name: panel-prep description: Build a confidential panelist guide for a panel the user is moderating. Use whenever the user asks for help preparing, drafting, or structuring a panel — including questions, flow, story prompts, or a panelist briefing doc. Triggers on phrases like "I'm moderating a panel," "draft panel questions," "panelist guide," "panel prep," "help me run a panel."

Panel Prep

Produces a confidential panelist guide (Word doc) for a panel the user is moderating. The output is designed to make panels memorable: directed questions instead of round-robin, story prompts that force concrete war stories, 30–60 second answer targets, and a moderator who interrupts and synthesizes.

Step 1 — Gather inputs

Ask the user for these in a single message:

• Panel basics: title/theme, event, date, time, venue, total length, audience, co-presenters
• Panelists (REQUIRED before proceeding): for each panelist, get full name, title, firm, and the perspective they bring (buyer, operator, advisor, attorney, etc.). Do not move past this step without panelist names — they are load-bearing for the research step. If the user doesn't have the full lineup yet, ask them to come back when they do, or proceed with placeholders only if they explicitly say the lineup is locked except for one TBD.
• Thesis: the one idea the audience should walk away with

If the user does NOT have a specific theme or thesis yet: do not guess. Ask them a short series of focusing questions first, one at a time or in a tight batch:

1. Who's in the audience and what are they actually struggling with right now?
2. What do your panelists collectively know that this audience doesn't?
3. Is there a fault line — a topic where your panelists would genuinely disagree?
4. What's a take you'd love to hear stated out loud that nobody says at conferences like this?
5. If someone walked out and remembered one sentence, what should it be?

Use the answers to draft a thesis and 3 candidate block themes, then confirm with the user before writing the guide.

Step 2 — Apply the panel craft principles

Every guide must follow these rules (drawn from experienced moderators — David Meerman Scott, Kristin Arnold, Howard Givner):

• Directed questions, not round-robin. Each core question goes to one named panelist. No "let's hear from everyone."
• Engineer conflict. Identify where panelists disagree and build questions on those fault lines. Tell panelists in the guide to jump in when they disagree without waiting to be called on.
• 30–60 second answers. State the target explicitly.
• Force a choice or a story, not a lecture. Favor "would you rather," "walk us through a deal where," "what's a belief in this industry you think is dead wrong." Nothing Google-able.
• Concrete over abstract. Story prompts ask for specific deals, specific numbers, specific moments — with explicit "disguise freely" permission.
• Moderator interrupts and gets the final word. Closing block ends with a 30-second moderator synthesis, not the last panelist.
• Introduce panelists yourself in 90 seconds total, not panelist self-intros.

Step 3 — Research the panelists

Before any topic research, do a dedicated research pass on each named panelist. Search by name + firm. For each panelist, find:

• Verified bio basics: current title, firm, prior roles, deals or work they're known for. Check the bio the user gave you against public sources — flag any errors before they end up in the guide. (The user has been burned before by incorrect panelist backgrounds.)
• Recent published work from the last 12 months: articles, firm reports, interviews, podcast appearances, conference talks, LinkedIn posts, op-eds. Capture quotable lines, predictions, and stated positions on the panel topic.
• Public stances on the panel theme: what have they said on the record? Where do they sit on the spectrum of opinion in their field?
• Notable transactions, projects, or war stories they've spoken about publicly that could be referenced or invited on stage ("You wrote about the X deal last fall — walk us through what happened")
• Anything that has aged interestingly: a prediction that came true, a position that's been challenged, a stat they cited that's since been revised
• Cross-panelist tension: does Panelist A's published view contradict Panelist B's? Those are the gold-standard fault lines for engineering productive conflict.

Deliver this as a section in the Moderator Briefing (see Step 5). Each panelist gets their own subsection: corrected bio, 1–3 quotable lines with source and date, public positions, and any cross-panelist friction flagged explicitly.

This is also what makes the Step 4 topic research sharper — once you know what the panelists have already said publicly, you can hunt for stats and developments that put their stated positions to the test on stage.

Step 4 — Research current trends and surface stats

Before drafting the guide, run web research on the panel topic so the moderator walks in armed with current data. This is not optional — even when the user is a deep subject-matter expert, fresh stats and recent developments give them ammunition for follow-ups, devil's-advocate moves, and the closing synthesis.

What to search for:

• Headline market data — size, growth rate, year-over-year shifts in the relevant sector or activity
• Recent surveys and reports — name the publishing firm and date. Prefer primary sources: industry associations, top-tier consultancies, regulators, peer-reviewed research
• Recent news and inflection points — anything from the last 3–6 months that panelists will be expected to have an opinion on
• Contrarian or surprising findings — stats that cut against conventional wisdom are gold for engineering conflict
• Regional/local angles if the panel has a geographic focus
• Numbers that translate to dollars — multiples, premiums, percentages that map to real outcomes the audience cares about

How to present the research to the user:

Deliver a short "Moderator Briefing" document (separate from the panelist guide — this one is for the moderator's eyes only) containing:

1. 5–10 panel-ready stats, each with: the number, the source and date, a one-line "how to use this on stage" note, and a flag for any nuance, weak dataset, or vulnerability the moderator should know before citing it
2. 3–5 recent developments the moderator should be conversant in, with one-sentence summaries
3. 2–3 contrarian or fault-line findings that could be used to provoke disagreement among panelists
4. Panelist-specific intel (from Step 3) — for each panelist: corrected bio, 1–3 quotable lines from recent published work with date and source, public positions on the panel theme, and any cross-panelist contradictions flagged as fault-line ammunition
5. Source list with links

Pressure-test stats before including them. If a number comes from a thin dataset, a single quarter, a survey with selection bias, or a source the audience might challenge, say so explicitly. The user has been burned before by stats that looked clean but had nuance underneath — assume they will be again if you don't flag it.

Weave the strongest 2–3 stats into the actual panel questions where they naturally belong (e.g., "Recent data from [source] shows X — does that match what you're seeing?"). The rest live in the briefing for the moderator to deploy as needed.

Step 5 — Produce the guide

Use the docx skill (read /mnt/skills/public/docx/SKILL.md first). Structure:

1. Cover block — event, date, time, location, presenters, panelist list, "CONFIDENTIAL — FOR PANELIST PREPARATION ONLY"
2. Panel overview — 2–3 sentence thesis in moderator's voice
3. "Your role on this panel" table — one row per panelist with perspective and story territory
4. "How stories work on this panel" — speaking-time math, plus the 4-step story formula: Setup (15s) → Discovery (20s) → Impact (20s) → Lesson (15s). Include "disguise freely" note.
5. Panel flow table — opening + 3 content blocks + closing, with timestamps, durations, and stories per block. Scale block count to total time (shorter panels = fewer blocks).
6. Questions by block. For each question:
   • Q# → directed panelist (name, role)
   • The question itself, phrased to force a choice or story
   • One-line "Why this question" moderator rationale
   • 📖 STORY PROMPT box with a concrete scenario
   • "Your notes / story idea:" line
7. Opening round — one 60-second question to all panelists, no stories, stance-taking only
8. Closing round — one lightning question to all panelists with suggested answer order, punchy and quotable
9. Bonus questions — 4–5 extras for Q&A pivots or flex time, same format

Step 6 — Hand off

Present both files via present_files: the panelist guide (.docx) and the moderator briefing (.docx or .md, moderator's preference). Make clear which is which and that the briefing is moderator-eyes-only — it should never be circulated to panelists. Keep the chat-side summary brief: what's in each file, any stats worth pressure-testing further, and an offer to do targeted edits (not full rewrites) on specific questions.

Then end the handoff message with the following reminder block, copied verbatim, so the moderator has it in front of them before they walk on stage:

What makes a panel memorable — a reminder before you walk on stage

• Conflict is the plot. The most memorable conference moment is almost always two smart people respectfully disagreeing in real time. If the panel drifts toward consensus, play devil's advocate.
• Your job is to interrupt. The single most common failure mode is a weak moderator who lets one panelist ramble. Cut in: "Let me hold that thought — Maria, you've seen the opposite, right?" The audience will silently thank you.
• Never go down the line. Round-robin is the fastest path to a boring panel. Direct questions to specific people. Don't require everyone to answer everything.
• Target 30–60 second answers. At 3 minutes per answer, a 40-minute panel covers 3 questions. At 30–60 seconds, you cover 10+. Audiences love when the moderator keeps things moving.
• Force a choice, not a lecture. "Would you rather…" beats "What are the biggest challenges in…" every time.
• Ban the love fest. Push panelists off "cautiously optimistic" and onto specific, defensible claims.
• Open with energy. A show of hands or a one-sentence stance from each panelist gets the room leaning in.
• End on time, every time. Lightning round → your 30-second synthesis → done. Don't let the last panelist have the final word — that's yours.

The throughline: your duty is to the audience, not to the panelists' feelings. A panel people remember is one where the moderator was visibly in charge.

Editing behavior

When the user comes back with feedback, fix only the specific issue flagged. Do not rewrite the whole guide. Assume the user will pressure-test any stats — flag shaky ones proactively rather than burying them.