Wired Presentations

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.

Alan Hoffler and I spend a lot of time talking about ideas and presentation skills. That is why I am so thankful that our paths crossed. I honestly don’t know where I would be without him. And I know he feels the same way about me.

We met for lunch at our usual place today and discussed what it means to learn. Today was about how to learn presentation skills. But it really applies to lots of areas.

As I walked back to my office, it hit me. Never in human history has it been so easy to learn. You can literally get on the Internet and find an expert in practically any field who will help you. Photography? Yep, I got help one time from a photographer at National Geographic. Have a question about a presentation? Speech coaches all over the world will help you. In general, people love to help others. You just have to ask.

I taught SAS courses over the web and it always amazed me that we could effectively teach people who are half a world a way. I was able to find hundreds of hours of videos to analyze. In short, I found the resources necessary to teach myself. Teaching yourself is not a bad thing. Learning how to learn is a great skill to have.

Back to presentations… To learn to deliver effective presentations you need an audience. Ideally this audience will be sophisticated, and honest, enough to provide you with feedback. Make that “GREAT FEEDBACK.” You don’t want the feedback to be superficial. “You said ‘um’ and ‘ah’ is not what I would call deeply profound.” You want the feedback to be meaningful. Although you can go improve by presenting to a video camera, adding an audience into the mix helps a lot.

A knowledgeable audience who won’t tell you the truth isn’t much use, either. You need honest feedback.

I am reasonably certain that this audience (group) I am describing does not exist as an organized club. It must be created. Fortunately, Keith Ferrazzi has provided a general blueprint for us. His most recent book, “Who’s Got Your Back,” describes accountability groups. He doesn’t talk about presentations, per se, but his concept applies.

If you are interested in something like I am describing. Let me know. If you live in the Triangle area of North Carolina that’s great. If you don’t, still contact me. With so much great technology at our disposal we can probably make the distance irrelevant.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter and we can discuss this.

It appears that not everyone is a “Jeff Fan.” Take a moment to read how wrong I am.

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).

There have been a couple of conversations going on in the Presentation Blogsphere regarding non-words. Or as Lisa Marshall calls them disfluencies. Hey, she isn’t just making that up. It’s a real word. Some have the opinion that it isn’t a big problem.

Here’s Lisa’s take on it: “Like, Eliminate Ums and Ahs, Right?” Does she think that they are important? “It can make a big difference in how you’re perceived.” I think that she believes they are worth dealing with.

“The 10 Biggest Mistakes New Sales Reps Make And How To Avoid Making Them” by Jim Meisenheimer. #5 – Doing “Seal talk” and “Sales Babble.” Nothing spells AMATEUR more than the language you use. He says that “Ums” and “Ahs” sounds like seal talk… Funny! We will put Jim in the Against column.

Jason Kottke may have written the shortest post on this. He recommends videotaping yourself and practicing. Good advice. I am not sure how actionable it is. He doesn’t come right out and say it’s a problem but he did write a blog post on it. Another Against vote.

According to Steve Pavlina, Dr Wayne Dyer could use some help. Steve talks about fixing the problem. Another Against vote.

Wow, here is one from Marty Nemko that says that a sudden increase in “ums” and “ahs” is a sign of lying. Take a look at item 3. I am not sure that I buy into that but we will put Marty in the Against column.

I think that there is a certain point at which disfluencies become a big problem. One or two: Not a big problem. 20 or so per minute: A huge problem. It’s best to get rid of them. I have noticed that people who maintain good eye contact don’t seem to have as much of a problem with them. If you do Web casts then you should pay close attention to this issue: The threshold is much lower on a Web cast.

Bert Decker, in his great book “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard,” recommends substituting pauses in place of filler words. You can’t ignore Bert. If he says it, believe it.

You can find out if you have a problem with disfluencies by using a voice recorder of video taping yourself.

We have all been there. You join a Web cast (aka webinar) to hear that the organizer is frantically trying to get something to work. They may not be panicking but it is getting close. You start to feel sorry for them.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it shouldn’t be this way. The problem is that the presenters try to be efficient. They want to maximize their time by arriving at the last minute. The excuse that you normally hear is “I had meeting xxxx that ran over.” 

Here are some tips on how to get your next web cast off to a great start:

Get there early

You should be the first one who joins the web cast. No exceptions. You need to be there to create a relaxed, yet energetic, experience. Talk to people as they join the conference. How early should you be. If it is an important meeting or presentation then you should be ready to talk to early arrivers 15 minutes prior to the start. This means that you have your technical glitches fixed as well.

Arrange your schedule so that there is no chance that you will join your own meeting at the last minute or late.

Announce the topic of the presentation

When people join a web cast they want to know two things. The first is always “Am I in the right place?” Help them out by periodically stating the meeting topic. Here is how we did it when I was teaching, “welcome to the <course title> class … thank you for joining!”

If you are presenting to hundreds of people it is impossible to great everyone one. Periodically state the webinar title so they know they are in the right place.

Load your slides before anyone arrives

The second question your audience will have is “Can I see the slides?” Having a scrolling slide show is a great way to let them know that they are seeing the correct slides.

Always load your slides into the web presentation system. Don’t just share PowerPoint. I It makes for a more professional presentation. Plus, you can use the presentation tools to point and highlight things on the slides. Think of it as gesturing.