A symposium consists of a moderator and several speakers seated together in front of an audience.

If you’re stuck for ideas for suitable panel discussion topics, take a look at these suggestions for some inspiration:

Topical panel discussion topics

• Solutions for the environmental crisis
• The future of crypto
• Challenges facing the West

Evergreen panel discussion topics

• On health and wellbeing
• The pitfalls of social media
• What to know about startup funding

B2B panel discussion topics

• How to automate your business
• B2B marketing strategies
• Using data analytics to empower your teams

5 panel discussion formats

Panel discussions can come in various formats, so pick that one suits your purposes best. Here’s a round-up of some of the most popular, all of which work well for real-life, virtual, and hybrid events.

Mainstage

Traditional mainstage panel discussions are your classic auditorium or theater events where the guest panel is mic’d up and on stage, normally for a paying audience. The nature of discussion can be educational, humorous, hard-hitting, or any combination of those, but ultimately it has to be informative and entertaining.

A mainstage discussion is normally hosted by an experienced interviewer or moderator (this could be the host of a podcast or radio show), and the panel might be made up of experts and celebrities. There’s usually an opportunity for audience members to direct questions to the entire panel or individuals.

For successful virtual mainstage panel discussions, you need a video conferencing platform like Livestorm that can take care of everything from event creation and promotion, to controlled and engaging in-event communication, to post-event analytics and marketing.

Q&A

With a Q&A format there’s usually an introductory discussion between panelists, followed by a series of questions posed by the moderator, and then further questions from the audience, which may or may not be vetted pre-event.

Q&A panel discussions translate especially well to virtual platforms with Q&A engagement features, which allow for live polls and question upvotes.

Debate

Debates work best when the discussion revolves around divisive subject matter – think climate change, politics, or open-plan offices.

Traditionally, debates start with each guest speaking their point of view before challenging each other with questions designed to expose holes in the other’s argument, followed by further questions from the moderator and audience. Finally, each guest makes a round-up speech before the audience votes for the winner.

For virtual debates, utilize live polls – not just to engage your audience, but also to understand their points of view, and even get feedback on your event.

Talk show

A talk show panel is based on a TV talk show setup, with two or three guests sat together to talk informally on the questions and topics the host gives them.

The key to a successful talk show panel discussion is chemistry between guests and host – and a host who’s charismatic with experience in leading a thoughtful, entertaining conversation for an audience.

Fireside chat

Somewhere between a talk show and Q&A, the fireside chat brings together a small group of guests for an informal interview. To emphasize that level of informality, guests could be sat together on a couch. Or, for virtual fireside chats, participants might be encouraged to be in their living room or even in a cafe.

Here, the focus is on creating a sense of intimacy to help bring about a candid conversation with lots of personal experience and insight. As such, fireside chats are a great format for less polemic topics, and instead ones that relate to self-improvement or stories of triumph in the face of adversity.

6 steps to a successful panel discussion

There’s no single way to have a successful panel discussion, but there are some key principles that are just about always practical to have in place.

Here are six key recommendations you should consider when running your first panel discussion:

Choose a topic that resonates

The best way to approach choosing your topic is to first think about your audience. Who would you like to be watching your panel discussion? Who would you like to attract and why?

So, if your target audience is within a specific industry – let’s say tech hardware – brainstorm topics that could be of interest to that group. But ideally, don’t do it alone – invite a small collection of people from within that target audience, who will give you unique insights into what catches their attention most.

Find an experienced moderator

A fantastic host can make or break your event, so where possible, choose someone who not only has experience moderating panel discussions (or similar types of events), but also someone who has some connection with your chosen topics and target audience.

A skillful, knowledgeable moderator will bring out the best in your panelists, understand how to engage and include the audience in the discussion, and also make their own original contributions to the talk.

Assemble your team of panelists

The best panels are made up of diverse groups who not only have expertise and authority but also charm, wit, and charisma.

Three to five guests is normally the perfect number, so everyone has the chance to make a meaningful contribution without the conversation ever drying up. If possible, avoid dominant characters who might drown out other guests, and invite people who have some experience speaking in front of audiences.

Provide your moderator with plenty of support

Even an experienced host with knowledge of the subject matter will benefit from meeting with an expert in the field who can guide them through the topics of discussion.

So try to organize a meeting – maybe for a couple of hours over lunch – where your moderator can ask an expert some key questions and gain an understanding of some of the nuances surrounding the areas of debate.

And once you’ve helped establish that relationship, your moderator will have someone to reach out to should they need any further support in the days leading up to the event.

Have everyone meet pre-event

As we’ve said, chemistry is just as important as subject matter expertise, so if possible, bring your guests and moderator together pre-event, where they can get to know each other and build up a rapport. This can have a huge impact on how well your guests are able to interact and support each other in-event.

Of course, bringing together a group of strangers can be difficult to organize, so use a video engagement platform that’s designed for fun virtual interaction, with special engagement features, like emoji reactions, chat panels, and breakout rooms.

Get this right and you’ll create a great atmosphere for an engaging panel discussion.

There are instances where you will be called upon to give an informative speech as part of a group of other informative speakers. This situation may be referred to as a panel or as a symposium. The difference is that in a panel, the focus is on a discussion by experts in front of an audience. The expert speakers may start with an opening statement, but typically the panelists are seated and their opening remarks are designed to present their basic position or stance and the bulk of time is spent in question-and-answer from the audience, from the moderator, or from each other. Some tips for panels are given here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo)

A symposium is more formal and the experts or presenters have put together prepared speeches on different aspects of an overall topic. For example, they may all be experts on juveniles in the criminal justice system, but they have chosen or been assigned a specific informative topic for the audience, who are probably also professionals in that field. One might speak on challenges with legal representation for juveniles, another on family reconciliation, another on educational opportunities, and so on. While there may be time for question and answers at the end, the bulk of the time is taken up by the prepared speeches.

The author has used the symposium format in her teaching of the informative speech for over 25 years. The students at first are skeptical, but usually afterward they see the benefit of the experience in the classroom. For one thing, instead of a class of 25-30 separate and unrelated informative speeches in the class, there are four sets of related speeches that explore a topic in more depth. Some popular topics have been physical and mental health issues (diabetes, breast cancer, pets, schizophrenia, phobias), the arts (musical genres, history of film), travel, and food. In those years, there have been topics that didn’t work. Serial killers and sexually transmitted infections were two of them. One speech on that is acceptable. Six or seven, not so much. Just to clarify, the author always assigns the groups but the students pick the topics.

Here are some pointers if you are assigned to give a symposium-style informative speech.

1. Spend ample time discussing the topics so that everyone is supportive of the overall topic and the way the topic is broken down into separate speech topics. Do not let one person run the show and insist on a specific topic. A strong personality can sway the rest of the group and then later the other members become unhappy about the topic and resentful of the persuasive member.
2. Try to develop topics in different ways; for example, let’s take the overall topic of phobias. The temptation is for each separate speech to be a specific phobia. While this is all right, it becomes repetitive to the audience. There are other ways to develop the subtopics (origins, different treatment options, phobias related to certain demographic groups) instead of six or seven speeches on different phobias.
3. Be in constant communication with your peers so that you know exactly what their topics are and how they are being developed. You don’t want one or two co-presenters to “go rogue” and change their topics without the knowledge of the others in the group. You also do not want to end up overlapping, so that part of your speech is actually in someone else’s speech. Share phone numbers so you can text or call each other, if the members are willing.
4. You should appoint a moderator who will introduce the speeches and speakers and close or call for questions when the speeches are completed, and possibly summarize the set of speeches at the end. This member does not have to be the first or last speaker in the group.
5. Be sure the order of speeches is logical, not random.
6. Be sure to get to the class early so you can set up and feel secure that your team members are present.
7. If you are required to have a question-and-answer session at the end, the moderator should try to make sure that the participation is balanced and one talkative person doesn’t answer all the questions. There will be questions you cannot answer, so just be honest and say, “I didn’t find that answer in my research.”

Many instructors use this format because it not only teaches informative speaking skills, but because it emphasizes team work. You will be expected to do many team projects in your educational and professional careers, and this is a good way to start learning effective teamwork skills.

Learning how to give informative speeches will serve you well in your college career and your future work. Keep in mind the principles in this chapter but also those of the previous chapters: relating to the informational needs of the audience, using clear structure, and incorporating interesting and attention-getting supporting evidence.

Here are three general topics for informative speeches. Write specific purposes for them and explain how you would answer the WIIFM question.

1. Type 1 diabetes
2. The psychological effects of using social media
3. Guitars

Two outlines for informative speeches are provided on the following pages. They utilize slightly different formats; other outline formats are included in one of the appendices. Your instructor will let you know which one he or she prefers or will provide examples of another format.