Talking to Yourself

Wow.  I just finished doing a Webinar for Marketing Profs and I have to tell you I'm not so sure I could do something like that again.  I spoke to a bunch of slides for almost an hour and a half, and while it seems to have gone over OK for the most part—I think I just found out something about myself that I never realized.

I don't do monologue well.

Here's what I mean by this.  I've presented on conference calls and have done Web presentations before—but when you get close to 1.5 hours with nothing but the sound of your voice to keep you going, you can lose focus and flow.  At least that's how I started to feel at minute 35.

I speak in front of people all the time, so I left the experience wondering what was different?  Then it hit me—I may be more of a conversationalist vs. a monologue presenter.  Even if you are presenting in front of a live audience without active participation—you get feedback.  Body language, nods or the even the lack of.  You get eye contact.  It's all non-verbal communication.  I never realized how important that was to me until today.

So that's my finding of the day.  I fare much better with a live audience of some sort—especially when things get past the 30 minute point.  What about you?  Have you had similar experiences?  Maybe the opposite?  Have you figured out what type of forum you do best in?  What you struggle with?  Ah well—guess you live and you learn.  Talk about life in Beta...

Comments

[Andrea Learned]

David - I found the exact same thing when I did a storytelling webinar for MarketingProfs last week. The one thing that helped was a tip I'd gotten to have a mirror in front of me. At least I could pretend that I was a nodding head, I suppose. We really don't have any idea how much we rely on humans doing human things and facial expressions etc. in our presentations, let alone daily life.

You expressed the frustration very well.

[Bud Caddell]

This is actually something I struggle with on my blog. In the real world, my first life, I do best when I'm in a group discussing an idea. I'm usually the person in the room mauling an idea to death, vetting it for every potential flaw -- which if you don't know me, can be scary. But on my blog, for now, it's just me and myself. I do enough talking to myself in elevators and bathrooms. I need opposing and interjecting forces.

[Kris Hoet]

Yeah I know what you mean, I need some sort of feedback as well while talking/presenting. Body language, q&a, ... all types of 'feedback' are good, but definitely need it.

Maybe you should have IM open during the presentation, this is how some of this 'feedback' comes in during the conf calls we have ;)

[Scott Monty]

On crayoncast yesterday, Steve mentioned using Second Life for making a presentation and how a virtual forum - while unique - was not ideal because of the inability to be truly interactive with your audience.

Even if the client doesn't speak in a face-to-face meeting, you're presenting based on observing body language and responding accordingly. So while the technological advances of conference calls, Second Life or webinars make for some efficiencies, they leave out the personal relationship so crucial in business settings.

When motion pictures came of age in the early part of the last century, a number of vaudeville performers tried to make the jump, but just couldn't handle it. Why? No audience feedback - no laughter, no hecklers, no one to respond to. A number of actors I know say that they prefer the stage (i.e. live performances) over any other medium. Why should business be any different, especially for the creative types?

[Matt Dickman]

David -- I have run into the same feeling when conducting webinars at work. I would take an in-person presentation to 1000 people over a webinar to one person any day. Non-verbal feedback is crucial when presenting. You can tell if you've hit a key point that needs reiterated or if you've confused the hell out of people.

One thing I did start doing was having some other people from around the office sit in the room with me so I could at least see humans and talk to them to get a little feedback.

[DA]

Well I'm glad it's not just me! I was beginning to feel like a freak. :)

You guys bring up some very good points. Scott, I think your vaudeville observation is very interesting. So it was a neat experience—definitely makes me appreciate what a live audience does for your thinking process.

[Gavin Heaton]

Next time skype us in ... we can heckle in all the right places ;)

[Mark McGuinness]

Thanks David you've put me off webinars! I've not tried them but I can easily imagine what it's like. The thing I enjoy most about presenting is the interaction with the audience - when people ask questions, add their experiences or challenge, then it gives me something extra to work with and we're into a conversation. Even when you're not getting verbal feedback, the nonverbal feedback is crucial to gauging how the material is coming across, and to establishing a relationship with audience members.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says feedback is crucial to achieving the flow (peak performance) state - without it, it's very difficult to calibrate and adjust our performance and enter the 'zone' where things become effortless and enjoyable.

[Mark McGuinness]

PS just realised 'webinar' is an anagram of 'winebar' - surely that's significant?

[Lisa Gates]

Hi David,
Kind of reminds me of performing in a Sunday matinee for the "blue hairs" as we (not very affectionately, sorry) called them. They have lunch, come to a play and fall asleep.

I wonder if it would help to build in a "check-in" point with your students, say every 20 minutes, and use the check in to ask questions?

Another tactic, if you have a choice in this, is to team teach in a highly conversational way, building interactivity with your co-teacher and the audience.

One last idea is to actually speak to an audience of three or four, while you're delivering your webinar. Ask four people to "stand in" and participate with you live. This might energize your "performance."

L

[Lewis Green]

David,

I long ago stopped registering for webinars for two reasons: 1) they are too long, and 2) there is no human connection between the speaker and the audience, reducing the impact and stickiness of the words.

In the corporate world, one of my responsibilities was to serve as executive speech coach and writer. I encouraged every speaker to limit their presentations to 30 minutes or less and then go interactive. My belief is that anything longer stretches an audience's attention span beyond reasonable and the words all begin to be interpreted as blah, blah, blah. It isn't about how smart or clever we are, it is about the audience (the customer).

[Ryan Karpeles]

"The average attention span of an adult is 20 minutes." And that's in person.

I was always told to ensure that the first 20 minutes of a presentation include any material that you truly want your audience to remember. After that it's tricky. People usually stop paying attention, no matter how compelling you are as a speaker.

Think about all the famous speeches throughout history. They hardly ever go beyond 20 minutes.

Time is really a huge factor in monologue-style communication. The same phenomenon can be seen in the way advertising is shifting. People can only be bombarded with external messages for so long. At some point, they want to take the reigns into their own hands and contribute something to the conversation. If we don't let them do that, they'll resent us for it and our ideas will become lost on them.

[BobG]

Ya did just fine, David - and I'd suggest not giving up on the format. Unless it becomes a time buster for you. Its a challenging way of communicating but valuable to the audience. You might have gained a little comfort "drawing" a path through your points - using one main graphic and showing it throughout. Based on the questions at the end at least a few people were listening :) And you made great points - i'm reviewing the slides. I'd never heard you "speak" - though your voice comes through at Logic + Emotion. Ultimately it's your choice. As always, thanks for sharing your ideas.

[DA]

Thanks again and more great points.

Bob, I appreciate that you gave up your time to hear me babble! If you got something out of it, then I'll say it was worth it all! :)

[Scott McArthur]

I was talking at a conference recently with 500 delegates in the room. Now I'm pretty used to talking at "gigs" but I have to say I was nervous. I arrived 1/2 an hour before my slot and as I walked into the room I was immediately hit by how dark it was. In the distance I could just about make out this chap who was reading his powerpoint slides about some new gadget. The “audience” were so bored that if they weren't on their fones or asleep they were fighting a strong desire to kill themselves. Now I know it wasn't a Webinar but it really felt like it - what is the point of standing up and reading the slides - for goodness sake just give them all a copy of the pack and let them go for an early coffee!

I was talking on how you can use metaphor and imagery to sell/engage people in change and I had one slide for my 90 minute talk. I thought "I have to do something to wake them up".

On the spur of the moment I stood at the front of the stage and shouted "put the lights on please!" It was hilarious fones, pens, cups, bags everywhere.

My talk went really well and I got some great feedback. The moral - no matter the medium (including Webinars) think about what you can do to get their attention. Get those lights on!

[Cam Beck]

David - I can sympathize with you on this count. Although I'm sure you did better than you think, I just had a thought that might help (and it might not).

The next time you do this, make sure you have a "live studio audience." Feed off of their body language.

Is that feasible? Do you think it would work?

[Roger von Oech]

Sounds like you had an interesting experience.

Reminds me of something I did about 20 years ago for Nightingale/Conant. I did a six tape cassette program, "How You Can Be More Creative," which meant 10 hours — over two days — in a production booth reading and talking my material. I was fried at the end of it.

[BJ Cook]

Hey Dave, nice job. I appreciated the content. Thanks for answering all of my questions too, haha. I wasn't sure if I was the only one in that webinar or no one had anything to say. Maybe next time, I could just give you a call and circumvent that whole process. Due to some of the unique concepts you presented we blogged about some of it here: http://blog.dtelepathy.com/social-networking/conversation-architects-a-new-wave-of-architects-has-arrived

thanks for the inspiration!

[Nick Rice]

David, I'm sure you did a fine job. Here's some advice for future webinars or screen casts.

1. use a good image of yourself on your title slide. It gives the audience a better sense of who you are. Also include it on your final slide w/ your email or contact info.

2. take advantage of the built-in polling and chat tools. A lot of times, you'll have to give the audience quick how-to instructions for "raising their hand" or answering polls, but it's an awesome way to break up the monologue and create interactivity.

3. have another person in charge of answering the q&a live during your presentation.They can take care of basic questions and gather harder questions for you to answer outside of your slides.

4. use the application sharing tools to demo live sites instead of just showing screen captures. You can walk the audience through usability issues better w/ a live site. Even better, is to let one of the audience members "drive" while you facilitate the conversation.

5. if possible, keep all presentations to 40 minutes or less and include a q&a session at the end - no more than an hour total. It's better to have two 40 minute webinars than one that's an hour and a half. And this way, you can assign homework in between presentations or provide reading materials/research for the audience.

6. and as you know, good presentation rules still apply (ala Guy Kawasaki or Garr Reynolds). If you're using the slides to tell the whole story, you're not needed or adding value. Let the slides support your interesting stories and case studies and you'll keep the audience interested. And lastly, I usually record the webinar. They're great for re-purposing on a website to other visitors - and great ways to build your email opt-in list.

Sorry for the long post. I've had great success w/ webinars but I definitely didn't start that way. It took me a while to learn the tricks. Thanks.

[DA]

Well, this is one of those posts where the comments are better than the actual post. You can never predict these... :)

Scott, I like what you did—but in my case I still wouldn't have gotten feedback unless I turned my mic off—then I would have gotten messages saying "we can't hear you!!"

Cam, good suggestion. A few folks at work also made this suggestion. It could work if everyone is the room is REALLY quiet. :)

Roger, I don't know how you did that. I felt spent after the 1.5 hours.

BJ, I think I liked your writeup of Conversatin Architects better than my presentation. :)

Nick, thanks. all good pointers for any kind of presentation. I'll keep them in mind.

[Damiano Vukotic]

Love your great blog and linked to your twitters too (of which this is a response from picking up a tinyurl from Steve Rubel) and wanted to comment that I spend my life visiting creatives and agency producers in London UK ad agencies but find I have much more focused and interaction with people in much small groups where there is much more of a conversation, instant feedback, which is much more productive than talking to big groups of people.

[C.B. Whittemore]

David, your webinar was terrific with strong examples, and [naturally] excellent visuals! You moved right along without losing this audience and I left with a whole slew of ideas that I am still digesting. Thanks.

[Gabriela (Bia)]

David,

despite working in financial area than in marketing as you do, I also had many experiences like that.

But I often don't pay attention in most part of the body language. At least when I am excited to talk about the issue (in business-talking about customers and figures - or in free time classes like cooking and astronomy).

As always, it is amazing to "live" your experiences and learn through this blog. Keep up the amazing work!