Guy Kawasaki - Art of Panels

Good post by Guy - The Art of Panels. He points to some other good resources:

• Guidelines for Great Panel Moderation
  
• How to Be a Great Moderator
  
• How to Kick Butt on a Panel
  
• 10 Rules for Being a Great Panel Moderator
  
• Panels, in moderation
  
• How to Moderate a Lively Panel Discussion (PDF)

I generally agree with everything presented with one exception - preparation and PowerPoint. Panels where the speakers just show up and answer questions often end up rambling and not nearly as effective as panels where speakers are prepared for introductory discussions and context setting. As a moderator I always have speakers prepare a few context setting slides and have them prepared for the topics we'll be covering.

At the same time, I agree with the suggestion that you don't want too much preparation. Instead the point is to drill into key issues and show parallels and contrasts in view among the panelists. So, from a more prepared context setting (often with PowerPoint slides to support) you go into a back-and-forth as discussed in the above pieces.