Imagine you have 45 minutes to present your topic to an interested group of people. Which method will you choose? Hans and Michael from blink.it have found the perfect format for this occasion at the GABAL Autumn Impulse Day: The Discussion Marketplace. In this format, the audience decides which questions should be answered - under very special conditions!

5 Minutes – the timer is running!

The basic principle of the “Discussion Marketplace”: Answer as many questions as possible in a short amount of time. If you want to present your passion to different people as described above, you will probably also fall back on a classic lecture – with more or less audience participation. Perhaps you have prepared slides, or maybe you rely on a purely oral presentation – either way, you will prepare accordingly for the event.

The classic for introducing a topic: Lectures followed by a discussion/Q&A session.

In the Discussion Marketplace, this principle is turned on its head: Here, the participants decide which questions you should answer. For each question, you have exactly five minutes – the timer is running. With this method, you manage to answer all the important questions even in a tight timeframe. And exactly the questions that are most important to the audience!

Michael and Hans from blink.it first tried this method at the Autumn Impulse Day 2018 – the participants were thrilled. And above all: Although the audience was almost exclusively made up of trainers, until then, no one knew this clever format. All the more reason to delve deeper into this method!

Michael at the GABAL Impulse Day 2018: With the “Discussion Marketplace” method, he answers only the questions that are truly important to the audience in a short amount of time.

The perfect method for Barcamps

The Discussion Marketplace is the perfect method for Barcamp formats: That is, for all kinds of presentations that should actually involve much more audience participation than is possible in a typical lecture. By Barcamp principle, I mean all events where you speak as an expert with people who are generally interested in your topic.

The optimal conditions for the Discussion Marketplace:

• The participants want to learn more about a topic.

• The time is limited (e.g., 45 or 60 minutes).

• It is important to you to address as many questions from your participants as possible, or you want to know which questions are important to them (especially if you are speaking about a topic for the first time).

Appropriate opportunities are not only classic presentations at trade shows and Barcamps but also kickoff events in training and further education of all kinds.

The audience can also be nicely mixed: Where usually half the participants zone out, in the Discussion Marketplace, only the questions that are interesting to the majority are asked.

The most democratic presentation format

In the Discussion Marketplace method, the audience determines the questions, and you provide the answers. After five minutes, the majority of the audience decides whether the previous answer was sufficient – or whether you should say another five minutes on that same question. Through this principle, the Discussion Marketplace is the most democratic method you can use for a presentation.

And this is how the Discussion Marketplace works, step by step:

Step 1: Collect questions

Ask your participants what exactly interests them about the topic. Write down all the questions (or at least the first 7-10). Ideally, you project your notes onto the wall using a projector – or you use a classic flip chart.

Step 2: Prioritize questions

Once you have enough questions, it’s time for Round 2: The prioritization. For this, you read each question aloud and let participants raise their hands to indicate who wants an answer to that question. To keep it democratic, each participant has two votes. Note the number of votes next to the question, and you will have a prioritized list in the end.

Step 3: Answer questions

Start with the question that has the most votes – that is, the question that most participants in the room are interested in. Set a timer for five minutes and answer the question.

Step 4: Check interest

The five minutes are up? Then the audience decides again whether the question has been sufficiently answered! For this, you let them raise their hands again: A thumbs up means “I’m still very interested in the topic and want to hear another five minutes about it.” A thumbs down means “I’m satisfied with the answer; I’d prefer to move on to the next question.”

Again, the majority principle applies: If you mostly see thumbs up, you set your timer for another five minutes and continue speaking. If the thumbs are mostly down, you set your timer again for five minutes – and answer the next question in line. You continue this way until the allotted time for your presentation or training session is over. With this method, you can best respond to your participants.

Tip: The Discussion Marketplace works even better when you offer the format together with a colleague/partner. At the GABAL Impulse Day, Hans and Michael worked together – one moderates and takes notes of the questions, while the other simultaneously answers the questions.

Tip 2: Some questions are too complex to be sufficiently answered in five minutes. The solution: Do it like Michael and Hans and ask for business cards at the end to send interested parties further information digitally. If you offer the format in a closed circle, such as in the context of a longer training session, you can ideally answer such questions for everyone in an online follow-up.

The Discussion Marketplace: The most democratic form of a presentation or lecture. In this format, the audience not only determines the questions but also how much time they want to allocate for each answer.

Live or digital Discussion Marketplace? Both fit!

The principle of majority decision-making and prioritization works just as well online as offline: For example, you can offer the entire format as a webinar.

Even better, the Discussion Marketplace works as a link between your in-person event and online follow-up. After the initial introductions in the Discussion Marketplace, you can collect the most important questions from the participants and answer the top five live on-site.

For all other answers, you refer to your online follow-up. There, you can record, for example, 3-minute videos of yourself in which you answer the remaining questions. Since you can prepare for the answer in this case, three minutes should suffice – the viewer’s attention span online is often lower anyway.

This way, you perfectly accommodate your participants and motivate them to watch your answers online – after all, these are their questions. In the online follow-up, you can gradually release additional content that matches the interests of your participants, thus motivating them long-term and sustainably.

This combination of offline and online methods is called Blended Learning. Together with the Discussion Marketplace method, it’s the perfect way to convey: as many content… in as short a time…. to heterogeneous participant groups.

By the way: We at blink.it are so enthusiastic about the Discussion Marketplace method that we will now also try it in internal meetings: About once a quarter, the entire team meets, and everyone can bring questions/ideas. This way, we want to give topics that otherwise would not have time a regular place.

Do you know this format? After their test run, Hans and Michael were excited about the positive feedback from participants. Of 25 people, 19 provided their business cards because they were curious about further answers.

Take a moment for yourself now and think: Where could you use the Discussion Marketplace? Perhaps as a kickoff event for a training or at the next Barcamp? Try out the format; we highly recommend it!