Using Little-Known Facts and Statistics in a Panel Discussion

I have always shied away from using little-known facts and statistics during a panel discussion because it just takes more time to prepare. But these days, all it takes is a query into an AI engine such as ChatGPT . So why not dazzle your audience with some facts that they wouldn’t otherwise know?

For example, I just asked ChatGPT “What are some little-known facts about cryptocurrency?” Here are just a few tidbits of trivia that came back from my query (I’m sparing you the boring stuff and italicized a key factoid):

1. First Purchase with Bitcoin: The first known commercial transaction using Bitcoin was for two pizzas in May 2010. Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas from Papa John’s, a transaction that would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars today, depending on the Bitcoin price at the time of valuation.
2. Bitcoin’s Anonymous Creator: Bitcoin was created by an individual or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite numerous attempts to uncover the identity, it remains a mystery. Nakamoto disappeared from public forums and communication in 2011, leaving many questions about their identity and motivations.
3. Lost Bitcoins: It’s estimated that around 20% of all Bitcoins are lost and unrecoverable. This includes coins lost due to forgotten passwords, thrown away hard drives, or mistakes in transferring coins to unusable addresses.
4. Whale Accounts: In the crypto world, a “whale” is an individual or entity that holds a large amount of cryptocurrency, which can be large enough to influence the market. For instance, it is reported that less than 1,000 people control about 40% of all available Bitcoin.
5. Crypto Cities and Countries: Various cities and countries have attempted to become hubs or adopters of cryptocurrency. For example, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021. Other regions have created their own digital currencies or blockchain initiatives to attract technology investments.

Okay, so I don’t know about you, but there are some really interesting tidbits that a savvy crypto audience might not know!

How to Use Little-Known Facts in a Panel Discussion

You can use one of these tidbits of trivia in multiple ways during your panel discussion:

• During your opening remarks as the panel moderator or panelist . Drop a little-known fact in your preamble as to why the topic is important.
• True or False? Ask the panelists if one of your factoids is fact or fiction. (You’ll have to twist a real factoid a bit to make it fictional!). My good friend and colleague, Brian Walter calls this fun activity you can do with the panelists AND the audience as “Fact or Crap!”
• As a lead into a question often called a “Stem Plus Query.” For example, “In September of 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Is this trend going to continue where other countries adopt their own digital currencies?”
• Weave it into one of your responses to a question posed by the moderator or from the audience.

You can also use AI to “reverse-engineer” one of your moderator-curated questions. Let’s say you want to ask if the trend of other countries adopting digital currencies is on the rise, you might ask ChatGPT about “which countries have adopted digital currencies and when?” Here’s what I found out:

Several countries have experimented with or officially adopted digital currencies, often referred to as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Here’s a look at some notable examples:

Using one of these pieces of information, you can craft a “stem plus query” to provide some context to the question you are asking a panelist. And don’t forget to make the number meaningful. Chip Heath wrote a great book about how to Make Numbers Count.

One caveat: Recognize that ChatGPT can make stuff up. So if you are going to use ChatGPT to source your little-known factoids, do a Google search to check the source!

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For more information about how to moderate a lively & informative panel discussion, check out our free 7-part video series on how to moderate a panel and other resources to help you organize, moderate, or be a panel member.

Kristin J. Arnold, MBA, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, CPF Master is a professional panel moderator and high-stakes meeting facilitator who shares her best practices for interactive, interesting, and engaging panel presentations. She is the author of the award-winning book, Boring to Bravo : Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve and Inspire Audiences to Action. ?

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