CivieBlog

In the post - Webinar Software - Adoption Advice - one of the comments I made was:

If you've done webinars, you know that they are different to design and deliver successfully than other kinds of presentations and training.

This is something I learned the hard way. My very first presentation was a large public presentation where they had muted the entire audience (dead silence) and there was no moderator. I was alone in my office. Holding a handset (ouch). So, five minutes into the presentation, I felt completely disconnected from the audience because I hadn't planned for ways to connect and make sure I was doing okay. It was an awful feeling.

Out of that comment, I received a question:

Your post from yesterday brought up an important point and one that I had not considered. That of appreciating the difference between Webinars and other online presentations. I would LOVE to learn more. Today, coincidentally, I am doing 4 webinars (I set aside one day a month for this as a primary outreach tool). Now that you have made this interesting observation, I need to get trained. Where would you suggest I look to understand the nuances? We use GoToWebinar for our events.

I immediately thought of Karen Hyder - who helped me prepare for a couple of sessions and is really great and really thorough. She definitely helped up my game. I also thought of Ann Kwinn and Ruth Clark's book - The New Virtual Classroom.

Knowing who asked the question, he's actually a pretty sophisticated presenter. He doesn't need the basics. And likely he's actually asking about information on differences in design between different types of online meetings (webinars, online presentations, online workshops, online classrooms). And then design specifics for these.

So, I'll definitely make an introduction to Karen, but I'm wondering what else you would recommend around this. Likely a lot of us can use help in this area. Any pointers are appreciated.