How To Be A Great Panel Moderator

6 mins

Light Mode

Ted CarstensenPlatform Director, Heavybit

Curate & Translate For Your Audience

Know Your Audience

Ask ‘What If’ Questions

Entertain & Delight With Value

Break The Fourth Wall

Conflict Is Interesting

Tease Out Newsworthiness

Humanize Your Panelists

Paraphrase, Cherry Pick, And Redirect

Brief Introductions

Respect Your Audience

Concluding Your Panel

Few people will tell you this, but the moderator role is about a million times harder than that of the panelist. Moderators have to:

Translate panelist stories into actionable advice for the audience;
Translate panelist stories into actionable advice for the audience;
Entertain the audience and keep them engaged by teasing out conflicting POVs and approaches;
Entertain the audience and keep them engaged by teasing out conflicting POVs and approaches;
Be Brief & Paraphrase.
Be Brief & Paraphrase.

And perhaps most difficult of all, you must expertly do all this in under 10 min of total speaking time since the rest of your time should be spent steering the conversation of your panel and providing value to your audience.

As a moderator, never forget that you’re a puppeteer not a panelist.

As a moderator, never forget that you’re a puppeteer not a panelist.

Through four DevGuild conferences and countless events in our SoMa Clubhouse, we’ve encountered all varieties of panel moderator. From tho...