September 30, 2009

Story on The Root Today: Death to All Panels!

The Snob has a story up on The Root today calling for the death of the very panels she sometimes sits on. (They can be a little dull. One-on-one workshops would be better.)

Here’s a taste of my most recent panel experience:

Robert Townsend bounded around the room trying to sell me on his Web-based show “Diary of a Single Mom,” including dragging out the slightly less enthusiastic looking cast, including be-shaded Billy Dee Williams, a thoughtful Richard Roundtree and a bored-out-of-his mind looking Leon. It wasn’t for a lack of people. Each panel was filled to the brim with experts, hosted by author/scholar Farai Chideya.

Unfortunately, they were all up against the same thing that dooms all panel discussions—they’re boring.

Read the rest here.

daniellebelton

The Snob

3 responses to “Story on The Root Today: Death to All Panels!”

DNLee

September 30, 2009

Great article. You are right. The problem is that those are still old heads organizing old head events. They haven’t stepped into the future. I attended my first blogging conference this year (ScienceOnline09 in Research Triangle, NC) and I loved it! The entire meeting was participatory! Before the meeting folks were asked to shape teh program and discuss content on the wiki. The meeting was all back adn forth – no lectures – all action oriented.

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miss kate

September 30, 2009

I hear you! It could be worse–in my line of (academic) work, not only do we sit on 3-4 person panels at conferences, but each panelist is usually expected to READ a 10-15 page paper. Out loud. That’s your contribution to the panel. *cries*

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devessel

September 30, 2009

@DNLee: that is AWESOME! i just went to the website, but they are still only talking abt the ’09 conference from january. would love to hear about the one scheduled for 2010!

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