hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4368.txt

Episode: 4368
Title: HPR4368: Lessons learned moderating technical discussion panels
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4368/hpr4368.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 23:46:55

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4368 for Wednesday the 30th of April 2025.
Today's show is entitled, Lessons Learned Moderating Technical Discussion Panels.
It is hosted by Trickster and is about 20 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, tips for effectively moderating tech panels, from preparation to audience
engagement.
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had free
slots that were not filled.
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Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio.
Hi, this is Trickster.
One of the things I do every year is help run a vintage computer festival Midwest, which
is now the largest vintage computer festival convention, whatever you want to call it,
in the world.
And my primary role is to facilitate all of the talks, panels, and presentations.
So set up the room and then record them also so that they can be edited and uploaded
later online.
And one of the more successful things that we've done at vintage computer festival Midwest
in the last five years or so is technical panels.
In particular, the YouTuber Vintage Tech panel.
So these are people you may have heard of, like, 8-bit guy or LGR or Adrian's Digital
Basement or something, getting up on stage and not only discussing challenges they have
with Vintage Tech, but also fielding questions from the audience.
With any technical panel, somebody has to moderate it.
You can't just stick people up there and say, go, it's chaos and it won't work correctly.
So I have found myself the unwitting, although not necessarily unwilling, moderator of these
panels, which was a surprise to me because I have never been comfortable speaking in front
of a crowd, even a crowd of as little as three or four people.
But someone has to moderate these panels since I was in charge of the room and I was familiar
with their material.
I decided to do it.
And I think I've learned quite a few tips of moderating tech panels over the last four
or five years that I thought I would record a hacker public radio episode and pass these
on to you.
So that if you find yourself trying, you know, in this position, you're organizing a convention
or a hacktivist event or something and you're going to have a panel, maybe some of these
tips can help you and help your panel, you know, succeed.
These tips generally fall into two categories, preparation before the panel and execution
during the actual panel.
Probably the number one tip I can give in terms of preparation is to be familiar with the
panelists and also the subject matter.
This seems obvious, but I think some people try to wing it or they feel that the panelists
might carry the whole talk.
As the moderator, you may be called upon to help the talk along or fix some problems during
the talk.
And so it really helps if you're familiar with the panelists' previous work.
If the panel is going to have a specific discussion topic, it helps if you're familiar
with that topic.
You may be called upon to fill in some gaps during the panel or clarify an audience question
and I'm going to get into these a little bit later in my tips.
So you know, take a few hours and try to prep before you have the panel.
This will also help you introduce them by name for the benefit of not only just the
audience who may not know them, but also for their benefit, introducing them correctly
by name can help put the panelists at ease or it can get them excited and enthusiastic
for the talk.
By the way, if their name is difficult, ask them beforehand how they prefer you pronounce
their name.
And I would word it just like that because it shows that you care to introduce them and
know them.
And it also helps not, you know, it also helps avoid embarrassment that you mispronounce
their name.
It also helps put the panelists at ease because if you mispronounce their name, it's going
to, they're going to be on the wrong foot now.
They're going to be upset probably for the whole panel.
It's something they have to recover from.
So don't guess if you don't know how to pronounce their name.
So be familiar with the panelists and the subject matter and if you aren't familiar with
it or can't get familiar with it, don't moderate the panel.
Ask someone else to moderate the panel.
You don't know how many times you may have to think on your feet during the panel and
you need to be familiar with everything.
If you can't pass it off to someone else, if you don't know, if this is like an impromptu
thing and you don't know anyone else, you could volunteer panelists to moderate if they've
had experience in moderation themselves.
But don't do it the spur of the moment.
I mean, give them a few weeks in advance to let them say that yes, they'll do it and give
them time to prepare.
Now the way I like to run panels is that I try to ask some questions beforehand to sort
of warm up the panel a little bit to get them familiar with how questions are going
to be asked and what they'll be expected to answer.
And then later on, you can turn it over to the audience.
I don't think it's a good idea to just immediately turn panels over to audience questions because
the audience may ask the same questions over and over again and then that doesn't help
anybody.
So as moderator, it's kind of your responsibility to set the tone for how the panel is going
to go.
And following the theme of preparation, come up with some questions beforehand.
If you think you're good at talking quickly on your feet and improvising or something,
people can still get flustered, not just you as the moderator, but the panelists can kind
of get flustered too if everybody's improvising and all talking at once or whatever.
So try to research a little bit.
Come up with questions that you feel would not only be interesting to the audience to hear
the panelists discuss, but also interesting for the panelists too.
So along those lines, don't as another tip, don't ask common questions.
This is where familiarity with the subject matter helps.
Common questions like, for example, in the vintage YouTuber, in the vintage tech YouTuber
space, a question that people are constantly asked and it's not, it's nobody's fault.
It's because if you're new to this person and you're curious and you haven't looked at
their previous body of work, you'll ask the same questions like, what's your favorite
computer?
What's your favorite collection item or how did you get started?
You get these questions all the time and they can generally be very nice in answering
the same question all the time, but it's more fun for the panel if you ask them questions
they've never been asked.
Now don't go crazy and ask them something like, what's your favorite cookie recipe?
I mean, it should be on topic, but examine previous panels they've been on to identify
some of the common questions they get and just don't ask those.
And think of it as a challenge.
I do anyway.
Again, in my case, it's a vintage technology YouTuber panel, but I try to, in later years
I've tried to not ask them very much about YouTube, but about vintage tech, the thing that
got them into YouTube.
And you'd be surprised some of the answers that come out of that.
So do not ask common questions, it does not help.
Believe me, the audience is going to ask them anyway.
Another preparation tip, if possible, if you have control of the stage, some panels are
people lined up behind a table with a microphone on the table and they're all in a row.
I don't like that because I feel it's a little too formal and what I try to do is arrange
panelists in a semi-circle, if possible, so that they can see each other, which is great
because it can lead, not only does it make them a little bit more comfortable, but they
can also, it also leads to impromptu discussions between them.
So they can start asking questions of other panelists, which is great because they're engaged,
the audience is engaged, and as a moderator, you can sit back for a minute and relax and
let the panel run away with themselves, which is great because it always leads to the
best discussion anyway.
And arranging them in a semi-circle without a table in front of them can help encourage
that.
Another preparation tip, if you have control over this, not everybody has complete control
over their venue, but try to ensure each person has a microphone.
Now that sounds like a dumb piece of advice, so let me explain.
If you have ten people on the panel, but only five microphones or something, and you
may think to yourself, oh it's okay, just tell person A and B to share a microphone,
C and D to share a microphone, etc.
That works.
The problem is, though, that this is totally by accident, it's not intentional, but when
people share mics, it can accidentally lead to people kind of hogging the mic or being
the default person, they're holding the mic and so they feel like they have to talk,
they have to speak, and so it can inadvertently lead to some people accidentally hogging the
conversation.
I found early on that if you give everybody a mic, everybody feels comfortable enough
to speak up, and so even on a ten person panel, try to make sure everybody has their own
microphone.
So that's the preparation side.
Here are some tips I've learned from the execution side.
Not every panelist, even though they appear like in my case with vintage YouTuber tech,
they're used to appearing on camera, but not necessarily in front of an audience, and
some of our audiences reach 250 people in the room.
And if they think about it, when these videos are uploaded, I mean so far, our panel videos
for vintage commuter festival Midwest, just the panels alone reach over 100,000 views.
So panelists can be kind of nervous speaking in front of a crowd.
So if possible, right before they go on stage, just try to set a friendly, informal, fun
tone.
Like, tell them like, you know, we're here to have fun.
This is a discussion, not an interrogation.
Feel free to speak up if you think you've got something fun or cool to add.
And don't be too nervous because the audience already likes you.
They're here to see you.
So you've already won, you know, you don't have to try to impress anybody.
You can just be yourself.
Try to try to set them aside in kind of a little huddle before you go on stage and
give them this sort of a prep talk and that can really help.
You know, speaking of which, you know, the audience already likes you.
Another tip is that these kinds of panels generally are primarily for the audience.
They're kind of for the fans.
So try to get the audience involved if you can a little bit.
One trick I've done is to ask the panel as sort of a poll like show of hands or something
and then you turn it on the audience and you say, hey audience, how would you have answered
that question show of hands?
You know, this way or that way or something.
Keep the audience engaged.
It makes the audience feel great that they that they took the time to come and show up.
And also along those lines, if the tech panel is going to be about a specific subject,
do try to make time and equipment available for audience questions.
It's like audience questions because it can be exciting.
It can be unpredictable.
And it's a way also for the people on the panel to connect with their audience in a very
direct way because they're literally right there.
So always make sure you have audience questions.
When it comes to audience questions, this actually should have been in the prep section,
but there are two ways to do audience questions.
You can have people with microphones run around and try to give the audience member who
raises their hand the microphone to ask something.
When you have 200 plus people in a room that's really large and you only have one or two
microphone runners, it can be 10, 15, 20 seconds of silence while someone is running to
give somebody a microphone.
I have found it much more practical and effective to instead set up a microphone in the center
of an aisle and tell people to please line up behind that microphone if you have questions
and ask them there.
That can be really beneficial because first of all, there's no delay in trying to run
a microphone to somebody.
So there's no dead air to use a radio term.
But it can also help you as the moderator try to pace things because if you can see by
how many people are lined up.
What questions they're asking and how long the answers are, you can try to pace the
room.
I don't want to say cut people off early, don't be rude, but if there's not a lot of
people lined up and you need to stretch things out, you can ask a follow-up, you can choose
to ask a follow-up question or something to try to stretch things out.
The single microphone in the center of the aisle, just for questions, that is my personal
preference and my recommendation to you.
Now that you've facilitated questions from the audience, here's another tip, listen
very carefully to each question because you may be called upon to help the panel or help
the person who asked the question.
So when you're up on stage, even with microphones, it can be hard to understand what the person
said because the audience hears, the speakers are set up for the benefit of the audience
but not the people on stage.
So someone asks a question and they hear themselves in the speakers perfectly, but what the people
on stage here sometimes is it bouncing off the back of the room and then coming back,
and so there's reverb or echo sometimes, and that can throw some panelists off.
So the panelists may want the question repeated.
If you heard the question correctly and you can tell someone, the people on the panel
are looking a little confused, like what did that guy say?
But if you listened carefully and you heard it and understood it, you can avoid the embarrassment
and the time waste of, oh, could you repeat that?
I didn't understand what you said.
You can summarize it yourself as the moderator and you can do it quickly.
And there's a secondary benefit to this as well.
Sometimes the questions can be a little long or rambly.
People can ramble unintentionally.
They feel that sometimes the setup is more important than the question.
And if you are listening very carefully, you have the opportunity as moderator to summarize
the question in a form that is more easily digestible to the panelists and that they can
answer very succinctly and directly.
This is a skill, not gonna lie, it's something that I've had to learn.
This is why prep is so important, be very familiar with the subject matter because you
may have to call upon that knowledge if you need to quickly re-summarize a question to
help the panel answer it.
Along the lines of rambling, moderators try to keep a fair and balanced panel and that
involves keeping things moving.
So some people who ask questions and then they get their answers sometimes, they may not
notice that they have been given an answer and that they're done, the panel is answered.
So sometimes at an appropriate point when the discussion stops or comes to a stop.
If the person asking the question, I'm trying to say this as delicately as possible because
I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad.
But essentially some people don't know when they, it's time for them to step away from
the Q&A microphone and give someone else a chance.
So as moderator, you can, you have a very powerful phrase at the right moment when there's
a low and you, and you people need to move on, you can directly address the person who
asked the question, hey, thanks very much for your question.
And that has worked universally so far.
Some people have said, oh, hey, you're welcome and then they move aside or something along
those lines.
So that's something you'll have to do as a, as a moderator.
Sometimes keeping things moving involves helping the panelists.
Some panelists will answer something very short, especially if it's a common question.
But if you are familiar with them, their previous work or the subject matter, you can try
to bring more out of that question or out of that conversation, ask a follow-up question.
If you have a shy panelist, try to bring them out of their shell.
So as a moderator, this is all part of keeping things moving.
And probably my final tip for anyone who's going to moderate tech panels or probably any
panel is a tough one and I'm not calling anyone out specifically, but really try to keep
your ego in check, resist the urge to jump in into the discussion.
You are the moderator, not one of the panelists.
The audience is here to see the panel, not you.
You, along these lines, you too can get excited and caught up in the moment, but try to remember
you are probably not as funny as you think you are.
If a joke lands super flat and it's recorded, it's going to be on video and survive
on the internet forever.
So, you know, you are there to facilitate the panel.
You yourself, unless it's a special circumstance, you yourself are not part of the panel.
So just keep that in mind and, you know, if you're constantly jumping in, it's going
to feel like you're interrupting or you're trying to make the discussion about yourself.
And it can be tough because you get excited too, just like all the panelists do.
And you yourself may be a subject matter expert.
But if you are moderating, you are not there to take over.
Don't stand up or walk around or have props or distribute things, especially if everyone
else is sitting.
You are not an MC, either rap or standard master of ceremonies, focus on the panel.
Other exceptions are okay.
If you have a particularly good answer that none of the panelists could keep up with and
you want to throw out a great answer for the benefit of the person who asked the question.
But for the most part, keep your ego in check.
That's what I've learned.
I hope that's helpful to anyone who has to step in and moderate a panel.
And if you do, just try to remember everything I told you to tell your panelists, have fun.
This is a conversation, not an interrogation.
Just think of yourself and all the panelists as friends having a talk.
And generally, the audience will pick up on that and it's a great panel as a result.
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