July 28, 2008

When Did It Become Presenter vs. Attendee?

Posted by Kevin | Print This Article

Sue Pelletier responds to the Allen Stern post I linked to (referencing social media gone wild in a conference panel) by pointing to someone else’s idea for trying to harness this energy. Jeffrey Veen writes:

“As we were planning Start, he said, ‘We should have someone onstage the whole time to represent the audience. Like an ombudsman does for a newspaper.’ So we decided to put a desk on stage and have our friend George Oates fill that roll. She’ll be on Twitter, IM, and email listening to what people are talking about. (We’ll also have volunteers collecting index cards for those not wanting to be online during the sessions.) And she’ll synthesize questions, interrupt us if we get boring, and call bull[**] if something sounds like it.”

All of these various posts about rambunctious attendees, and phrases like “call bull[**] if something sounds like it”, make me wonder: When did conference educational sessions become us versus them? I mean, it’s one thing to use different tools to collect questions for the presenters, but what’s up with all this backchannel backbiting and complaining I’ve been reading about from various conferences?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but at most conferences (especially association conferences, which typically don’t pay workshop presenters, or at least don’t offer them much) — aren’t people who agree to give presentations or participate in panels doing the organization, the conference, and the attendees a favor?

I’m not saying attendees shouldn’t disagree with panelists, or ask provocative questions at the appropriate place — I think they most definitely should, it makes for a more interesting workshop — but what happened to common courtesy?

I believe part of what may be fueling this is an over-reliance among many organizers on using vendors and consultants at their workshops instead of practitioners from their industry and profession. Sure, it’s a lot easier to use consultants, because they’re easy to work with, they’ve usually got good presentation skills, and they tend to get higher ratings. But that doesn’t necessarily make them more useful to the audience (and the audience will not feel the same empathy toward a vendor/consultant that they will feel toward a fellow practitioner).

For example, I’ve sat through many workshops given by association executives where I may have felt that the presenter didn’t have great presentation skills, or I may have disagreed with some of the conclusions she draws, but I still felt the workshop was a worthwhile use of my time because it was an opportunity to hear actual experiences from a fellow professional. I’m rarely that charitable with vendors, consultants, or professional speakers, and I get annoyed when I have to try and pick through a series of workshops in a schedule that seems overburdened with non-association speakers. (Like I had to do in order to plan my schedule in San Diego next month.)

Ultimately, I believe organizers have a responsibility to attendees and presenters to find topics that attendees actually want to hear about, and then find the right people to talk about them (not vice versa). Presenters have a responsibility to attendees and organizers to prepare sessions with the real audience in mind and be prepared to answer questions. And, attendees have a responsibility, too — to themselves and all the other attendees — to act like professional adults and make smart choices about what sessions to attend. If you already know all about a certain topic, or if you already know that you’re not interested in what a particular person has to say about the topic, then don’t go and then complain about it. Instead, go to a different workshop. (And remember to volunteer to present on the topic you already know so well next year.)

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