Category — Ask

I just wrapped up a session for a large group of trainers about interactivity in online training sessions.  One of the many questions that we didn’t get to due to the size of audience came in from Sian M.:

“Do you feel synchronous sessions are always more effective?”

Sian, it depends on how you define effective.  This isn’t to be obtuse, let me explain.

No one would argue that the MOST effective thing we could do as trainers for our trainees would be to have in-person one-on-one sessions with each trainee, right?  So why don’t we?  Money, money, time, distance, and money.

Inevitably we make some type of trade-off.  If it was ONLY about money, we’d write papers and create recordings and share them 24X7 on a web site somewhere.  While radically scalable (reach), our ability to personalize, dialogue, intuit the question-behind-the-question, use object lessons, etc., all go away.

I look at webinars as a unique and irreplaceable third option.  Their live, but we also have reach. And unlike having a conference call with an emailed handout our deck, at least two BIG advantages happen in a webinar where you have synchronous control over the visual experience.  One is a issue of timing… you don’t expose content to trainees until you’re ready (and they’re not reading ahead), and the second is an issue of flexibility.  There’s a lot of value in being flexible with a class – to dive more deeply somewhere, to go backward somewhere, to grab a website or resource that you hadn’t originally planned to show because a question came up, or whatever.

So, generally I do think that synchronous is more effective because you can respond on the fly.  For example, I often use a poll to gauge the experience level of my audience (and in the last six months I’ve had “people attending their first webinar” be as low as 2% and has high as 55%).  I don’t rewrite my presentation, but I might explain things differently based on where the audience is at.

Best of luck, and do give me a holler if you’ve got another question!

In a recent webinar, Simon D. asked, “Can you overdo reminders?”

Hmmm… as you’ve heard me say before, “It depends.”

And I think the question is “What is your market’s tolerance for email?”

The good thing about a webinar reminder email is that nearly everyone realizes that it’s event-based.  In other words, it’s not going to come in ad infinitum.

Here are three things to do:

Ask
It’s pretty simple to add a query to a registration page or end-of-event survey.  Questions that have low intrusiveness (e.g., how many reminders do you like, when do you want them, what’s you’re preferred day/time for webinars) have a good chance of getting honest, useful feedback.

Test and observe
Does your webinar solution have an opt-out feature?  Ironically, many don’t (and DUH, they registered for the event, but nothing surprises me these days).  But many do, and you might test and observe.  If you increase the frequency of reminders does your ‘unsub rate’ go up too much?  Obviously you’ll have to make a judgement of what ‘too much’ is, and that should be relative to improvements (if any) in attendance rates.

Determine the value of a live attendee
If you can’t test/observe, I’d probably make a guess at how valuable it is for your organization to have registrants actually show up.

The reality is that for some organizations they don’t care.  They’ll give lip service to wanting people to attend, but the way they act is that if they get a name and contact info for follow up, they’ve done their job.

If it’s important to have registrants become attendees, I’d err on the side of more (versus fewer) reminders.  Here’s why:

1.  They’ve already opted in
2.  As mentioned, it’s a finite project.
3.  If you do too much, people will let you know.
4.  We get more email than ever.  Even the most interested folks in your webinar find that their good intentions slip down to the bottom of their email pile.  Frequency improves your chance of cutting through the noise.

Rule #1:  know your audience.  Rule #2:  Don’t assume an email cut will through the noise.  They’ve opted in.  Have integrity, but don’t be shy.

Hi Roger,

I just finished watching the playback of one of your Citrix
presentations, and I had to email you tell you how much I enjoy them.
You are professional, personable, and exceedingly knowledgeable, and the
hour flies by whenever I watch one of your webinars!

I do also have a question. I design and develop eLearning. I’ve done
many of the behind the scenes tasks of online courses, but I haven’t yet
taught online. I’d like to get some experience, and I thought
volunteering to present on a webinar would be a good way to start. Do
you know how I could offer my services to companies in this way? Any
advice appreciated.

Thanks!
Karen

Karen, let me tackle this by starting at, well, the start.

Get clear on your purpose.
Even if it changes down the road, I’d get clear on your longer-term purpose.  Do you want to get a job, develop a speaking career, be an independent trainer, or…?  Again, it can (and will!) evolve, but in a short few sentences you’ll want to be able to answer “what problem do I solve for whom?”  Can you help them develop eLearning on a budget?  Or improve how their human resources department brings on new employees?  Or…?  You get the idea.

One thing I can say as an entrepreneur who’s started multiple companies, there are days when even the best job in the world is harder than hell.  Answer, “If I succeed wildly, is this going to take me in the direction I want to go?”

Back up the ‘why’ with the ‘how.’
Second, with the first thought in mind, how are you going to answer them when they say, “Okay, we’re interested…tell us how this will work?”  I know not everybody’s into sports analogies, but in some pro sports they coach rookies to “act like they’ve been there” when they score, have a good game, etc.  Remember that even if you’re volunteering your time, you’ll cost them their time, coordination, and risk to their credibility for bringing you in.  You’ve still got to present value, even if there’s not a dollar figure attached.

Start with a free public webinar or series.
You can get trials of many conferencing solutions that will give you a chance to get your feet wet for free during the trial.  Depending on how you promote it and how many attendees you’re going to have, a service like Dimdim where you can host up to 20 people at no charge might do the trick for you on an ongoing basis.  Here are some reasons:

One, you need to develop content.  Good content takes time, and great content takes a LOT of time (but you already know that).

Two, you make your mistakes in front of people who can’t ask for their money back, not the people who might hire you.  And unless you’re spending a lot of money on promo or have a boatload of Twitter followers, you won’t have a large crowd to learn in front of.

Three, the feedback will be invaluable.  Make it a point to ask questions before, during, and after that you know will give you what you need as a self-learner.

Four, get some testimonials for your website, your data sheet about yourself, or other promotional activity you may have.  Next to a direct referral, these are gold.

Figure out what your audience is willing to pay for.
Finally, get some honest feedback about what people (ideally speaking for your target market) found valuable.  YOU might think something’s cool, but if you’re going to sell it to someone else, it needs to create value for them and their audience.  And here’s the key… even if your intent is to continue offering what you’ve got on a volunteer basis, there are two reasons:

One, if someone really would pay for you content, they’ll be even more likely to show up if it’s free.

Two, sooner or later the volunteer gig has to end unless you’re independently wealthy or otherwise don’t need money.

Good luck!  Let me know how it goes for you!

Hello Roger and thank you for an awesome presentation.  I’ve heard you present before and believe you have improved, if I must honestly say so (although I thought you were awesome before). I did submit a question that could not get answered during or after the presentation that I would appreciate if you could offer some suggestions.

I am responsible for the training of our applicant tracking system.  Users are within several locations around the US.  I get frustrated sometimes if there are no questions or comments; however my husband says that means I have thoroughly explained the process.  How would you suggest keeping people engaged during a technical training?

I am showing users how to properly use the system and am not using slides.  There are usually anywhere from 10 to 15 users on a session, so I recommend that they ask questions directly to me when they don’t understand something, and not wait until the end of the presentation.  I do not use Q&A, chat or polling since I am not using slides.   I currently conduct training anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2 hours depending on the audience that I am training.  I will be modifying that to smaller “lunch and learn” type sessions where I present one particular topic of instruction instead of the entire system.

- Alfreda, HR Applicant Tracking System Specialist

Alfreda, I’m happy to address this for you.  Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order.

First, your husband’s answer may be correct, but I’m thinking you could also use a little additional insight from your trainees.  Since I’m not having an ongoing discussion with you where I’d dive in more deeply, let me pose and answer a few questions.

What is their experience with the system you’re training them on?

If the answer is ‘little or none,’ then what you’re doing probably makes perfect sense.  The challenge with someone brand new to something is that they don’t have any questions because they have no context.  They don’t have questions because they don’t know what to ask.

I’d use registration or polling to find out where they’re at.  During registration ask a freeform question (or more than one) like “what do you like best/worst about the system?”  “What would you most like to learn…?”  “Do you have any questions that I can make sure to answer during the session?”  Their answers will give you insight into where they’re at.

Why not go back and forth between live screen demo and a screen where you can use chat/polling?

You don’t mention which web conferencing solution you’re using, but obviously you can’t use chat/polling etc. when doing a live demo, but you could go back and forth.

What happens when you ask a live audio question?

With 10-15 people on the phone conference, managing questions live should be manageable.  And as you evolve to smaller groups, it’s even easier.

What about stories?

Whether a full case study or simply a manufactured scenario, illustrations help even experienced trainees think through a problem as they learn, assess, synthesize, and apply.

And then go beyond stories to application…

Once they’ve got a certain set of “building block” ideas, consider presenting them a situation or problem that asks, in essence, “how would you solve it?”  Just like live classrooms, there will be some eager beavers who always want to answer, some who never want to answer, etc.  Taking this to the next step might involve thinking through how to (appropriately) call on individuals, assign a problem that each.  Depending on your web conferencing platform, you might consider even allowing them to pair up (via private chat or…) to collaborate on the problem and solution.

As you think though these challenges, if you have something to add or clarify, I’ll dial in my assistance more specifically.

Good luck!

Roger
Many thanks for the presentation. We are a training company that has online learning content and Training  simulators.  I wondered what experience you might have or wisdom on the  use of webinar in this context (i.e. doing sales demos remotely).

Regards, Allen C.

Hi Allen, thanks for reaching out.

I have a lot of experience with sales demos since I’ve been in the biz for a long time.

Web conferencing is seriously awesome for live sales demos,  both in broader communications (webinars) and smaller sessions  (meetings).

The BIGGEST problem in each tends to be one of  audience-centricity.

In the most frequent sales demo format, the  smaller meeting with a prospect, the risk is always “what I want to say”  versus “what problem does my prospect have that I can show them a solution  for.”  The worst offense (in my very humble opinion!) is the ‘corporate  backgrounder’ slide.

My recommendation: use sharing to put up a working agenda (a Word doc works fine), and get clear with the client as the meeting  gets started about what they’re trying to solve.  I do understand that practically they may not always fully disclose and you’ll have to make  assumptions, but when you’re live, you can zero in on their particular problem  or use-case and show what you need to show – slide, live demo, website, back  to a few slides, back to a live demo, etc.

In a webinar format, the  most frequent problem I see is setting expectations correctly up front.   The risk (in the marketing communications process) is to want to soften  the message that it’s going to be a sales demo.  This may increase  attendance, but ultimately hurts your brand when it turns people off.

My recommendation:  clearly communicate in the invitation  process what folks will see (preferably still in a benefit-to-them voice), but  also make sure you make the webinar very interactive.  It’s a great  opportunity to answer someone’s question or objection in the process of  winning them to your point of view.  I think sometimes folks fear a  question coming in that they can’t answer or that paints them in a negative  light (‘how do you compare to competitor X’), but since your audience is  usually going to hear that stuff anyway, I prefer tackling it head  on.

In my recent Design for Non-Designers: How to Design Dynamic Webinar Presentations, Donald posed a less frequently-asked-question:

“What do you think about template formats…each of your slides have been quite different…do you think templates limit audience engagement?”

AWESOME question, Donald!

I do think templates limit audience engagement, but maybe not for the reason you’d think:

Templates limit designers.

A few thoughts, in no particular order:

Templates aren’t necessary for a presentation to be visually cohesive.

Cohesiveness does include being consistent thematically or stylistically, but you don’t need a template to do that.

You can (and should) use a template to speed production of your presentation for common elements.  Using the same font when you create a text box, or quickly creating a shape or shapes that use colors defined by the theme/template are good examples.

Templates do nothing to help make each step of your story as powerful as possible.

Part of the opportunity that a webinar brings over and above a conference call is the visual impact you can create with a slide.  A presentation is a series of points that you make to get your audience from Point A to Point B, and arguably you want to do that as powerfully as you can at each step along the way.  There are no unimportant points (or they shouldn’t be there).  They each need to be as powerful as possible.

One quick note for trainers, engineers, and others who often aren’t thinking they ‘tell a story:’  you should start.  It’s not just about the data – it’s the context of that data that creates meaning and application, right?  This doesn’t mean you abandon the data, it means that you’re presenting it in a more useful and memorable way.

Templates tempt slide creators to work within a box, not view a slide as a canvas.

In the webinar I used a (verbal) illustration of the Spanish painter who created illusory space with the ship’s mast and sail flowing off the edge of the canvas to meet at an obvious-but-unseen point.

Thinking about a slide as a painter’s canvas, the question we should ask is “how can I illustrate the point that I’m making at this point in the story as powerfully as possible?”

Starting with anything other than a blank white background puts you at a disadvantage.

I don’t need to see your logo on every slide.

This is really a parallel thought to the previous point.

I know who you are when I make the effort to attend your event.  A logo on every slide is a waste of space at best, a distraction at worst.

The Bottom Line

Leverage templates to speed creating presentation by repeating common elements such as font or shape color.  Individual slides, however, rarely are repeating ideas, so designs should rarely be repeated.

Optimize your audience engagement by optimizing your storytelling.  Don’t use templated designs.

Hi Roger,

I attended your webinar hosted by Citrix Online this week and I thought it was excellent. So thanks for sharing your advice, and let’s hope people apply much of it to their slide decks in general, and not only to webinars!

In hindsight, I wish I’d asked your opinion on sending out the slide deck from a webinar to the audience. Would you recommend doing this, and do you have any guidelines on whether to do it before or after the live session?

Craig H., Instructional Designer, Large Global Financial Services Firm

Craig, thanks for reaching out, and thanks for the nice comments.  Much appreciated!

I do have a strong opinion about handing out slides…  First, read this:  http://www.thevirtualpresenter.com/?p=156

I’ll add one caveat for you since you’re in instructional design…   I do think that in a classroom setting you might find times to use slides as handouts, and I always hate saying “it depends,” but, well, you get the idea.  It depends.

I think the place it might make sense is when the slides double as worksheets or note taking accompaniments – with some planning.

I’ve seen this done well when the slides themselves didn’t contain the all the content and learners were forced to take notes (or they’d miss capturing key points)…I think it was a good reinforcement for paying attention and engaging multi-modally.  The thing that I liked (exclamation point here) was that the slides themselves didn’t contain every last detail of information.  The slides were still trainer support, not the training themselves.

Another potential benefit (though I don’t know if this was the motivation of the case I’m thinking of) is that a learner taking handwritten notes means that potentially sensitive information doesn’t so easily fall into competitive hands.

A point I make in the previous blog post that I’ll reiterate here…

Presenting is a multi-modal medium (aural and visual), and I know some who argue that even in synchronous remote training taking notes is a kinesthetic exercise.  Reading is a different communication form. The risk with slides as post-session handouts is that for the slides to be effectively read, presentation-preparers are tempted to put all information that should be learned on the slide…which leads to the short proposition I said during the webinar and at the end of the blog post…

Great slides make lousy handouts, and great handouts make lousy slides.

John H., in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, sent a nice email:

Roger

I came across your book after attending a webinar a little while back here in Australia and enjoying it. Even though at the moment I don’t do a lot of webinar presentations, well none at all yet, I do quite a bit of face to face ones, and find most of the material in your book just as relevant for those of course.

I particularly liked the whole ‘less is more’ – I’ve always kept to a   minimum the number of ideas/points per slide, but the one point per slide is a revelation for me.

I recently did a presentation at an international conference where I had about 60 slides for a twenty-minute presentation, and in the process of preparation had broken down a number of my slides so that whereas before I might have had one slide with 4 or 5 points, I changed them to having two or three. The presentation was very well received. But one point only – now that’s radical, and well worth a try – though obviously I don’t have a lot of room to maneuver with that particular presentation.

I’m currently preparing a presentation to do next Friday so I’ll be keeping your book handy as I get it ready!

Keep up the good work.

John

John,

I am, of course, tickled both that you found it useful and that you took time to share.

I don’t remember off the top of my head, frankly, if I made the point in the book as clearly as I do now (but will in v2!), but the idea of having one point per slide is a directional principle.  I completely understand that it’s not always entirely possible.

Moving in that direction, however, does make a number of things easier.  One, (as you’ve done successfully!), it helps keep the slides moving, which usually helps keep the visual attention of the audience.  Two, having one idea also makes it easier to think of a visual way to represent the slide, making it easier to come up with a slide design that helps to make the point.

In a webinar audience remember assumption number one:  some part of the audience is multitasking (they are when face-to-face, too).  We’ll never likely command 100% attention, but thinking visually and keeping it moving will help ‘move the needle’ in the right direction.

Here’s to your continued growth and successes!

Roger

What a wonderfully interactive audience yesterday at the presentation I did about webinar presentation delivery.  What follows is one of the Qs I didn’t get to during this well-attended event.  To be fair to readers, a number of these answers assume you were there, so you might check out the recording. 

One of the questions posed live to me during the presentation by Branwell, the moderator came from Omar.  In summary, the question was about using accents.

Steve S.’s comment was dead-on with my response when he said, “My thought – don’t try and change your accent – just be you!!! People can see through it usually”

I couldn’t agree more, Steve!

Allison O. and Debora H. among many joyfully quipped, “Please do it!” and “Do try!” when I commented that while I might tack on a southern drawl here in the states for some local audiences, that I wasn’t going to tackle an English accent.

Confession:  as a huge fan of Monty Python and The Beatles as English exports to the U.S., I’ve spent my share of moments trying English accents.

But my point was summed up with Paul K.’s comment, “I don’t think he is suggesting to mimic people.”

Exactly, Paul.

Real people connect with real people, and we’re all part of a shrinking globe from a communications perspective.  I don’t mind someone in my town making a genuine attempt at communication, and I don’t care if their accent is perfect to my locale.  I assume this to be true when I speak to other locales (Europe, India, and Australia regularly).  I trust that my heart to serve and educate will trump my accent.

What a wonderfully interactive audience yesterday at the presentation I did about webinar presentation delivery.  What follows is one of the Qs I didn’t get to during this well-attended event.  To be fair to readers, a number of these answers assume you were there, so you might check out the recording. 

Suzanne K. wrote, “Is text Q&A distracting to the presenter?  Is it something you get used to?”

Yes/no, and yes.

Remember that our context for this presentation was the “one/few-to-many” type of presentation.

Here are a couple thoughts:

You’ve got more hands that go up in the audience than you can get to.  Text Q&A is awesome for managing that.  In smaller audiences, audio Q&A might be the right thing for you, to be sure.

Distracting?  Certainly it’s a new way of managing your presentation, so it might be (which, unfortunately, too many take as license to take NO questions until the end of the presentation).

Like any new tool, it takes some getting used to.  But remember, if we watch our audience and glance at our notes (versus the other way around), it should be no more distracting than if you see hands go up or someone blurts something out in the middle of a presentation.  You learn to deal with it, if not use it to your advantage.