Simon Willison’s Weblog

What are some of the wackiest panel discussion formats?

25th January 2011

My answer to What are some of the wackiest panel discussion formats? on Quora

There’s a format called a fish bowl which is pretty fascinating:

You place four chairs in the center of the room. At any one time, only three of the chairs can be occupied—and only the people in these chairs are allowed to engage in the discussion. At any time, an audience member can decide to sit down in the fourth chair, the empty one, and join the discussion, forcing one of the others to leave their chair and join the audience.

It allows everyone in the room a chance to join in, and leads to some frantic and extremely interesting conversations.