The days of raising your hand are over. With mobile technology, constant connectivity, and live feedback, events are using live question and answer to improve their sessions. 

Doing a Q&A is an essential part of any event session, whether its a presentation, educational session, or a product introduction. However, the number of sessions doing effective Q&A has gone down recently. Lets explore why: 

1) Time consuming - it takes too much time out of a session for speakers to answer every question. For a 50 minute presentation, spending a half hour on Q&A, especially when most of the questions are not universally applicable, is not reasonable for speakers or organizers.

2) Answering every question, including the bad ones - The speaker has no control over which questions to answer when doing a traditional Q&A. For the most part, that means a lot of time is wasted with questions that are either not applicable for most in the session or could better be discussed after the session. Plus, there is no way to stop an inappropriate question until after its been brought up.

3) Organizing is complicated - For large sessions with hundreds of attendees, figuring out a method to let everyone get a question in is difficult. You see people line up behind microphones, try to get attention in a crowded room, or worst of all, get completely forgotten. 

How do you solve these issues and still have an effective Q&A? 

At EventEdge, we think the solution is using devices attendees already have to make Q&A shine. Along with live polling, question and answer on mobile helps smooth things along. Here is how: 

1) Instant & anytime - The speaker/moderator has full control of when to start accepting questions. For the attendees, this means that they can start to submit questions during the session as they think of them without waiting until the end.

2) Only respond to the best + avoid repeats - With our management structure, you can get the questions as they come and choose the hide those you don't like. Plus, attendees can 'up-vote' the ones they like and simply comment on a question they like or want to expand on without reposting. 

3) Easy management -  The speakers/moderators can easily manage the questions, mark them as answered, and track them as they come in. Plus, with a project view, speakers can show the questions to the audience and keep them informed. All from the convenience of a laptop or tablet. 

Is Q&A weighing your event down, find out how we can help today.