SXSW and the 2010 Sarah Lacy Keynote Award

Actually I think this has less to do with Harvard Biz School quals and more to do with what I see as a really serious problem in the UK with interviewers and Chairs at events.

I have been so frustrated with many Chairs who feel it is their place to be the thinker, representing the audience, and to have equal footing with the speaker or panellists. It's appalling. A Chair's role is merely to introduce the talent, and to facilitate communication between the talent and the audience. Live events are not the Andrew Marr Show. There's an audience out there that want to interact. But even if a session Chair does play the role of interviewer, then they have a responsibility to tease out and shape a story FROM THE INTERVIEWEE, not to comment themselves. They should also have half an eye on the audience AT ALL TIMES and to watch shifting in seats to consider how the audience are engaged with any topic being discussed - and to shift topics when that happens, quickly and naturally. You don't ask the questions that are interesting to you (you can do this privately, or in blog posts), you ask the questions that are most likely to fire passion in your interviewee, and thus engage the audience.

This week, at an event that was otherwise substandard in organisation, Robin Hamman (@cybersoc) did a fantastic job as a Chair because he was non-intrusive, he was brief and to the point, and because he facilitated communication. He's one of the very few I've come across of which I approve.

Frankly, a good event Chair is someone who keeps to time, is focused on the audience and who channels interest. It's a skill and the vast majority of people I come across fail miserably at the task. SXSW should learn from this incident to select people who are skilled interviewers, not to avoid disciplines.