.. post:: Nov 12, 2016
:tags: conferences, organization, questions
Questions after talks at conferences
====================================
At many conferences,
people allow the audience to ask questions after the talks.
I want to argue that this is an anti-pattern in many ways,
and some solutions that have worked that I recommend.
Issues with questions
---------------------
There are two primary audiences that have issues with questions:
* Speakers
* The audience
Let's start with speakers.
Many first-time speakers that I know have an intense anxiety around having the audience ask questions.
They think,
"I am going to go up and give a talk,
and then someone in the audience will contradict or embarrass me for lack of knowledge afterward."
**Audience questions after talks are one of the biggest sources of stress for speakers.**
Now for the audience.
They have chosen to attend a talk to hear from a specific speaker about a topic they are knowledgeable on.
If there are 250 people in the room,
each minute of the talk is over 4 hours of combined time.
**When you offer up a microphone to anyone in the audience,
you are now offering 4 hours of peoples life to an unaudited question and answer that likely only provides value to a small minority of attendees.**
This is not a good use of anyone's time,
and often audiences feel trapped in a talk room during Q&A time.
Better approaches
-----------------
Here are a few different approaches that I recommend a lot more than "let anyone in the audience ask a question publicly".
Speaker goes to the front of stage for questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At my own conferences,
`Write the Docs `_,
we have established the norm of not having full audience questions.
After each talk we ask the speaker to come to the front of the stage,
and then have a conversation with members of the audience with questions.
This achieves a couple beneficial results:
* People are empowered to ask questions that are more specific to their situation, instead of trying to general them for a larger audience
* The question asker isn't given a "stage" to promote their own projects or ideas
* The speaker isn't worried about being "called out" in front of the full room
* Everyone else in the audience is free to do whatever they want
I stole this idea from `XOXO `_,
but a lot of events do a version of this.
Questions to the speaker are moderated
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another approach I've seen work well is that the audience is allowed to ask questions,
but they are moderated.
This can be done in a couple different ways:
* A `#questions` Slack or IRC channel where people can ask questions
* Index cards handed out at the beginning of a talk and collected at the end
This allows one person to moderate the questions,
and forces them to be asked in a direct way.
It also removes the "I have a statement, not a question" problem,
because all questions are filtered through an intermediary.
This has a few benefits as well:
* People are still able to ask the speaker for clarifiaction/explanation on parts of their talk publicly, and it benefits everyone
* The speaker knows they won't get ambushed by the moderator
* The moderator can blend the questions together into a narrative and group questions in a meaningful way
I've seen this work quite well at conferences like `Django Under The Hood `_ and `PyDX `_.
Questions are your responsibility
---------------------------------
As the organizer of an event,
the way that you structure the event has a direct impact on people's experience.
**Opening the room to questions and not doing any moderation is abdicating your responsibility as an organizer.**
I highly recommend that you adopt a more equitable approach to questions at conferences,
and make them more enjoyable for everyone involved.