Consulting Journal: Conferences - Chairing conferences: end

Conferences: Chairing conferences: end

by David Blakey

The fifth article deals with closing the conference and what you can do afterwards.

[Monday 15 July 2002]

The final speaker is finishing. The conference is about to end.

Closing the conference

Do you recall the chairman whom I described in the previous article? At the end of each session, he summarized what the speaker had said. Naturally, he did this based upon what he thought had been valuable during the conference. Other people in the room may have gained other insights and received other value.

As you can imagine, he also gave a summary of the entire day during his ‘closing remarks.’ It was not only repetitive, but it repeated something that should not have been said in the first place. To me, as a member of the audience, it appeared to treat us as children.

So, do not summarize. Confine your closing remarks to a version of your opening remarks. In no more than two sentences, repeat the main topics of the day.

We have looked at three important issues today, beginning with the legal view of IT contracts, then moving on to Web development contracts and finishing with contracts for Web content management and delivery.

I hope that you will now take what you've learned today and use it successfully in your own work.

Thank you, and good-bye.

Keep it short and simple. Leave out any of your personal views. Do not get sentimental. Just close the day and let the audience leave.

They may applaud after this. Acknowledge their applause and then move from the lectern.

Sometimes the conference organizer will step up and thank you. As they approach, move away from the lectern and stand in the centre of the stage. Acknowledge their thanks and any applause and then walk back to your chair. Do not be embarrassed; do not look embarrassed. Do not bow; do not grovel; just smile as you would when you are saying good-bye to a friend.

At the end

You will be clearing your papers at your table. Remain standing while you do this. If you sit down again, it can signal that you are available for a prolonged discussion. If someone does come up and begin to talk to you, then stop clearing up and give them your full attention. If they stay for more than a couple of minutes, just say ‘Excuse me’ and start clearing up again. They will have either to finish the conversation or to continue it as you walk towards the door.

If they're still talking as you leave the conference room, then wait for a suitable pause, say ‘Excuse me, I really must talk to the conference staff.’ If you think they are a serious prospect, then take their card and call them during the next business day.

I have not said up until now that you should have given your business card to everyone at the conference. ‘Everyone’ includes the audience, all the speakers, all the conference organizer's staff, and any exhibitors. I have also not said that you have spoken to all these people. This advice is so obvious that I shouldn't need to say it to any serious consultant, should I?

Make sure that you do have the cards of everyone who might be interested in speaking to you again. Check whether the best way of contacting them is by telephone or by email, and note this on their card. You probably will not be able to arrange a meeting at the conference, as they may not have their diaries with them.

It is not an excuse to say that you must talk to the conference staff. You should thank them for their assistance and congratulate them on a successful conference. You may be surprised at how often you will get invited to chair future conferences if you spare a little time to be pleasant.

After the conference

It can often be useful for you to do a de-brief a few days after the conference.

Throughout the conference, you will have been asking the audience to complete the feedback form. This form often lists the speakers and the names of their sessions and asks for a rating of each speaker's performance and each session's content. This information is used by many conference companies - and certainly by all the conference companies that I work with - to decide whether to include sessions on similar topics in future conferences and whether to invite speakers to present at future conferences. These are not the same decisions: the content of an excellent presentation may not be appropriate for the audience on the day, and there is no way that the speaker could have known this in advance; also, excellent content may be poorly delivered by an inept speaker. The conference company may want to run regular conferences on a subject or sector: annual conferences on search engine optimization or the electricity industry may be popular and profitable. The conference company may also want to maintain a ‘stable’ of good speakers who can present current thinking on a specialist area: speakers who can present practical information about current practice and trends are attractive and marketable.

It is useful to conference companies to have feedback from the people who chair their conferences. You are in the unique position of observing the audience face-on for every speaker. Your comments can be tremendously valuable. As you watch the audience in each session, you can try to determine if the audience is interested in the content or the speaker. Poor content can be enlivened by an exciting speaker; superb content can be destroyed by a boring speaker. You will be chairing the conference because of your knowledge of the conference subject. You should therefore be able to judge whether the content is good and therefore whether the audience reaction is caused by the content or by its delivery.

You may also be able to see how speakers recover from problems. Sometimes a speaker who is excited about their subject will skip forwards an extra slide. Watch how the audience reacts when this happens. Do they call out to the speaker? If they do, there may be a strong rapport between the speaker and the audience. Do they not notice? With some exciting speakers, the audience will not watch the slides too closely. When the speaker discovers the mistake, how smoothly will they recover? I recall one speaker who completed what he saying about a slide that had been skipped and turned to the screen just before he clicked for the next slide. As he discovered the ‘next’ slide was already showing, he turned back to the audience and asked them if they understood everything he had just said or if they wanted him to go back to the previous slide and do it again. The audience immediately told him that all was well, and that he should carry on, and he did, after asking them to call out if he did it again. He handled it well. His main concern was that the audience had not missed out because the wrong slide was there, and the audience felt this. The audience was impressed by his own excitement about his subject.

Note these events down and pass your comments to the conference organizer.

Note also whether the speaker fits into their time well. Conference organizers like to use speakers who have planned and rehearsed their presentations so that they fit within the time. They like speakers who can take questions during their presentation and then adjust their overall timing. There is a kind of ‘question-time paradox’ at work for most speakers. You will not be surprised by the fact that speakers who had very few questions as they spoke are likely to get very few questions at the end. You may be surprised to learn that the speakers who get several questions during their session are more likely to get a number of questions at the end. One reason for this, I think, is that, after the first question, the audience can gauge how well the speaker answers questions. They will be more likely to ask questions at the end if they know the speaker will answer them well. They will be less likely to ask questions if they do not know how the speaker will handle those questions.

If a good speaker is presenting a ‘hot’ topic, they may get several questions during their presentation and at the end. You should note this and pass the information back to the conference organizer. (At the time, of course, you may decide that you will let the speaker over-run their allotted time, because the audience clearly wants to hear more.)

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