How to Create a Diverse Panel of One

I’m privileged to have the opportunity to do a lot of public speaking.
Over the years, I’ve been invited to speak at events around the world and share my thoughts and experiences with others. In doing so, one topic I’ve spent a lot of time pondering is “How can we make speaking engagements more interactive?”
“How can we get more people involved?”
The Problem with Talks
For audience and speaker alike, the standard arrangement of “speaker talks at audience for 50 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A” seems broken as it relates to audience participation. The Q&A period is never enough time to go deep, is too late when the question relates to something covered early on, and all-too-often is hijacked by a guy (it’s always a guy) who declares, “This is less of a question and more of a comment…” and then proceeds to mansplain to the guests on stage.
Panels and fireside chats can also be hit-or-miss. While strong moderators are able to pull out tweetable soundbites from panelists, the discussions typically reflect the preconceived interests and biases of the moderator. Unfortunately, those often don’t match what the audience is really interested in. As a result, too many audiences are forced to bear witness to a moderator chasing evidence that their option is correct or, worse, listen to a thinly-veiled advertisement such as when an investor “interviews” a portfolio founder, a vendor “interviews” a customer, etc.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could facilitate a stronger connection between audience and speaker? One that encourages and empowers the audience to guide the speaker and changes the dynamic from a one-way talk to a conversation?
After dozens of iterations, I’ve converged on on a model that I’ve found leads to engaging, impactful talks for both speaker and audience. I present to you the audience-driven fireside chat.
The Audience-Driven Fireside Chat
At the most basic level, the audience-driven fireside chat is simply a fireside chat where the moderator is chosen from the audience. Sounds easy, right?
Not so fast.
As a speaker, you’re generally invited to talk about a particular topic, so you need to ensure that the moderator is capable and willing to focus on that topic in a way that’s of interest to the audience. Picking someone completely at random has a variety of risks:
- Will they be engaging?
- Will they be representative of the audience?
- Will they ask questions that are too simple for the crowd? Too specific? Too off-topic?
In choosing a moderator, you have to be intentional, even when you don’t know the audience.
How to Choose an Audience Moderator

I’ve found that it’s actually relatively easy to narrow down an audience to a handful of candidates who have the right background to, in theory, ask good questions. It’s a matter of elimination.
For example, I recently did a tour of the UK where I was asked to speak with early-stage founders about fundraising and the Silicon Valley. As such, I wanted a moderator who was a founder (there were also investors and other ecosystem participants in the audience). Furthermore, I wanted someone who had experience raising money (so that they would not ask questions that were too basic).
Here’s how I did it:
- Immediately after being introduced, I asked everyone in the audience to stand up (this gets everyone engaged from the start and sets a tone of participation).
- Next, I asked everyone who was a founder to put their hand up. Assuming that there were a decent number of founders, I then asked everyone else to sit down (note that by having them put their hands up first, I left myself with an emergency exit if there weren’t enough founders).
- After that, I asked everyone who had raised money to put their hand up. Assuming there were a couple of hands, I asked the rest to be seated and chose a moderator from there.
Depending on my mood on a given day, I’ll use different strategies to pick the final moderator. Sometimes I’ll ask the remaining audience members to participate in a rock-paper-scissors tournament, other times I’ll simply ask for a volunteer. Whomever I choose, I ask them if they’re willing to join me on stage (always be respectful and give them the opportunity to bow out gracefully).
Prepping the Moderator

Once I’ve got a candidate on stage, I inform the audience that we’re going to leave the room for 30 seconds to “strategerize” and ask them to use that time to introduce themselves to their neighbors (more audience participation!). I then take the moderator-in-training outside of the room and, after telling them that I want them to be the moderator for the fireside chat, I ask a second time if they’re comfortable participating, emphasizing that it’s okay to say no. (For some people, this can be overwhelming so it’s essential that they feel safe declining. Since the rest of the audience doesn’t yet know that I’m trying to pick a moderator, there’s no public shame or embarrassment if they bow out).
Assuming that they agree, I give them the following instructions:
- Introduce yourself to the audience and tell them about your company (they get to do their elevator pitch first)
- Ask me to introduce myself (I’ll typically give a more substantial introduction that covers my background, the purpose of the talk, and seeds a few potential threads of questioning)
- Ask me any questions you want to
- When you run out of questions, turn to the audience and ask them for more questions
We then return to the room, I introduce the new moderator and we’re off!
Why it Works

Getting the audience involved from the start breaks down the invisible wall between speaker and audience, reducing the “formality” implicit in a talk and making the speaker seem more accessible. Selecting a moderator from the audience kicks the wall down entirely. Moderators occupy a “sanctified seat,” empowering them to ask controversial, challenging or just plain silly questions from a position of safety. Moreover, if they get stuck (because they’re nervous, run out of questions, or whatever), the audience is far more likely to jump in and participate — if only because of loyalty and comradery (nobody wants to watch a friend struggle).
In all of my experiences with audience-driven fireside chats, I’ve never had a shortage of questions.
Wait…You Said This Post was about Diversity
When it comes to problem solving and innovation, I’m a firm believer that diverse teams generate the best outcomes (and I’ve seen the results firsthand*). The tech industry — particularly who gets access to venture capital and who gets to be ‘in the room’ — needs to be more inclusive across gender, race, LGBTQ, country of origin, socioeconomic status, and many other factors.
So what does that have to do with fireside chats? The more we can give underrepresented founders a platform and access, the closer we get to true inclusion and better outcomes for the entire industry.
Here’s how I actually selected moderators for my recent UK trip:
- Immediately after being introduced, I asked everyone in the audience to stand up.
- Next, I asked everyone who was a founder to put their hand up. Assuming that there were a decent number of founders, I then asked everyone else to sit down.
- Next, I asked everyone who was a white male to sit down.
- From there, I asked the remaining founders if any of them had raised money. Assuming there were a couple of hands, I asked the rest to be seated and chose a moderator from there (if not, I asked questions to figure out who was furthest along on their entrepreneurial journey).
The result? At every event I did, a non-”white male” founder introduced themselves and gave their elevator pitch to a captive audience. A non-”white male” moderator asked questions of a Silicon Valley visitor from a position of power (many of which, I guarantee, a white male would not have asked). And those questions led to other, similar questions, from the audience (with the non-”white male” moderator choosing who got to ask questions), and so on. (As a bonus side-effect, I’m told that in the aftermath of the fireside chats, many of the moderators were seen as “mini-celebrities” by their peers, who rushed to ask them about the experience.)
Conclusion
After several years of experimentation across dozens of speaking engagements, the audience-driven fireside chat is my go-to format. For both speaker and audience, it’s far more enjoyable than a one-sided talk, especially when the moderator goes off in a direction that no one anticipated (which, as a speaker, is both terrifying and exhilarating). Combining this format with a moderator from an underrepresented group is a simple way for any speaker to have a positive impact on diversity.
One speaker. One moderator. A diverse panel every single time.
* I was “the Canadian” in that article.
Originally published at https://www.baconwrappeddata.com on November 5, 2019.
