On one of my boards there is a list of questions. These questions are designed to clarify our approach to a technical workshop (software training) we are developing. Perhaps you will find them useful as well. Here they are:

The goal can’t be a check mark on a project plan. If it doesn’t teach it has no real value.

Who has problems that this application can solve?

What questions do the learners have? Have them wite them down and share them.

How do I get the software?

Can I install it? Is it difficult?

What problems does this application solve?

What problems does this application cause?

Where is the real world data that I can use?

When I have questions who can help me? Will they help me?

When I have questions where can I go for help?

Where can I learn about the problem domain?

Who has real world experience in this problem domain? Will they help me?

Who has real world experience using this tool? Will they help me?

Is there a way to get on a real project where I can use the tool? Who can make that happen? Will they help me?

Which capabilities of the tool are open to interpretation? How do we learn the techniques required to correctly interpret?

The Virtual Presentation Handbook by Roger Courville

The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook by Roger Courville is the 4th of 52 books that I will read this year.

How did I find Roger’s book, The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook? I found this book because I am a webinar nerd. I just love delivering them. I think that I enjoy delivering them because it may be the most challenging presentation environment there is. Well, that may be an overstatement. “Do you have any final words before we flip the switch?” would be worse. Oh back to the book…

A few years ago I was a Technical Trainer at SAS. Part of the job was delivering courses over the Web. I had never done this before and it scared the life out of me. I asked for advice and no one had any. I looked for help everywhere. There was very little to be found. I decided that I would have to learn how to do it — on my own. I started by watching hundreds of hours of recorded webinars (virtual presentations). I learned what made one webinar better than another and then I taught myself how to do it.

Periodically, I will search Amazon for books of presenting over the Web. During one of those searches I found Roger’s book.

Why did I read the book? Although I am no longer an instructor I still love learning about virtual presentations. I still deliver them, just not as often. Plus, the skills using in virtual presentations apply to using Camtasia. Finally, I want to see if others concur with some of the things I discovered on my own.

Lessons learned. The insight that Roger provides here is very good. Even though the book doesn’t address teaching, or technical presentations, the topics covered can be applied to those fields. I really enjoyed reading about using the Web for sales and marketing presentations. It is an environment that I don’t encounter very often.

There are no discussions of specific tools in the book. The vendors do a great job of documenting their offerings and how to use them. Their tutorial videos are a great learning tool. There is no reason to waste space in the book for that. One of the things that makes the book great is it’s size. Or lack of size. It is a small book and gets straight to the point.

Roger makes a point of emphasizing practice. This was born out in my learning adventure. You have to know the tool that you are using. There is no time to try to figure-out how to make something work during a real presentation. It is hard to make that case to people and Roger does a great job at it. Every once in a while I teach people how to get started with virtual presentations using WebEx. The only way I have found to hammer this home is to make a “mistake” with the tool. I always use polling. Yes, I have a scripted procedure to intentionally screw it up. It highlights the need to practice very effectively.

The book contains a discussion of PowerPoint as well. The tried and true advice extolling the joy of bullet free slides is covered as is a neat trick for building slides without using animations. You see, many of the tools have issues with animations. I won’t spoil it for you but I can vouch for the technique. I use it all the time and it works very well.

One of the joys of virtual presentations is the unmuted phone. During our training classes we heard lots of interesting things. Most of which were quite funny and just a little embarrassing. I can honestly say that I have never heard a story as good as the one from the book. It is a hoot. Plus, the presenter’s reaction is incredibly funny. Seriously, it is almost worth the price of the book just to read the story.

The book has a wonderful discussion on how to make your webinars interactive. Interactivity is required for a great webcast. The vendors all have a common set of features to support this. Polls, chat and annotation tools that allow you do draw or type on the screen are common to all of them. Roger covers them in the book. We differ in our opinion of the annotation tools but that is probably a function of the subject matter we present.

The book is chock-full of useful tips and tricks. I haven’t scratched the surface. I guess you will just have to read it for yourself;)

The final verdict: Experienced Web presenters and newbies will both benefit from reading this book. I wish it had been around when I started.

Be sure to follow Roger on Twitter. You can also learn more at The Virtual Presenter Web site.

The backchannel is a subcurrent of discussion, typically using social media applications, that take place while an event is going on. I use the term event but most of the time you hear it in relation to presentations. You can have backchannels for book releases, movies, concerts, sporting events, courses, etc. Heck, Cliff’s book has a backchannel associated with it.

The webinar had a great backchannel and I think that we all learned a lot. One thing that I liked about the webinar was that in addition to the backchannel it had a great “frontchannel” as well. There was verbal discussions among the participants. Make that high-quality verbal discussions among the participants.

I usually listen and take notes when I attend presentations, whether on the Web or live. Plus, I am not afraid to ask a question. What I don’t typically do is tweet, IM, etc. But today was different @DaveGray tweeted that he had setup a backchannel…

That prompted this tweet….

I will take this a little further. It is wrong not to tweet during a presentation about the backchannel. You need to know what it is like as an audience member before –  BEFORE — you present to a backchannel. If you don’t you are begging for trouble.

You are presenting to the backchannel as well as the people sitting in front of you.

There are differing opinions regarding this. The old school view is that the people sitting in front of you paid to be there and you should focus on them. You can see that expressed here.

I believe that there is a lot of validity to this view. Fortunately, I think a creating and delivering a great experience satisfies both groups.

You aren’t just delivering a presentation you are delivering an experience.

You hear about the backchannel and it’s ties to technical conferences but I am pretty sure that if you participate in a backchannel while a speaker is describing, and showing, how you change the DB Control settings in Teradata you are going to miss something. I am not certain how the backchannel will relate to the presentations that I give. I may not ever see it, but you know what? I am not going to take that chance.

Prepare for the backchannel even if you don’t think you will ever face it — it will make your presentations better.

Here is another way of thinking about this…

It’s good that there might actually be a downside to sucking as a presenter — we’ve been tortured too long.

You can check-out the Twitter backchannel of Cliff’s talk (and book) by clicking here –> #backchannelbook.

Thanks for the experience Cliff! I appreciate it.

The Decker’s lead a communications company and they live to help people improve their skills. Feedback it one of the pillars when it comes to presentation improvement. Their students pay to learn these skills, but they really are paying for someone to honestly tell them how they doing and what they need to do to improve. When a student asks Kelly Decker, “how did I do that time?” that student REALLY wants an honest answer.

Let’s change the scene: You have just attended a presentation that a friend or co-worker has delivered. Let’s say that you felt like ducking when faced with all those bullets, your head hurts from trying to read all those paragraphs in that 8 pt font, she ran over by 30 minutes and every other sound was an “Ah” or “Um.”  Immediately after finishing up your friend approaches you. Out of breath. Excited. She asks, “How did I do?”

What are you going to say?

Here is what your friend wants to hear from you.

“It was awesome. You were great up there.”

It’s that simple. And it’s one of the reasons that we have to suffer through so many less than stellar presentations.

The Necessary Presentation – This type of presentation means something. You want the audience to take action or learn something that they can put to good use. Success lies in having an educated or motivated audience — an audience that does something as a result of the experience.

When I was a trainer this was our standard. Whether the class was held in a physical room or over the Web we cared that people learned, really learned, the important points of the topics we taught. In fact, we loved receiving e-mails from students reporting what they were able to accomplish using SAS simply because they attended our training.

I call this the necessary presentation because that’s what it is. You need to accomplish something and the presentation will help you do that.

The Check Mark Presentation – Sadly, this is category where most of the world’s presentations fall. Someone decides that the project plan has a presentation task on it. You may not even know why it’s there. The goal here is not “to change the world” but for someone higher up on the food chain to be able to say, “my group delivered this presentation.” Effectiveness isn’t the priority. It’s usually timeliness. Granted, the difference between the two types of presentations can be subtle but you know a “check mark” presentation when you see one.

Here are the classic calling cards of the “check mark” presentation: tons of bullet points, sloppy, boring, long-winded, etc. I could go on-and-on but I won’t; This isn’t a “check mark” blog posting. These types of presentations are the way they are because they are taken for granted or very little time is allotted to their creation. You may hear things like, “we always have a status WebEx on Friday. It’s no big deal” or “we have to get this information out there fast.” I have a theory that many “check mark” presentations are nothing more than documents that would take too long to write. It’s much easier to throw bullet points on slides and verbally bore people to death than it is to create a proper document.

There will be times you may have to deliver “check mark” presentations. If you are an employee you have no choice. You do have a choice regarding the quality. With a little creativity you can turn a “check mark” presentation into something that entertains, motivates, educates and is perhaps — necessary.

It helps if the presenters are good — very good. You want to find people who are passionate and know a lot about their topic. They should also care deeply about their subject. You are looking for people who look natural, not actors. In short, you want them to be genuine.

Dave Ramsey falls into that category. Dave’s mission in life is to bring “financial peace” to the world.

As you watch the video answer these questions:

How does Dave connect with the audience?

How does he use humor during the presentation?

What do you think of the television monitors at the edge of the stage? Does he appear to use them?

What techniques or skills can you learn from Dave that will make you a better presenter?

Watch Dave Ramsey present

On the other hand, some find my advice useful.

Fortunately for all of us, everyone is entitled to their opinions!

[Update] It looks like Angela DeFinis is on the side of sometimes you are REQUIRED to read a presentation (or speech).

I was driving to the grocery store when I heard these folks talking on the radio. I was struck buy 3 things:

Thing 1 – Get coaching: Not a single one of them was good at public speaking. Com’on people. If you are going to run for public office there is a slight possibility that you will need to speak in public. I imagine that these folks are comfortable speaking in public and believe that comfort equals skill. It doesn’t.

Here is a suggestion to anyone in the Triangle area of North Carolina thinking of running for office: Take a communications course. Contact Alan Hoffler at MillsWyck Communications. He can help you stand out from the crowd. Call him or send him e-mail now!

Thing 2 – Practice for the situation you will face by role playing: It didn’t sound like any of them had role-played being on the radio. False starts. Stutters. Dead air. It was all there. I bet they could have made arrangements to visit the radio station and practice using the equipment. At a minimum they could have recorded themselves and figured-out that they were speaking too fast and were not pausing. A great point would be made and then quickly disappear because it was washed away by the next thing that they needed to force in there.

They were so nervous that I felt sorry for some of them. Again, practice is key here. One of them stated that they have a Doctorate. All I could do is wonder why someone so educated was so ill prepared. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Thing 3 – If you are going to read a speech then learn how to do it right: All 4 of these candidates read their closing comments. It was dreadful. The speech feature of my Kindle would have had more nuance and emotion. Good’ole Kindle would have been smoother too. That is just sad. Everyone should practice reading aloud. Everyone.

Bonus Thing – There has to be something that you really care about: Each one of these candidates had lots of things that they were “concerned” about. They were all over the place. I have learned that stuffing more content into the allotted time hurts much more than it helps. Pick 2 or 3 issues and know them inside and out. Care about them. Immerse yourself in them. Hammer them home. Show you have great depth in your issues. In short: Own your issues.

This is a guy thing; actually, it is an old guy thing.

I cannot recall anything the guy said. That is definitely a problem. I immediately went out and bought a tool. I am a guy, it is what we do.

Guys, stop what you are doing and find a mirror. See if you have a problem in this –ah um — area. If you “can’t see the trees for the forest,” then buy a nose hair clipper.

Ladies, you may as well buy one for your husband. He won’t know that he needs it; he won’t buy one even if he did. If you buy it, he will use it because it is a tool and that is what guys do. Don’t be surprised if he finds other uses for it.

If the problem is really bad, stop reading this and order a nose hair trimmer. Please, do it.

Now, for something completely, completely, different.

A nose hair game