Innovation spotlight: TEDxNottingham's audience feedback boards give speakers live feedback

Innovation spotlight: TEDxNottingham’s audience feedback boards give speakers live feedback

From TEDxNottingham organizer, Iain Botteril: TEDxNottingham was our first event and we were working under a very tight budget, as a result we had to maximise everything that we had.

Whilst we were planning, we thought that we had 100 people in the audience who wanted to be more involved and integrated with the event. So we began to see them not as statues to sit and take on information but rather as an active part of the event’s fabric.

Before the day, we put up 10 boards (one for each speaker) with pins on the side. Then, as part of our audience’s welcome pack, we put in 10 mini red cards and a pen. In between each speaker’s talk, we asked the audience to jot down a few thoughts from the talk on a red card and then stick them up accordingly at the break.

TEDxNottingham by Flickr user, pcmcreative

This helped the audience to remain stimulated during the talks, and also was a great point of discussion and interaction at our breaks and intervals.

It also helped the speakers get a lot of feedback and helped boost the confidence of the other speakers as they saw what was happening with everyone else’s talks and feedback.

Next year, we hope to turn the feedback into gifts for our speakers. We want to purchase a frame for each speaker, and fill it with a selection of photos of their talk, as well as a selection of the red feedback cards. This would give each speaker a really unique and genuine gift for their time. We like the idea of involving the audience and creating genuine gifts.