Three questions at a trade conference shouldn’t require an entourage

Liz, pissing off PR people and event organisers since 1995

Given that it is conference season, I decided to continue my series looking at the peculiarities, minor WTFs, and practical realities of events. (Yes, I have been thinking I should put together a book telling conference stories through the lens of my personal experiences, married with practical guidance.)

I received an email a while ago regarding a panel, which was both odd and strangely not at all surprising.

Please don’t try to figure out who it is; I moderate many panels and events. I am sharing this because it’s representative of an attitude towards speaking at events that I’ve experienced before that has always perplexed me.

The email starts:

“I’m really disappointed to say that I’ll need to step back from the panel at XXX.”

As a framer, the prep call for this session has already happened, and the questions have been sent to the speakers for review.

The speaker goes on:

“Apologies it’s taken a little while to confirm — I’ve been checking in with our comms and press team internally, and while they were supportive in principle, XXX is being particularly deliberate about external visibility at our current stage. With XXX being such a high-profile platform, our comms team don’t have the bandwidth right now to fully support participation in the way we’d want to.”

Now, the speaker did offer to recommend someone else to take their place, which is nice and often does not happen.

However, here is my issue.

Now, I understand that speaking in public is not everyone’s favourite activity. Additionally, I am aware that some speakers represent regulated entities and must exercise caution in their public statements. People often appear on stage, clutching notes. At least 90 percent of the time, the notes serve as a crutch, a security blanket that they can glance at from time to time. I get it. When I started speaking, I needed to stand in front of a podium to calm my nerves. (I’m happy to bounce around the stage now, but it took several years.)

Most people are content to have their dedicated questions, but are also relaxed enough to engage in the discussion conversationally. These panels rarely go off topic. If you are scheduled to talk about embedded finance or stablecoin regulation, for example, you can be confident that those will be the topics around which the questions are framed.

Related side chat: I did have one speaker, about two years ago, who was part of a four-person panel that was scheduled for 50 minutes. He agreed to answer one question, and only one, related to the European Union regulation we were discussing. When his question was asked and answered, this guy then sat on the stage for the next 40 minutes saying nothing. I tried a few times to ask if he had any comments on the different points being made, but the man was a vault.

Let’s return to the above and explore why I find it perplexing.

By now, you should all be familiar with my rule. The ideal panel consists of three speakers and a moderator, lasting 45 minutes. You book four speakers because four speakers are fine, but people tend to pull out often. If someone does, you aren’t left with an empty panel; you are left with a better one. (Coming soon: never book an opening keynote speaker to open an event, unless you are paying them.)

Let’s do the math. You have a four-person panel running for 45 minutes. That means, at most three questions for each speaker, if everyone speaks for only three minutes at a time. (I’ll wait for you to do the calculation.)

Now, make the panel bigger and the time allotted shorter (five people for 30 or 25 minutes, say.) That means each speaker will be put on the spot to answer questions that are usually directly related to what they do for a living, at most, twice.

So this person above pulled out of a session because their PR and comms team are either so stretched for resources, or (I believe more likely) so controlling that they will not let senior staff members answer three questions, in public, on a topic that is literally in their job title.

Seriously?

I fear this may trigger a #NotAllPRs response. I’ve worked with hundreds of PR and communications professionals over the past 30 years, and the vast majority of them are reasonable and knowledgeable individuals who are simply trying to position their clients and companies in the best possible light. However, some are … well … a bit more rigid in their methods.

Let me give you an example. The prep call for the four-person panel is scheduled, and Zoom links have been sent out. On the day the speaker arrives (if you are lucky), two additional PR people will join them. None of these people will have read the set of preliminary questions you sent before the call. You enable a discussion with the panel, trying to find the angle and topics the speakers want to focus on.

You take notes.

After the call, you send along a list of rejigged questions.

Now, before I continue, let me say that, although I am a journalist, I have never moderated a panel at a finance, tech, or fintech conference where I treated it like Newsnight (or 60 Minutes). We all know why we are on stage – to discuss embedded finance, cybersecurity, or stablecoin regulations – as the featured honey trap for the sponsors and delegates who purchased tickets to the event.

That said, I strive to maintain some semblance of journalistic integrity and refrain from asking a blatantly promotional question. I prefer broader questions that allow each speaker to answer in their own way.

Every once in a while, I will receive an email from a comms person, ignoring my list of questions and any discussion during the prep, and instead offering several additional topics their speaker would like to discuss on the panel. (Please see the reality that you will get to answer, at most two to three questions, during the entire time on stage.)

Typically, these are simply variations of my initial questions, rephrased. However, often I get sent deliberate, leading, softball questions that wouldn’t seem out of place within a sycophant press corps covering the administration of a narcissistic, autocratic dictator.

“How can innovative fintech companies working to advance the global finance system find partners to navigate a fragmented and lagging regulatory environment?”

Yes, seriously.

Trust me, if you want to offer a wheelbarrel full of money to an event organiser, in order to get 20 minutes on stage for one of your marketing people to ask a series of promotional questions to your CEO, you will probably find some conference that will welcome your request. However, if your senior person is on a panel, whether your company paid to be at the event or not, that person needs to engage with the other speakers in discussing the topic at hand.

Ads belong in banners, sales pitches should happen in closed-door meetings, and marketing materials should live in your booth. The stage is reserved for discussion and debate on the topic listed in the agenda.

Three questions at a trade conference are not drama, and shouldn’t require an entourage to “...fully support participation in the way we’d want to.”

***

The video for this song was filmed in a park located around the corner from my apartment in Brooklyn, where I lived in 1996. I swear, every girl in New York that year, including me, had those Mary Janes.

Life is always a winding road. If you wait for it to fall into place the way you want it to, you’ll never fully participate in anything.