.. 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.