Panel discussion
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Along with computer-based training and continuing professional development, the panel discussion — jammed between workshops at an all-day conference as cheap filler, like one of those dreary Inside Africa fillers that run on a loop on CNN international, watched only by business travelers captive of the Airport Hilton in Bucharest, is one of the great blights of a modern corporate life quite overwhelmed with them. This is not to say the keynote sessions that run aside of them are a whole lot better, but the idea of hearing an assemblage of aspiring junior partners, industry association inhouse counsel and random change management consultants mumble disinterestedly about the impact on market stability of transa —
Sorry where was I?
In any case case in as we move into this glorious millennium's second decade a whole new genre of career has gives into view through the midwifery of LinkedIn: the panel discusser. These are people who who by all appearances spend the majority of their working lives attending, or speaking on, panel discussions. No topic is too arcane, no facet of the regulatory landscape too dreary, no selfie with fellow-panel members too prostrating if one's self-esteem, that they can't be cajoled into representing.
Now if you're a junior partner in an offshore lawfirm , burnishing credentials, building a profile, that's something. But for the middling ED in an in-house function, it's harder to explain.
Just what possesses people to post images to LinkedIn of themselves sitting awkwardly on a low stage in front of thirty bored associate directors, with “great panel discussion today about the EMIR refit!”
What do they have in mind? Do they imagine their network to be flooded with envy, or jealousy, or remorse at the sparkling debate it now discovers it has missed?