Why Panels Sometimes Suck

I was reading Jeff Zeldman Presents, a blog by the author of Designing with Web Standards.

In the spirit of "stumbling upon" interesting articles, I clicked on an article in Mr. Zeldman's right hand nav bar. This turned out to be a thoughtful discussion of the role and value of panels at conferences. The upshot seems to be that, for panels to be as great as we all want them to be, the panelist must prepare. The comparison to a jazz band improvising extends to a group of random musicians who have never performed in public before, and maybe don't even know any of the same songs.

I started my conference life working on SCOOP Europe (Seminar and Conference on Object Oriented Programming) in 1990. After two years there, I went to DCI, which later became Shared Insights. Neither of their conference models were panel heavy, largely relying on sole presenters. If we did have a panel, it was largely built to satisfy our sponsors' desire to showcase their executive's ego....ummm: expertise. No wonder I thought panels sucked.

My brief year at pulvermedia showed me that panels could work and be stunning, memorable experiences for both the panelists and those in the audience. But it required an incredible amount of work. Two things are essential for a magnificent panel. One is panelists who are technically knowedgeable about the topic, not just about their product. The other is that the panelists must be willing to spend time (on email, on the phone and face to face) with the other panelists.

More on this in the next several weeks. Meanwhile, what do you think?