At conferences, you’ll see some panel speakers and some keynote speakers. What’s the difference, and why should you care?

Think of the panel speakers as the ones who are up there with 3 or 4 or 5 other people. The keynoters are up there by themselves.

When professional speakers look at a conference, they typically think of the keynote as the most desirable position to get. But the game they are playing is way, way different than the one you are playing, and in my book, for your game being a panel speaker is actually the more desirable position.

Why?

Remember OPSC (other people’s social capital). Your job is to leverage that.

You don’t leverage it by standing up there alone. You leverage it by standing (or sitting) next to one or two experts. And on most panels of 4 people (one moderator and 4 panelists, so 5 people total on stage), there are going to be one or two well-recognized industry experts everyone in the room knows. Their social capital is going to rub off on you.

Plus, there are some other benefits: If you flub it, there will be others to pick up the slack for you. Also, if you try to step up from audience member to presence on the stage by going through the keynote speaker position, you’ll have one contact option, the event organizer, whereas if you try to do it by getting on a panel, you’ll have multiple moderators that you can go through. In other words, if things don’t work out with the first moderator you approach, you try the second moderator, and if things don’t work out with the second, you try the third.