Organizers can do a lot to improve the quality of Q&A. A clever hack used by the Long Now Foundation for their Long Now talks is to ask audience members to write their question down on paper, and pass the paper to the front. The best questions are then read out.
This has many effects. It eliminates long-winded and meandering questions. It also eliminates questions primarily intended to puff up the questioner. Unfortunately, this latter category is probably the majority of questions at tech conferences I've been too.
The result is that Q&A is often as good or better than the talk, and may continue for 45 minutes. At many events this would be torture; at the Long Now talks it's a pleasure.
This has many effects. It eliminates long-winded and meandering questions. It also eliminates questions primarily intended to puff up the questioner. Unfortunately, this latter category is probably the majority of questions at tech conferences I've been too.
The result is that Q&A is often as good or better than the talk, and may continue for 45 minutes. At many events this would be torture; at the Long Now talks it's a pleasure.