That's a really great question!

One of the standard best practices for a webcast dictates that the moderator should have a list of seed questions available for the Q&A session. Sometimes people call them planted questions, canned questions, etc., but the concept is the same. When it comes time for Q&A, if the audience isn't asking many questions or the questions aren't good enough quality, the moderator can fall back on their list of seed questions to get the discussion started. Sometimes we use them, other times we don't -- but it's an important safety net because you never know how many audience questions will come in during a live event. A few days before each webcast, we ask each presenter to come up with at least a couple, just in case we need them.

I've noticed the strangest thing when it comes to seed questions. In situations when we need to turn to the list of seed questions, the moderator will read the question to the audience. More often than not, the presenter will begin answering the question by saying, "That's a really great question!" I don't know why they do it (perhaps they're trying to disguise the fact that THEY were the one who wrote the question?), but it seems to happen the majority of the time. If the question is from an audience member, I almost never hear them utter those words.

So the next time you're listening to a webcast and you hear the presenter begin an answer with, "That's a really great question!", I'd be willing to bet it's a seed question the presenter wrote.