One of the most powerful things about the talks at the TED conference is the restriction that speakers keep their presentations incredibly tight, to 18 minutes of time. Never letting a good idea go to waste, we ask that discussion leaders keep any structured material – presentational stuff – to a maximum of 18 minutes in their time slot, leaving the remainder of the time open for discussion and conversation.

The shorter your “talking head” portion of your discussion is, the better – use it to set the stage or frame the context of the discussion you want to have, and then turn over the reins to the community as a whole and see what the discussion bears.