Chairing Events

•During your first year, you may or may not get the opportunity to chair an event. It may be as simple as a 3 person conference call or you may be hosting an orientation session for other new hires. It could be external or internal and involve at least 3 people or more.

•The key to successfully chairing any event is preparation. You need to know in advance, your audience and the message. Prepare accordingly if this is a knowledge sharing session, experience sharing session, post mortem of an issue, knowledge gathering session, training session, end user experience session, or any other sort of event. Ensure your presentation materials be it PDF or a PowerPoint or an Excel document. Make sure the document is neat and presentable and ordered properly. Practice the flow of the presentation from start to end at least once before the actual event. As you gain more experience this will no longer be necessary but as a new presenter, a practice run will get you into the groove of things. Investing in a laser pointer is not a bad idea to appear more professional.

•Anticipate questions in advance and prepare for them as well. Prepare slots to field questions, if an attendee brings up a question during your presentation, handle it if you can handle it. If you know that you cannot multi-task that way, then let everyone know in advance to save their questions for the Q&A session. Some presenters simply cannot handle having their flow interrupted and the key here is to anticipate anything that can throw you off and prepare for it in advance