Presenting remotely: I wish I’d known
Do you make presentations to groups?
Well, you may be used to this:
But chances are you’ll soon encounter an interface like this — if you haven’t already:
Where are the people?
Of course they’re there. But you can’t see or hear each other. And discussion? It’ll usually happen via chat and require a moderator.
It’s kind of sad, really: each “participant” is in their own little box, you included. How on earth do you break through those boxes and truly engage?
I’ve given a bunch of remote presentations, and now help organize remote conferences regularly. (In fact, we’ve UX Futures is coming up on November 5, 2014). Oddly, no one ever gave me this advice, so now I tell everyone I can:
You are not presenting to an audience.
Sure, some may be gathered together in a conference room. But most of the people on the other side are likely sitting by themselves, in their own lonely little boxes. They’re individuals caught in a wildly artificial and occasionally uncomfortable interaction. Just like you.
So what do you do? It’s simple, really:
Imagine that you’re talking with an individual, rather than presenting to the audience.
That’s weird, as there may really be a thousand people listening to you. But you’ll feel so much more comfortable fooling yourself into just talking with one. And if you’re more comfortable, they will be too.
Zeroing in on one person in the audience is a Public Speaking 101 approach for in-person presentations, and doing it remotely will feel familiar to you — assuming you’ve ever spoken on the phone. It’s certainly far less weird and artificial than presenting to an audience, especially a remote one.
And at least you won’t have to see those thousand faces staring back at you.
(This piece originally ran in the Rosenfeld Review; sign up here for new ones.)
