I’m not a fan of the panel format. I find more often than not, panels are only as good as the people moderating them. But also, it takes a well selected group of panelists to really make a panel good. I’m much more captivated by a single presenter who has pulled together a presentation that keeps me captivated and always ready to catch that next big point. Panelists tend to ramble and sometimes the conversation can run astray. This seems to be happening quite often at this year’s SXSW conference. Let me offer a few thoughts to consider for future panelists.

1. Don’t show up to your panel hungover. Being a panelist is a privilege that many other people would like to have. I don’t care how smart and clever you are. If you show up to your panel and you use a hangover as an excuse, its a poor reflection of you and a huge disappointment to those who have paid there hard earned dollars to come see you.
2. Show up. See above. If you don’t get bombed the night before. Your chances of being there to present are much greater.
3. Know your topic. Think about the subject matter before hand and have at least one or two points available to share. This is your time to help others get insight that has given you success.
4. Let the moderator do their job. The moderator’s job is to maintain a good flow of the conversation, ask good questions and allow every panelist to have a fair share of time to talk. Far too often one panelist will dominate the conversation. This isn’t a soap box. Don’t use it that way.

For the moderator:

1. Pick good panelists. If you have the opportunity to select people to be on your panel, reach outside of your friends and pick folks who are articulate and diverse.
2. Lead. Watch the clock. Keep a natural flow. Break the session up into a few subtopics and manage the time for each well.

For the audience:

• Ask your question and then get out of the way. Don’t use open questions as your forum to plug yourself or abuse the time of other people who want to ask questions. There is usually only 5 minutes for questions and there are usually several people who want to ask them.

Now that I got that off my chest, here’s are some highlights from Day 2 at SXSW. Frankly, the first three sessions I attended on Sunday inspired my rant. For the moderators and panelists for Every Breath You Take: Identity, Design Workflows and the Keynote Conversation: Phil Torrone & Limor Fried, you wasted my morning and probably did the same for many other folks. I say this with the utmost respect. I know your job isn’t easy and I’m not sure I could do a better job put in your shoes. Regardless, maybe a little negative feedback will help your format in the future.

It wasn’t until the Building an Online Fan Base panel moderated by Scott Kirsner from Variety that the day was redeemed and this didn’t happen until 3pm. If there weren’t 2 more days of the festival, I would have felt cheated at this point. To offer an explanation of this panel, one of the themes of the discussion was that filmmakers own the responsibility for creating a fan base for their films. I think this applies to all fan fueled programming. Another point made was for filmmakers and their equivalents to reach out to fan bases with creative means by getting people involved with the films before release. Joe Swanberg of Hannah Takes the Stairs says that a new movie is the best advertisment for an old movie. Lance Weiler of Workbook Project built a web experience to promote his movie at HeadTraumaMovie.com on a tight budget along with a component that allows the fan to call in and receive a creepy callback. Ian Schafer’s group at Deep Focus allowed the first Clerks II fans to become “friends” on MySpace to be added to the movie’s credits. This was the best panel I attended on Sunday which provided redemption for an otherwise lame day.

I did attend one more panel of worth this day titled The Rise of the Blogebrity moderated by Kyle Bunch of Blogebrity. Panelists included Amanda Congdon of AmandaCongdon.com, Henry Copeland of Blogads, Nick Douglas of LookShiny.com, Karina Longworth of Vidiocy.com and Casey McKinnon of Galacticast.com.

Music of the day… VoxTrot at the Come Mashup With Us party held at Austin City Limits.

Here’s to high hopes for Day 3.

-Tom

Reposted from design.aim.com.

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