Google Ops Presentation and Meeting Formats

Fri Jan 27 14:15:16 PST 2006

I'm another list lurker / first-time attendee at BayLISA, but this sort of
audience is neither new nor unique.  The "I need to sound clever NOW"
questions are standard fare.  A skillful speaker or moderator can see those
questions coming from a mile away, especially if they know the crowd.  A
really skillful speaker can redirect the force of the question to propel him
on through his presentation - it's a judo thing.

Brent and I had a repeating pool going on our side of the room, betting how
many more questions the speaker would endure before he managed to escape
from the current slide.  Each time either of us stuck our paws in the air,
it was to toss the speaker a slow pitch he could hit in the obvious forward
direction and get back in motion through his slides.  Sometimes it worked...

That sort of crowd control and speaker assistance is neither the exclusive
province, nor exclusive responsibility, of the host{,ess} or moderator.  It
can be accomplished through truly artful questioning by anyone in the
audience.  The best solution is of course self-control by the rest of the
crowd :-)
--
Bob Sutterfield
bob at sutterfields.us
http://sutterfields.us