Okay, what kinds of questions can you ask? It's a question. I came up with this matrix. You can ask them Closed questions or Open ended questions. That's pretty obvious. And then you can ask them questions about facts, about objective things that have to do with the contents of your speech, or you can ask them a much more interesting questions. Questions about their opinions, something that's in the room, quite unlike facts which are typically outside the room. And I think open ended questions about opinions are the most engaging, are the most thought provoking, and close ended questions about facts are the most boring. But still I think even they deserve to be asked and well answered. And then there's another dimension which I don't quite know how to visualize, which has to do with content or process. You can ask questions about content or process. Let me explain all these two. So closed questions are questions that have a very short list of answers. For example, yes, no, maybe or three options. This is yes, this is no, this is maybe. Closed questions about facts typically look like this, "Okay, who thinks Columbus was Spanish?" All right, okay, "Who thinks he was Italian?" And this gives you information about the level of knowledge in the audience, which might be valuable for you. Open questions about facts are, "Where do you think Columbus was born?" And you get all sorts of ideas. Sometimes you are unlucky in the sense that the first person stands up and says, "He was born in Genoa, " which is the correct answer. But sometimes there's a bit of discussion before the group arrives to the correct answer. Once again, this is about engagement, working with people. Now, they should have at least a chance to answer correctly. Don't ask them obvious questions, but don't ask them questions which are way too hard. The game should be fair, this is the game you're playing with the audience. Also you can ask closed questions about opinions and I think these are much more interesting, much more engaging questions, much more thought provoking questions. "What do you think?" It's not what objectively is but rather what are your beliefs and values are? Questions like that. "Who thinks Chevron's Logo is a good logo? Who thinks it's a bad one?" Okay, or right now I know something about your tastes, I guess. Now, you have to be really interested in their answer. Asking questions is work, but so is answering questions. And you need to show them that you do appreciate their input. You most of the time you're acknowledging the answer. You're saying, "Oh yes, that's an interesting opinion." You can also sometimes negate the answer which is demotivating, but sometimes this is what honest feedback is about. Now, you're saying, "No, wait a second, who's next?" But what you certainly cannot do is ignore the answer. You need to either acknowledge or negate it. You cannot go, "Okay, who's next?" No, stay with this person for a while, thank him for his or her input. You can also ask questions not about the contents of your speech but about the process. Which I think are very important questions especially for longer sessions like an hour or hour and a half. "Are you guys with me? Are you following me? Are you all right? Am I too fast? Do you need a break?" Stuff like that. I think very important questions are hugely under appreciated by most of the speakers as far as I'm concerned. Now, a great question about process is, "Who else has the same question?" It typically happens during the Q&A but sometimes during the talk as well. Somebody raises their arm and I go, "Okay." The person stands up and asks the question, nobody understands including myself. So I go, "Okay, all right, who else has the same question?" And of course, nobody raises their arm and this gives me a moral right to say to this person, "You know what? Let's talk during break." And he might be dissatisfied, but we all understand the rules of this game that it's not fair to the rest of the people to discuss something between the two of us. Great question saves me a lot of time. The next kind of question is questions about opinions, open ended questions about opinions. "Who thinks Chevron's logo is a bad one? Okay, why do you think Chevron's logo is a bad one?" This is an open ended question. And this gives me a lot of information about people's values, beliefs, about their criteria. I cannot ask all the group but some people would say something and then I can ask, "Okay, who agrees with this point of view?" And this would give me information about the rest of the group. Very interesting question. Please do not make them guess your opinions. You can make them guess facts and objective facts, but please do not make them guess your opinions. "Why do I think this logo is bad?" It's a very bad question. "We have no clue. Frankly, we don't care." And one more time, open questions provoke discussions. Open questions provoke exchange of opinions among different audience members. People start talking horizontally. It's not about you anymore, it's about them. Which might be a good thing but you need to be able to moderate this discussion. You need to be able to go, "Not you, no, you wait a second. Now, you?" You say stuff like that. Once again, it's a skill. Sometimes there are people willing to hijack your presentation and speak for five minutes to make their own mini presentation, and you need to be able to interrupt them and we will deal with that later in the next part of the course. So for now just hold on a second, maybe don't ask open ended questions to the audience. And finally, there are the most difficult questions of them all. And I think you can ask those kinds of questions only after the talk. They are very helpful. These are open ended opinions about the process. And the best question I ever heard is, "How could I have made this experience better for you?" And at this stage you learn a lot. You don't argue with people, you just write it down and say, thank you. This is what they have to say about the process. This is their suggestions, I guess. You can disregard most of that later. You will disregard most of that later. But there's a chance for you to learn something about their feelings during the process. I think this is an excellent question one might ask.
