New MICE.net article: Q&A
There’s a new issue of MICE.net magazine on the streets. This issue, my column questions the ancient convention of Q&A (the event kind, not the Tony Jones TV show that sends Twitter into hyperdrive).
Sometimes, meetings are no place for democracy. At a major event, you can spend a lot of time and money building up momentum and excitement, only to have it derailed by the sort of unrepresentative nutbags who write newspaper letters to the editor that start with: “Is it just me, or blah blah blah…”
You know what? It is just you.
Read it here.
Tags: mice.net magazine, nutbags, Q&A, Tony Jones
Ian Whitworth believes passionately in the power of live communication, without the buzzwords and bullet points. He works as a creative director and principal of agency A Lizard Drinking. He is also one of the founders of audiovisual company Scene Change. Ian is an ex-professional presenter and long ago, ex-audiovisual technician. For non-presentation stuff, try @ianwhitworth. 
May 13th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Ah, yes! The smugger, but don’t forget the rambler, the serial Q&A killer, the list killer, the unintelligible foreign questioner, the wrong-room questioner, and more! If Q&As are hijacked, then let’s train speakers on how to deal with hijackers.There are techniques - rarely described, naturally. Experience tells me that training scientists to Q&A techniques is like vaccinating them. As soon as a situation develops, they identify which one within 15 seconds from the start of the question, and deploy the anti-hijacking verbal artillery. I wrote a book chapter on these techniques (When the scientist presents).
September 29th, 2010 at 1:53 am
We misguidedly think that holding a question period after our presentation will help us further engage the audience. But like you said: for large audiences or product launches, the Q&A session kills positive momentum.