When I read the previous two posts about the anxiety and challenges of speaking in public, it occurred to me that not every public speaking situation involves an author expected to stand up in front of an audience and read poems or talk about their work. Many more people will have to speak moderating an event as a conference panel chair, a host for an author round, or for your kid’s birthday party.
Good MC’s are made, not born
MC’s are not born; they evolve from both negative and positive experiences, whether personal or observed from others’ mistakes. Strategies do exist to prepare for the daunting task of hosting and moderating an event. Within a day of my thought, an opportunity arose to put my money where my mouth was. I will be moderating an event in May for an inaugural Speaker Series. I’m thrilled rather than anxious: it is not my first rodeo on either side of the microphone. As I collect my thoughts and prepare, here is what I have to share.
Preparation
There’s no such thing as enough preparation. When Books We Read was fairly new, Covid hit. However, our past experience placed us in the position of partnering with Rutgers Summer Sessions to launch Summer Tales, a three-month recreational reading program for students attending summer courses in 2020. This also included several fun online events, from book discussions to quizzes to an author event with Joyce Carol Oates as a guest. Over the years, it was followed by many others, enhancing experience in a special area – bibliotherapy-inspired programming in libraries – which resulted in a book called The Librarian’s Guide to Bibliotherapy.
Getting to know your speakers
This book also includes several chapters on designing and hosting events based on our experiences before, during, and after the pandemic with programming. At that time, Nick Allred, a founding member and co-author of Books We Read, was a PhD candidate in the English department and an experienced classroom teacher with substantial subject expertise related to our guests. We selected the speakers based on the books, stories, and poems we discussed during our sessions. The first criterion for choosing a guest was met: you must know your speaker inside and out.
Background guides and scheduling
We recommend creating a background guide for each event, based on thorough research, containing information about the area, speaker, texts, and other relevant topics for the audience. In my case, the current guide works as both a direct reference tool and an inspiration to learn more about the speaker and her research. The next step is scheduling, inviting the author, and locking the date with all interested parties; busy work but not stressful.
Know thy audience!
The second criterion requires familiarity with your audience. With Summer Tales, it was easy. Programs were designed to distract and entertain Rutgers students attending classes during the pandemic who felt isolated and sought meaningful connections outside. Topics for all events were chosen based on the above two criteria. The success of any program depends on the target audience as much as on the speaker selection. If you are lucky (as I am in the current scenario), you have an event with broad appeals. It is easy to define my audience: librarians from all over the world interested in substance use studies.
Playbooks are your friends
As a librarian, I’m detail-oriented and love templates, checklists, and scripts! Early in the history of Summer Tales, we developed templates that became the foundation for many of our events. On the day of the event, this comprehensive “playbook,” with dates, times, strategies, and methods on one or two pages, helped us in some challenging situations. Playbooks also include promotional materials (using data from the Background Guide), such as invitations and social media posts. With some creativity and updates, the templates can be reused many times. For example, I turned to one of our trusted invitation templates for my current event and created an appealing image with Canva. This image has all the information and can be used on social media and the listserv.
One week out
One week before the event, we recommend religiously double-checking the availability of resources and materials. Checking in with the speaker, moderator, and IT support at this time will go a long way. On the day of the event everyone will be on the same page and any potential issues can be addressed beforehand. A small error can ruin the event before it even starts. For example, a botched registration page with dead links or wrong mandatory fields might be responsible for low registration counts. The playbook should be updated now: finalize the names and correct titles for all the people, plan for potential mishaps and how to remediate them, and plan for contingencies. If something can go wrong, it will.
On the day of the event
When the big day arrives, hopefully, you feel fully prepared. I prefer showing up at least an hour before everyone else, particularly for an online event. I like to test all equipment with enough time to fix any issues and ensure that the speaker and moderator can log in. You can also use the hour to make last-minute changes to the playbook. Additionally, always agree on some mayday signal and how to send it (private chat, text message, or a phrase). I was lucky with Summer Tales: all moderators and hosts knew each other well, so eye contact or a particular tone of voice was enough to communicate distress or cue transitions.
Engaging the audience
Now, this is something that takes a while to master. You should feel comfortable enough with the speaker and the topic to let the discussion take its own course. We added an extra field to the registration form: “What would you like to ask the speaker?” This already gave us an idea of audience’s interests beforehand and made participants feel engaged from the moment the event started.
Before going off the rails
This is an actual header in the book! We claim that “not every digression is a disaster; you might wind up in interesting and unexpected territory!” The role of the moderator is to keep things running smoothly, which often means being open to improvisation and letting some segments run longer or shorter. Sometimes, when the discussion gets sidetracked or heads in an uncomfortable direction, the best course is to redirect and get back on track smoothly. We found that, if you don’t seem too anxious, participants won’t even notice!
Reflection
Nothing can prepare hosts and moderators for the actual event. As with running a marathon, one keeps feeling that it once looked like a good idea, but it’s not anymore. This is entirely natural and goes with the territory. Quoting from the book, “Feeling nervous is a sign that you’re approaching it with the appropriate seriousness!” Thorough preparation will provide valuable experience, giving you confidence in your abilities and trust in your partners in difficult situations, making the next event that much easier.