How many times have you heard those words prior to a briefing, pitch or presentation? I’m guessing a lot. Now how many times has that actually been the case? Probably a lot minus a fair amount.
My colleague and I have discussed this periodically as we have briefings that come to resemble those help desk calls where the customer care rep can’t skip ahead in the script (yes the ethernet cable is plugged in, yes I have DCHP enabled, yes, I’ve tried rebooting too – please skip ahead!), and forces you to sit through information that you already know. I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I’d prefer to do things.
Dave Winer apparently was experiencing much the same phenomenon today at the Internet and Society conference down in Boston (would have liked to be there):
This whole panel-audience thing is so tired. There are say 200 people in the audience, and five people on the panel. This format focuses all the attention on the five. But the ideas in the room are among all 205 people who are here. Day 2 flips that all around, we hope. (link)
All I can say is that I agree wholeheartedly. I love taking briefings with vendors who either know us well or are comfortable handling random interruptions and wildly tangential conversations, and conversely I have a difficult time enduring those that plod through the same set structure every time.
Before I start sounding all self-righteous, however, let me say that I understand and empathize with the quandry presenters have before them. More often than not, if you stop periodically and ask for participation, you won’t get it. Blank stares and a cough or two are not an atypical response to the “any questions?” query. Indeed, one of the marks of a prepared presenter is often the seeding of canned, “prime the pump” type questions from a colleague or contact. But to not allow for participation at all – a common approach – is the wrong response.
Why is that? Well, I think it comes back to O’Reilly’s architecture of participation. Talk at me, and the conversation will proceed along the typical one way track, with little value for you and lessened value for me. Engage me in a conversation, and not only are you more likely to get value back from our interaction, there’s a chance we both might learn something new.
I think this is my New Year’s resolution: I never want to have someone on the receiving end of one of my presentations or panels give the review that Winer did this morning.
