Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Reinventing webinars

conference and workshop on social media, local search and cloud computing

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Paul Wallbank

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I’m currently preparing a Smart Company webinar on local search for business. Like most other presenters I prepare for a webinar by putting together a presentation on Keynote or Powerpoint and talk over it while the audience watch and listen over the web.

That’s pretty typical of most webinars, but I can’t help but think we’re doing this the wrong way by falling into the trap of appliying old techniques to new technologies.

In most industries we fall for this problem; when the motor car came along, our forefathers applied the ways of horse and carts to the new technology, going as far as calling them “horseless carriages”.

The movie industry is probably the best example of this. When movies first appeared, producers and writers applied theatrical techniques and it took a decade or so for them to figure out how to work best with the new media, then they had to relearn for talkies, followed by the arrival of TV and now the industry is adapting to Internet streaming.

In many ways we’re still in the “silent movie” phase of online presentations; we’re learning through trial and error what techniques work while inventing new tricks that take advantage of a personal screen.

So that gives rise to the question, how do we adapt our presentations that are designed for being presented to a room full of people to a more intimate online medium?

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2 responses to “Reinventing webinars”

  1. Ken Burgin

    Some thoughts on how webinars can be improved, by someone who rarely lasts more than 5 minutes on most webinars (and I also present them). In most situations, I’d rather flick through the pdf notes or slideshare, so it raises the question – what does the voiceover ADD to the information being presented?

    Some more suggestions:

    – one hour is not long, so introductions should be VERY short. Listen to how radio presenters do it – often not even allowing a ‘hello’ from the interviewee before getting straight to the questions. One slide with bio details, and the rest on a matching web page then straight to the protein.
    – bullet points are possibly worse on a webinar than in a live situation – but still they endlessly appear. If you do have to put a couple up, remember that we can read! Comment on the information, don’t just recite it.
    – almost as tedious (and a little lazy too) is having one cool image as a metaphor for your VIP ‘very important point’ eg a hands holding a seedling (growth potential!), iceberg on the ocean (surface issues don’t tell the whole story!) or various versions of leaping, happy people (teamwork!). Check the cliches at http://www.101cliches.com/ and eliminate all of them. The problem with the single picture slide is that it give the presenters permission to ‘rave on’. I don’t want bullet points, but I DO want some written information, or a relevant web address written on the slide – don’t tell me the address is http://www.complexinfosite4u.com but write it up for me as well.
    – talk faster. Aussies tend to talk slowly, and it gets boring – coach the guest (or yourself) to speed up. Remember that people can hear much faster than they can talk.
    – use the interactive elements in the webinar system you use eg in GoToWebinar I like to use the polls (quick survey: do you prefer A, B or C?), hand-raising (eg how many people have been on Facebook today?) and questions – it keeps fingers busy and an opportunity to speak to the audience.
    – show me examples of good and bad stuff – don’t just say ‘websites need to use keywords in the title’ but show me a screenshot of a good website that does it.

    Probably more, but that will do for now – thanks for the opportunity!

    Ken

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  2. David Merchant

    Great question Paul and I really like the response from Ken.

    In my experience I think “less than an hour” is the right time frame, I always tried to aim for around 20-30 minutes of content, around 15-20 minutes of Q&A/discussion and have it all wrapped up in 40-50 minutes. That was typically for some sort of product demonstration or sales pitch.

    I think knowing the type of audience you have, tailoring the presentation to suit (so the webinar material would be different to a live presentation) and keeping it interactive.

    I also like having someone close by listening in and sending feedback through where possible, that way you can catch any issues, speed up or slow down and just have a “viewers” perspective.

    So what can we do different, keep it sharp, interactive, relevant and tailored to a different medium.

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