A panel of experts is an unusual hybrid event. It's not a single person speaking to an audience. Unlike a town hall or a listening tour, the audience isn't speaking -- except to ask questions if there's Q & A.
You've got a group of people up front, usually sitting at a table, talking and debating about an issue.
Here are some tips on making a panel successful:
1) Details
Setting up this kind of media event isn't different in terms of logistics and working with the press. Publicize it long in advance and follow-through the week of the event with another notice.
The moderator is your biggest issue. Pick somebody experienced in running panels, forums or debates, and make sure your moderator doesn't show any bias toward any particular side or faction.
2) The people at the table
It's best to have a variety of people on a panel:
- experts in the field;
- stakeholders; and
- decision-makers.
If you only have experts, it could get dull. If you only have decision makers, they may not dig deep into the issue.
The great thing about experts is they know a lot about their issue. The bad thing about experts is they know A LOT about their issue. Most experts are used to presenting papers to their colleagues at conferences and talking for an hour in a lecture hall while students take notes.
If you've got 90 minutes scheduled for your event, a single expert could fill it, if you told them to -- or if you didn't set the ground rules up ahead of time and keep them enforced by your moderator.
Stakeholders pose a different issue. They often are quite well-informed and well-spoken, but they bring a bias and an agenda. It's good to balance your panel by inviting stakeholders from both sides of the issue, and to make sure stakeholders don't use the forum to go after the opposing stakeholder or the decision-makers. A forum or panel is meant to educate the public, not give factions a platform to score points on each other.
Decision-makers will typically be more careful in what they say. It's useful to have them at forums, though, because they're experienced speakers and this issue matters to them. They're looking for answers, for expertise and the community support to get things done.
The moderator should introduce the members of the panel and give a brief bio for each. Two sentences is plenty.
3) Following up
Panels can be very useful in solving tough problems. People wouldn't respond to a single speaker holding an event to say how he or she is going to fix everything.
A forum or panel brings the right people together to dig deep into an issue, educate the public and have a true dialogue about how to tackle a problem. A single person or organization can't tackle big problems. It takes creative and cooperation, and having a forum or panel is a good way of starting that process.
After the event is over, publicize the results of the forum on your website, in the media with a press release and by e-mail to all the participants and citizens who showed up.
Follow-through is important. Meet in small groups to continue working on this issue and continue giving updates to the press and public about what's happening.