Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to give better virtual presentations.
Speaker 1: The most important thing to remember is that when you
Speaker 1: are presenting virtually, everyone has the equivalent of an aisle seat.
Speaker 1: You have to work a little bit harder to keep
Speaker 1: them sitting there. When the pandemic swept through the world
Speaker 1: last year, almost all in person conferences, workshops and classes
Speaker 1: were canceled. A year later, these are slowly resuming, but
Speaker 1: many people are still delivering a lot of their content virtually,
Speaker 1: and you know what, that is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: There are some real upsides to not trying to convene
Speaker 1: many people in one place. You save money on travel,
Speaker 1: you don't pump so much carbon into the atmosphere, people
Speaker 1: don't have to work out complicated childcare logistics, and people
Speaker 1: who might not have been able to attend because of
Speaker 1: family or health issues can participate as easily as the unencumbered.
Speaker 1: For all these reasons, I suspect many conferences will continue
Speaker 1: to have virtual components, and some conferences that began over
Speaker 1: the past year will always be virtual. However, as many
Speaker 1: teachers have found over the last year keeping people engaged
Speaker 1: through virtual presentations is just harder when you are all
Speaker 1: sitting in an auditorium together. It's not that easy to
Speaker 1: stand up from an interior seat, cross over all of
Speaker 1: your fellow attendees, and walk down the aisle to the
Speaker 1: door while someone is presenting. You're probably also not going
Speaker 1: to multitask by taking a phone caller a thing like that.
Speaker 1: From an auditorium, you aren't staring at a pile of
Speaker 1: laundry that needs to be put away. But in a
Speaker 1: virtual context, it is easy to turn your camera off
Speaker 1: and do something else. If you aren't engaged, you can
Speaker 1: exit without anyone really noticing. The result is that with
Speaker 1: virtual presentations, everyone has the equivalent of an aisle seat
Speaker 1: in the back. It is very easy to slip out,
Speaker 1: So if you are presenting, you need to realize this,
Speaker 1: and you need to build your presentation with this in mind.
Speaker 1: One of the best options is to be shorter. My
Speaker 1: standard speech format used to be giving forty to fifty
Speaker 1: minute keynotes for in person events. Now almost all my
Speaker 1: virtual speeches are thirty minutes or less. When people only
Speaker 1: have to sit through a shorter quantity of time, they
Speaker 1: are less likely to check out. It also help to
Speaker 1: be more interactive. For my talks, we usually fill the
Speaker 1: balance of the time with a structured fireside chat. The
Speaker 1: organizer has some questions queued up ahead of time, and
Speaker 1: we discuss these topics to gather. Turns out people like
Speaker 1: to hear other voices, not just one voice talking for
Speaker 1: a full hour. You can do polls or ask people
Speaker 1: to answer questions, and having people do exercises or write
Speaker 1: specific things down can redirect someone who is about to
Speaker 1: wander off to clean out the fridge without putting anyone
Speaker 1: on the spot. And of course it helps to be
Speaker 1: animated and to make sure your material is compelling. In general,
Speaker 1: for speakers that means humor, or it means really good
Speaker 1: dramatic storytelling. I've seen both work well, so just figure
Speaker 1: out which best compliments your material. If you are presenting,
Speaker 1: it helps to be able to see at least one
Speaker 1: person on your screen who is listening to you, so
Speaker 1: I usually ask to have an organizer or someone else
Speaker 1: keep their camera on for me. If you can see
Speaker 1: that person nodding, this can help you emphasize the right things,
Speaker 1: and if they seem distracted, well may be best to
Speaker 1: move on to the next topic. They were probably not
Speaker 1: the only one. When everyone's got an aisle seat, you
Speaker 1: need to plan things more carefully. Of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of in person conferences would have benefited from better planning too,
Speaker 1: but since people couldn't leave as easily, some of that
Speaker 1: has been more of an afterthought. The shift to virtual
Speaker 1: learning is forcing us all to rethink many things, but
Speaker 1: I generally think that that is a positive. We all
Speaker 1: need to improve that our skills and remembering that everyone
Speaker 1: has an aisle seat can raise the caliber of any presentation.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com That Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.