# (1) 01 May 2014, 10:11AM: Better Q&A Sessions:
If you were designing an interactive experience where people got to ask an expert questions about what she'd just taught them, what would you aim to achieve? How would you structure it? I imagine you would curate that conversation in some way, and try to maximize the benefit for all the participants, not just those who could come up with a question or comment fastest, or who wanted help with their very specific problem.
But we can fix this.
A good Q&A requires work from the audience, the speaker, and the moderator. Yes, you should have a moderator. The speaker's concentrating on answering the questions in front of her; don't try to add time assessment and question flow management to that job as well. As is so often the case,* WisCon has already written up best practices for a moderator, including a script for responding to "This is more of a comment than a question". And yes, you are authorized and have permission to moderate discussions. Everyone else will be grateful.
Mary Robinette Kowal offers seven useful tips for speakers on structuring their talks and Q&A sessions to maximize interest and usefulness. I especially endorse her suggestions on signposting, transitions, planting question-seeds, and answering with specificity.
And the audience - well, that's all of us, including me. I can try to think of good questions, and refrain from asking bad questions.
Some bad questions demean the speaker, perhaps by asking "have you tried this super obvious thing" or, worse, recommending the obvious thing (happened throughout that Q&A); or by implying the speaker stole your code (video). Some bad questions disrespect the audience, by hogging the Q&A time to get an answer only relevant to one person, or by grandstanding.
Good questions and comments are like good fanfic; they delightfully expand the conversation with ideas that initially surprise everyone else, but immediately make sense given our shared context. I might ask for more detail on a speaker's process or future plans, make relevant, nonobvious critiques, or recommend relevant, nonobvious resources. I also sometimes make a note of a question to ask the speaker later, in conversation, or of a link to send her.
A bad Q&A, like conference calls or driving in city traffic, is the opposite of meditation. It sucks the energy out of the room, taking dozens of people's time without returning on that investment. Let's get better.
* WisCon has a member assistance fund, very participatory programming creation and signup, a newsletter that helps attendees prep and see how to volunteer, and amazing universal access, including a Quiet Room and ingredient lists on food. And they run a "how to moderate a panel" metapanel early in the conference to help new mods, and a set of first-timer icebreaker dinners the first night. Basically, if you're running a conference, WisCon has best practices you can learn from.
Right now, when speakers give talks at tech conferences, we mostly muff this part. Even really good presentations dissolve into poor question-and-answer sessions, where we waste time with nitpicking, rants, homework help, thoughtlessness, and all the predictable outcomes of an untrammeled glibocracy. I myself have been guilty of this.
Thanks to Julie Pagano for a conversation that led to me writing this!
# (2) 02 May 2014, 10:41AM: What Will Success Feel Like To You?:
Disequilibrium -- surprises, failures, jokes, and disorientations -- will always happen, and we learn from it. We learn about the world, and we learn about ourselves.
I first felt like a New Yorker when I noticed my impatience with people who blocked my way on escalators and stairways in subway stations.
I first felt like a "real software developer" when I couldn't bear to leave a half-unfixed bug.
It's hard to notice as you slowly absorb the new values and habits of a new identity, of a new community of practice. But our brains are primed to notice mismatches and surprises, so it's easiest to notice the change when, for instance, you find mixed tabs and spaces annoying for the first time, or get an in-joke.
But sometimes there does exist some ritual or marker to indicate your change. I remember when I got my first set of Wikimedia Foundation business cards, as Volunteer Development Coordinator, with my name on one side, and the Wikimedia mission on the other.
When Valerie Aurora told me that the board wanted to invite me to join them, I felt a new kind of disequilibrium. It's one thing to get a one-time surprise compliment like "we'd love for you to give the keynote address to this conference." At another level is "we'd appreciate your continuing advice on this topic," as I'd heard in 2011 when I was invited to join the Ada Initiative's Advisory Board (on which I still serve.) But a board of directors is responsible in a different way. Not only had this high-powered group thought highly of me in general, and of my skills and judgment in open source and in feminism, they decided I was trustworthy, that my vote should count. They decided I could be one of them. This is what a certain kind of success feels like.
It's an honor. I shall endeavor to use it well. And, less urgently, to get used to it.Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.
I felt such a deep burst of pride and love -- is that what parents feel when they look at baby pictures of their children?
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Yesterday, the Ada Initiative announced that I have joined its board of directors. I am now one of the seven people responsible for the management of the Ada Initiative, which supports women in open technology and culture.
