Now Taking Questions for Quora Sessions
Today, we’re excited to announce a new way to interact with experts on Quora — Writing Sessions.
Quora is a knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. Many of the questions and answers on Quora had never been shared anywhere publicly before. You can read Barack Obama answering questions about the Iran Nuclear Agreement, inmates answering questions about life in a maximum security prison, or artists like Avicii writing candidly about their work.
When Quora connects askers to experts, the experience can be amazing. President Obama’s answers on Iran got 1.5 million views, and were republished by numerous media outlets [1]. And the president isn’t the exception: over 1,000 writers each get more than a million views annually on their Quora answers (that # is over 3x vs. a year ago).
Normally, Quora starts with a question and then finds the best person to answer it, but sometimes it’s easier to start with a domain expert and think about what compelling questions they would want to write an awesome answer for.
Today we are launching a new feature — Writing Sessions — that lets askers (1) know when a domain expert is looking for interesting questions to answer and (2) collaborate to assemble a great set of questions for the expert to answer.
How Writing Sessions work
When an expert commits to a Writing Session, a notification is sent to people who might be interested, letting them know that the writer is taking questions and will answer some of them starting at a scheduled time (usually 24-48 hours later). In addition to asking your own questions, you can also follow questions that others have asked. Follows and downvotes will determine the order of questions on the page and will help the writer know which questions are most interesting to readers.
Like other questions and answers on Quora, questions and answers from writing sessions stay in the system as permanent knowledge -- accessible and reusable by readers and question askers in the days, weeks, and years to come.
Upcoming Sessions
We are currently taking questions for U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, an expert on military and foreign policy. Senator Kaine is one of 20 people in American history to have served as a Mayor, Governor and United States Senator. He sits on the Armed Services, Budget, Foreign Relations and Aging Committees.
Our ongoing schedule is here and will focus on people who have unique insights on topics that are important to humanity. Initial speakers include Senator Kaine; Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and Founder of Lean In; Vinod Khosla, legendary Silicon Valley venture investor and founder of Khosla Ventures; and Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America & Planned Parenthood Action Fund. These people together are experts in important topics such as global conflict, women in the workplace, the impact of technology on society, and reproductive health.
Also, I am now taking questions to answer about Writing Sessions tonight!