Public speaking makes me incredibly nervous and anxious, but fortunately I found that doesn’t carry over to speaking on live video (like my weekly Facebook livecast). Still, I have a lot of respect and admiration for those with the courage and eloquence to stand up in front of a crowd to speak.
Our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant, Lydia Wehmeyer, is one such person. She attends a number of conventions each year–most game-related–speaking at them about DEI, accessibility, and education. Here’s a video of a recent panel she hosted at Gen Con (and another one).
Lydia and I were talking after Gen Con about signups, attendance, engagement, and participation at these types of events, and I thought it might make an interesting blog topic to spark some ideas for other speakers and panelists.
To add some other perspectives to this article, on last week’s Facebook livecast I asked viewers if they had ever attended a presentation or panel at a convention and which types of those events were worth their time. Here are some thoughts that were shared, particularly around the idea of why someone might attend a presentation or panel live instead of just watching it later on YouTube.
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HowlerCon 2023 from Pierce’s perspective entertainment vs information vs interaction: The overwhelming response was the main reason people attend presentations is either to be entertained or to interact with the panelists. They don’t want a lecture. That said, information can be presented in an entertaining way–TED Talks are a testament to that.
- ask questions live: Some people highly value the opportunity to ask questions live and hear the answers in real time. This is something I see on my weekly Facebook livecast–I have specific topics to cover, but 80% of the time I’m answering questions (and asking questions) from viewers. One format I’ve see (run by John Wrot) that makes a Q&A equitable for those who don’t want to stand up and ask a question is to gather questions written on pieces of paper before and during a panel.
- impact the story: This is more about live RPG panels where the audience participates in the choices made by entertaining role players, but I think “choose your own adventure” can work in other formats to keep the audience engaged.
- big vs small group dynamics: Great presenters cater their material to the size of the group. If there’s a huge gathering, work the crowd so everyone feels like they’re part of something bigger than themselves–you’ve probably experienced this collective excitement at concerts, and I recently got that feeling from recaps of HowlerCon (a Red Rising event in Tulsa–see photo). If there’s a small gathering, you might pivot to a discussion/roundtable format.
- nice break in the action from the convention: A few people mentioned that they’ve attended presentations simply as a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of a convention. That’s a good reminder that a low-key, chill vibe can be a viable approach for presenters.
- preparation required for a presenter vs panel: From my limited experience with these types of events, I found that it’s much, much easier to join a panel than create a presentation. A panel thrives with a great moderator who continually connects the audience with the panelists.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic; I have 3 specific questions if you’re open to answering them in the comments:
- What’s the best presentation or panel you’ve ever attended, and what made it worth your time?
- Do you ever sign up for events but not attend? If so, why?
- What approaches to presentations about diversity, equity, and inclusion (or other serious topics) would pique your interest into attending?
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16 Comments on “What’s the Best Presentation or Panel You’ve Ever Attended?”
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1. Best panel I’ve ever attended was a two-day seminar on the Agile Methodology. Backstory: I drove from Cleveland to NYC, with some stops in between, getting into Manhattan at 2am. I get to the hotel, with room reservation in hand, to find they had given away my room. Wound up sleeping in the car in a peaceful, deserted Manhattan…very surreal. All that to say (which I also told the instructor after the event), if this seminar was a dud, I would absolutely have passed out cold at the conference room table.
To my great surprise and thrill, the seminar was fantastic! It began with the instructor: no BS, no wasted time, when he spoke the expectation was to listen, when an attendee spoke the expectation was for him to listen. All basics, but put into practice with excellence. With the content itself, he dispelled myths that “The They” at corporations want you to believe vs. how to actually use the methodology as designed. Again, everything was worth listening to, delivered with enthusiasm, and focused on practical implementation. Can’t say enough good things about it!
2. If I sign up for an event but don’t attend, it’s almost definitely a free event. If I commit even a couple bucks to it, I ink it into the calendar. If I sign up but don’t attend, it might be something I have a passing interest in but too burnt out from the convention to attend, maybe a backup in case a higher priority event is sold out, or an earlier event spills over into the time block.
3. When done with all the right intentions, DEI is basically a universally good thing. If that’s a given, I don’t want to know WHAT DEI is again and again, I want to know HOW DEI is being implemented. For a place that’s really putting good things into practice, maybe lead with the HOW and circle back to who/what/where/when/why. That might take the general idea and load it up with specifics that make it more interesting to an audience.
I had the benifit of hearing many great speeches. from 4 Star Military Admirals to my grandfather who gave me 3 lives worth of advice, but the one that stands out the most was a seminar about self worth a few years ago. Smaller siminar, maybe 800 people in the crowd, but they managed to get a lady who spoke with such passion that it really hit differntly.
As for events, I unforchunantly misssed a few events this year at GENCON. I missed due to being in an impromptu game in the middle of the day and lost track of time. My fault completley. I think the issue with a lot of the events is you sign up months ahead of time, and things change. Maybe that game you wanted to play is off the radar now, or the game isnt going to be available to buy so you no longer wanna spend time learning the game. The issue is that most conventions have a very hard cancelation date, or dont allow it at all. The even worse part is in the case of the event I missed at GENCON the convention keeps the money. I paid $8 for the ticket. the Host would turn the ticket that i gave them in and get $6 for said event back from gencon. But for a noshow, gencon just keeps the entire $8. Shorting the host and the attend.
The biggest thing that worries me about diversity style hiring is that a majority of the hirings done are to access funds from a state or government. I would be interested in figuring out, or litining, to a way to motivate companies in ways other than money based incintives.
800 people in the crowd and still that level of connection? That’s really impressive!
“The biggest thing that worries me about diversity style hiring is that a majority of the hirings done are to access funds from a state or government.”
I appreciate you sharing that, but at least in the board game industry, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this (and it certainly never occurred to me). Do you have data or proof to back up this perception?
I did my first seminar at Origins this year and it was AWESOME!
By far the best part for both the audience and me was the Q&A portion, which I had planned to devote about 15min of the hour to and frankly I’d like to double it.
Congrats! Yeah, from the feedback I’ve heard, people really want that live interaction, so I think you’re wise to double the Q&A.
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Heh, OBVIOUSLY this one… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECYt8G-yILY
That’s the one! You’re an amazing moderator and speaker, John. :)
I also used to be very nervous and anxious about speaking publicly. It wasn’t until around the time I went to university that I started to try to work on this. When I present to groups of any size I always try to think about what would be fun for me to do with the audience? I think that if I am having fun then so are they (and if they aren’t, well at least I am). So I try to do 2 things…
1) Audience engagement. In panels this feels fairly obvious but engagement can be two ways. Can you ask your audience questions and get them to interact with you? There are online voting tools which help with this and even simply getting a show of hands. An example of this is where I recently posed my audience a series of moral dilemmas with binary choices for answers. I made them move to different sides of the room to show what answer they gave and then looked for engagement to justify why they had moved to a particular side.
2) Visual appeal and story telling. If you are presenting do you have evidence or information about the topic you can share? In a presentation you are, essentially, telling a story. There are lots of really interesting topics that are badly presented and so do not make the impact. Check out a video by the late Hans Rosling for a great example of story telling…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo&pp=ygUeaGFucyByb3NsaW5nIHBvcHVsYXRpb24gZ3Jvd3Ro
I love what you’re saying about audience participation, Paul (whether it’s the voting, show of hands, or physically moving around the room). I also really like what you said about using evidence, information, and examples–I think they’re so much more powerful and memorable than generalizations.
I’ve been to educational conventions with speakers sharing current best practices in educating students. The best speakers had a balance of inspiration and information, and they allowed for questions, discussion, and opportunities to try out what we just learned. I could leave the event feeling energized and ready to implement changes in my classes.
Recreationally, I enjoy author events. The best one I attended was for Billy Collins, who is a former national poet laureate. He has a dry, humorous delivery style and a pretty big following, as far as poets go. While he reads a bit of his new work at these events, he also reads audience favorites, and if you look across the crowd, you see wide smiles and people stifling laughs as they anticipate well-known lines coming up. He also engages with the audience for a lengthy Q&A, and his accessibility and candor make you feel like you are getting insider information.
I tend to attend events I’ve signed up for unless there is an emergency or illness. The event planners and speakers are expecting people to be there, and I feel like it’s respectful of their time to show up or cancel in advance, if needed.
Thanks for sharing this, Julie–I think it’s great when you can leave an event feeling energized thanks to the speaker(s).
I have not been to a board game convention (yet), but I have been to a number of technical conventions. One of the best presentations I have attended was on the history of superconductors used in radio astronomy, and another was on the use of trellis graphs. Both speakers presented technical topics in an engaging fashion with a minimum of jargon. Both had a number of graphics as well.
The best DEI workshop that I have attended used a version of Barnga. I can’t talk about without revealing spoilers. I am sure Lydia knows about this.
Thank you for sharing this, Nancy! What made those presentations particularly engaging?
At the UK games expo this year there were 7 panels / seminars / round tables on positive / non commericial topics.
Gaming and communities, diversity and inclusion, funding for clubs, Gaming and benefits. Academic research.
It was wonderful to be involved in some, and we were the inspiration for atleast one. As last year we hosted a board game organiser round table to meet and discuss problems with other organisers.
I love attending seminars at conventions as I can game any where I want to do the unusual stuff at cons.
Thanks Adam! That’s great to hear about the rising in presentations related to gaming for good.