Have you ever been to a boring panel?
I was asked to moderate a panel at the 2,000 attendee Meetings Professional International World Education Congress called “Cultural Competency 2.0; #RealTalk on Allyship in Action”.
This topic is very challenging this year with all the changes happening in the industry.
Many panels suffer from boring or tired as they follow the same format or one panel member takes up all the time.
As 1 of 400 National Speakers Association Certified Speaking Professionals, I want to share what I did to elevate this panel: This is what you’re looking for in an emcee and moderator.
1) 🧑🏽🤝🧑🏻Panel before the panel – Schedule a meeting before the panel to meet each other, plan and get agreement
2) 🥅Goals and Roles – When you meet, agree on the goals of the panel and each person’s role or in this case, who each person was representing
3) 🌱Create ground rules – We then agreed on ground rules to meet the goals. In this case, the goal was “Real Talk” so every panelists agreed to take off the gloves and say what’s real, while leaving politics out. Another ground rules was to allow “Nasty Questions” and a panelist came up with the question, “Have you ever regretted being an ally?”. This question elicited amazing and insightful answers that the audience appreciated.
4) 🙃Unpanel – Use a 60-second clock, every panelist can answer any question but they only have 60-seconds. We coach panelists to get the best information out in the first 30-seconds. The audience loves this as more questions get answered and if they don’t like the question, they just wait a minute and they get new content.
5) ❓AUA – Ask Us Anything. I created a QR code to a Google Form so the audience could ask a question at anytime during the program. I used an iPad that was able to monitor their questions in real time.
6) 📢Get Feedback – I used Talkadot to get feedback from the audience. Click https://www.talkadot.com/s/ceojohnchen/events/realtalk-cultural-competence-2-0-allyship-beyond-the-basics-meeting-professionals-international-fa97b5 to see ratings and comments we got. Based on this feedback, this panel is a success.
7) ⏩Speed Round – I wrote questions that I asked each panelists to answer as quickly as possible. This ends the panel at a fast pace and on a high note that leaves the audience amazed and grateful for the experience.
🎁BONUS: Get the panelists to answer all the questions that didn’t get answered in the panel. Click to read their answers.https://engagingvirtualmeetings.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/MPI-WEC-RealTalk_-Cultural-Competence-2.0-Allyship-Beyond-the-Basics.pdf
Click to watch these 7 tips in action, click on questions in descriptions to hear those answers – https://youtu.be/jqeVKsCqI9YThank you to MPI VP Jessie States for allowing this valuable sessions to be shared from MPI WEC.
-John Chen
CEO, Engaging Virtual Meetings
Your experts in engaging virtual and hybrid meetings
Categories: Conference Rescue
0 Comments