrate their expertise, focusing in on the key things that they think are important, and creating a great, engaging narrative. Question and answer sessions, and speaker panels for that matter, are better kept quick-fire and succinct. Too often, a great audience question results in a long rambling answer that drains the few minutes allocated and means a whole host of other great discussion points never get picked up.
It’s preferable to keep things moving along. One idea is to deliberately design the session to allow for only one minute per answer, and gamify the process with a count-down clock. If presenters are briefed in advance, they’re likely to enjoy the challenge. Your audience will then respond with more and more questions, safe in the knowledge that theirs is likely to get asked rather than left out as Q&A time runs out.
Similarly, panel discussions should be moved along quickly by an experienced moderator who can direct questions to the right people, rather than simply letting everyone on the panel have their say. Moderators should also step in if panellists are switching into a sales pitch, or if the whole panel is in danger of violently agreeing, rather than creating real debate.
Fireside chats, however, are the exception. The format usually allows for storytelling and so brevity is not necessary – especially if the guest is a truly charismatic speaker and the interviewer has the skills to extract the best out of him or her.
5. Capture and re-use the discussion
Finally, let’s cover how Q&A sessions can be really valuable after the event.
There’s increasing recognition being placed upon building a long-lasting community, with events at the core, rather than simply considering events in isolation. But it’s really quite a hard thing to achieve – when people are right there in the room with you they can be super-engaged (with only their emails and Facebook for distraction) but as soon as they leave their attention drops off rapidly.
Similarly, as well as getting existing guests to come back, post-event communication plays a really important role in engaging new attendees for the next event. Who doesn’t look for clues as to how as event was the previous year before making a decision?
So if we’re in agreement that great audience Q&A sessions really add some colour and interesting discussion, then use them to promote your event.
If you have the budget, film the discussion. But don’t stop there; take the time to split the content into digestible sections and transcript as much as you can. Turn it into blogs, infographics, post-event reports, or even personalised email content with the individual that asked the question in the first place, or the audience in that particular session.
Obviously, this is made much easier if all the questions have been captured through your audience Q&A technology. With this in mind, always try to capture any questions asked verbally via the same technology – just tap in the questions as they are asked. That way, all of the questions are kept in one place, in one set of data, so nice and easy to deal with.
