52 Books (#4) The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook
Posted in 52 Books, Books, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills, Presentation Tools, PresoTips, Reading, Web Casting on January 26th, 2010 by Jeff – Be the first to comment
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.
