"It was a success. I was amazed to see so many key players in the region attend this conference."
Ban El Saati-Healthcare Business Manager, Global Information Technology, UAE |
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| Market Intelligence Service | |
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| Guidelines for Chairing an Event |
Chairing an IIR Conference gives our audience to gain from your wealth of knowledge and experiences. We hope it also gives you a chance to meet your peers and take advantage of the networking and learning opportunity the conference aims to provide.
Although you may have chaired several conferences before, we hope you find the following as a good refresher of your role, although please feel free to bring your own style to the event. |
| In this section, you'll find: |
| The Overall Role of the Chair at an IIR Conference | | Preparations Before the Conference | | Your Opening Speech | | Tips for running Q&A Sessions and Panel Discussions | | Chairman's Guide to Sponsors & Exhibitors | | Closing the Conference |
| The Overall Role of the Chair at an IIR Conference |
| Convey Your Enthusiasm! - Your enthusiasm and commitment to the topic will help shape the participants' experience. Highlight any hot topics to be discussed and share interesting statistics on recent events. | | Familiarise yourself with the speakers - Introducing them before their session. If you would like to contact the speakers prior to the conference, please contact your conference manager and we will be happy to forward you their details. | | Maintain continuity - Highlight or summarise any key learning or value points from the sessions and introduce new topics. | | Lead Q&A after each session - Have 2 or 3 questions prepared in case of silence from the floor! | | Hold the Conference to Time - allowing 10-15 minutes within the schedule for Q&A after each presentation | | Before breaks remind audience to fill in evaluation forms | | Announce re-convening times & collect feedback during breaks | | Be present in the conference room at all times - People are reassured by presence of chair! | | There are always slightly reduced numbers for the last sessions. To combat this, we find it useful if, as Chair, you could please promote the final two speakers. It would be helpful if you could chat to them and find out the selling points of each session. You will then be in a good position to promote these final sessions. |
| Preparations Before the Conference |
IIR encourages you to contact all the speakers so that you can find out the main thrust of their presentation, encouraging them to talk about their personal corporate experience and not generic theory, and NOT to re-introduce the topic in every session - IIR will have also done this but it helps if you can reinforce the message!
Keep in contact with the Conference Director, so that you can develop the conference together and plan how the day will proceed. |
Please aim to arrive approximately an hour before the conference so that we can introduce you to the speakers and AV technician.
Before the opening of the conference, you may wish to chat to delegates and speakers to get a feel for what specific benefits people are looking for from the event.
Take a quick look at the delegate list to see if you recognise anyone you can 'draw on' during the event
The IIR Conference Director will say a few words, first about the administration and logistics for the day, before introducing you as the chair of the conference; you will then take over and introduce the conference |
| Tips for running Q&A Sessions and Panel Discussions |
Q&A Sessions
Remind the audience to give their names and companies before asking a question. Have 2/3 questions ready to ask the speaker in case the audience are quiet. After each session, you may like to ask questions of the floor, ie: "What did you think of that approach?" or "Who is working on this at the moment?" This makes the event more interactive and gets more people involved, rather than just firing questions at speakers. | Panel Sessions
Ask each member to introduce themselves very briefly; take control and make sure no-one overwhelms the session; make sure also that the session maintains momentum and is as useful as possible. Again, have questions ready in case the audience is slow at first. Be ruthless with any 'potential pitch' situations. Panels can be either very exciting or comparatively dull sessions and your mediation role is pivotal! |
| Chairman's Guide to Sponsors & Exhibitors |
The Sponsors are a very important part of any conference. We aim to ensure that Sponsors gain maximum benefit through their association with the conference. The Chair is in a prime position to help promote the profile of the Sponsors at the conference.
During the opening speech the Conference Director will thank the sponsors and exhibitors and encourage people to visit any exhibits and make the most of speaking to sales people on site as part of a learning experience. IIR would be grateful if the Chair would reinforce this throughout the conference. |
At the end of each day draw on major learning points and thank all speakers. If there is a reception, or an organised dinner for delegates and speakers to go on to, please encourage people not to miss it. At the close of the conference thank speakers, sponsors, exhibitors and the audience.
Thank you very much for your interest in making this event as successful as possible. We appreciate that a huge amount of energy and effort goes into making these conferences a memorable and fun experience for all concerned. We do hope and anticipate that you also benefit from your time working with IIR. |
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