What is your biggest concern when presenting online?
I recently posed this question about presenting online to Dorothy Dalton, C.E.O. of 3Plus International. Now, let me take a step back before I share with you her responses. Dorothy is a fabulous presenter! She is engaging and knows how to work a room whether in person or virtual.
However, when her team approached me for training approximately 4 years ago she and her colleagues were quite nervous about the transition from the in person environment to the virtual environment.
Read: Make virtual presentations your reality
Dorothy felt as though she had to start from ground zero and relearn skills, since many of the strategies she used to engage an in person audience didn’t apply online. She especially felt she had to work on her voice, even though she had been presenting for many years.
Dorothy’s main concerns were:
- Managing the technology,
- Something going wrong
- Connecting with and potentially losing her audience
- Hearing the sound of her own voice
Read: 8 tips for conquering presentation nerves
Part I – Your Brain and the Virtual Environment:
Before we dive in to Managing the Technology next week, I’d like to quickly discuss a few key points regarding how our brains function in the virtual environment.
It is widely known from a neuroscience perspective that there are approximately 85 billion neurons in the brain. There are also approximately 100,000 miles of neuronal fiber connecting those neurons in the brain.
What does this mean for you and your virtual audience?
You MUST learn to Gain, Regain, and Maintain their attention. You are competing with a lot of real estate and the potential for multi-tasking during a virtual presentation is great.
Key tools such as strategically using a black background, engaging the audience with chat, speaking the participants’ first name, learning to structure your virtual presentation and how to polish your voice to present virtually are essential to your success.
I personally train and coach in 30 countries and have worked in the virtual collaboration industry for 14 years. Soon our entire globe will be presenting in the virtual environment. Even if you are using a service such as Skype, you are still presenting virtually and there is a learning curve.
If you are already basing your presentations in Principles of Adult Learning Theory you are ahead…Here is an article (with some basic tips) for motivating adult learners you may find interesting.
