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hpr_transcripts/hpr4368.txt

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+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
+
+---
+
+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.
+This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive.
+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.
+You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
+Today's show was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself.
+If you ever thought of recording podcasts, then click on our contribute link to find out
+how easy it really is.
+Posting for HBR has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com, the internet archive and
+our sings.net.
+On this advice status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International
+License.