The Answers May Surprize You!

Introduction

Which of the following is the greatest contributor to successful Web Conferencing?

1. Cutting edge technology
2. Eye-catching media
3. Strong messaging
4. Articulate presenters
5. All of these
6. None of these

To create an online session that attendees consider valuable, presenters need techniques similar to those they might use in high-impact, face-to-face engagements. Each of the following 10 success strategies of PresenterNet users leverages that perspective, to create a new and powerful online experience.

Strategy 1: Ask Key Questions Onscreen
Experienced speakers know that the best way to convert audience members into active participants is to pose interesting questions. Like in-person attendees, Web conferencing audiences also become more focused if given the opportunity to respond to questions from presenters. Some presenters use audience polls as substitutes for such questions, though most polling programs provide only yes-no or multiple choice responses. The usual result is only partially effective since polling responses are impersonal and simplistic. They commonly gain a moment of attention, but do not keep attendees focused.

PresenterNet's InterActors - special graphics that enable open-ended onscreen responses - support more specific questions, like "what would you like from this presentation;" "what applications do you currently use;" or "what are your financial goals." Audience members can type specific answers or move sliders to answer questions like, "how important is fast service in your environment", and "how satisfied are you with your investment portfolio." Individualized questions and responses like these help attendees feel like participants in a face-to-face meeting room. They are likely to remain alert and become part of the session rather than passive viewers.

Strategy 2: Solicit Audience Questions in Real Time
When a presentation stimulates audience questions, participants want to ask their questions as soon as possible. If they feel that they are active participants, they want to inject their question at the most logical time, or at least ask early enough for the presenter to address them as part of the ongoing program. Many attendees avoid end-of-session "Q & A" and therefore do not enter questions that would keep them engaged if handled spontaneously. Though some programs include a chat feature for this purpose, presenters cannot easily field chat questions while speaking, and typically use an assistant to collect queries for the end of the program.

PresenterNet users solicit questions by adding text boxes to every second or third slide, pausing every few minutes to invite audience questions. Attendees are comfortable with this kind of questioning since their query can be read to the full audience by the presenter, without requiring the questioner to interrupt, or to speak before the group. Presenters view the resulting questions in real time, and can choose to respond at the most appropriate juncture—either immediately, or at a logical point in the presentation.

Strategy 3: Eliminate Barriers to Audience Entry - Ensure Easy Access
Audience members who confront technology barriers in entering a presentation are likely to give up early without actually attending an online presentation. Technology barriers in this context include requirements to pre-test their systems for compatibility, or to download software plug-ins to support connection to a scheduled presentation. This presents a significant difficulty in organizations that do not permit new software to be installed, or to potential audience members who have minimal technical experience.

PresenterNet's solution to this challenge is to enable immediate entry of any audience member, regardless of platform (Windows, Macintosh, or Linux) or browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.) To make entry even more straightforward, PresenterNet provides single-click entry from email messages sent to invitees by its online invitation program. Visitors using this link automatically login to the system's database by name.

Strategy 4: Test Audience Understanding
Experienced presenters want to ensure that audience members understand significant points before going on to new subject matter. In an online training setting, this is especially important. Presenters must therefore conduct audience checks at certain points, to determine whether audience members or trainees understand presentation content and are not mentally drifting. In a face-to-face environment, presenters typically quiz the audience directly or indirectly, with gambits like, "Let's play a game. Based on what I just said, ask yourself this question."

Ploys like this work well online with PresenterNet, since the presenter can display a slide with this kind of question, provide an opportunity for audience responses onscreen, and then quickly scan results to see how audience members have answered the question. This approach also creates an opportunity for the presenter to gage audience involvement, and to correct misconceptions.

Strategy 5: Seal the Deal
Presentations need not be limited to only information exchange. If an interactive presentation is part of a sales cycle, it can also include steps to close an order online, move to a Web site for follow-up steps, or collect data for a follow-up sales proposal. Whenever possible, this approach can offer audience members a more complete experience.

Within PresenterNet, presenters can create interactive slides that capture information for database storage and retrieval. This means that a slide can become the source of an invoice or proposal, permitting online selection of customer contact information, product details, quantities, pricing, etc. Alternatively, a PresenterNet slide may link to an ordering page on another Web site, enabling interested audience participants to respond to a call-to-action slide by placing an order.

Strategy 6: Surface the "Yes, but..." Questions
Experienced presenters know that audience members may have reservations about presented material, and therefore need to address doubts and objections. To surface these issues, presenters need audience feedback.

PresenterNet InterActors enable onscreen audience responses to queries on whether participants agree with key points of a presentation. Using an onscreen slider, an audience member may indicate reservations to issues, like "Do you agree that this financial return would meet your needs?" Presenters might even ask the audience to list concerns they may have or areas of disagreement.

Strategy 7: Pre-qualify the Audience
Before delivering presentation material that focuses on specific ideas and issues, presenters need to ensure that they fully understand their audience's profile and its potential hot buttons. For example, a presentation geared to a specific industry works best if audience members are from that industry or a related environment. In the same way, presenters need to know that their audience expectations are aligned with the material to be presented.

The audience acquisition process is an important tool for presenters, since it can focus promotional messages on targeted populations. Nevertheless this often provides only an initial filter, and usually creates only a generalized picture of the audience and appropriate messaging.

Presenters therefore need to provide a slide that is similar to the sign-in sheet they might use in an in-person meeting. An initial slide in a business-to-business environment might request audience members to identify their industries, organizations, and business functions. A presentation at the consumer level might request demographic information like city, occupation, gender, age group, etc. Viewing this information in real-time, a presenter can refine tone, content, and delivery style, choosing only slides that apply and are likely to meet audience needs.

Strategy 8: Ensure Continuous Quality Improvement
Nearly all presentations evolve over time, as presenters refine content. The most effective way to ensure ongoing success in this evolution is to manage it based on customer feedback. Using interactive slides in PresenterNet, presenters collect valuable input that can be evaluated statistically. As illustrated by the following example, audience members can offer valuable feedback when asked to measure subjective areas by setting sliders.

PresenterNet captures these responses as numbers on a scale such as 1-100. The responses can be pasted into a spreadsheet and massaged to provide ongoing averages. Follow-up slides might draw out opinions on specific issues, or even specific slides. The results give presenters a clear picture of how their audiences perceive their presentations, and pinpoint areas that need improvement or additional development.

Strategy 9: Get out the Vote - Create Group Decision Support
Many presentations impact audience opinion, and position attendees to offer valuable decision-making feedback. Interactive slides provide an excellent vehicle for meaningful voting beyond polling since they record a specific vote for each named individual logged into a session. When organizations use Web conferencing in a meeting setting, participants can vote on each item to reflect their precise preferences. As shown in the slide example that follows, voting may be structured to provide group decision support to include subjective measures of multiple items.

Using decision support in this way as part of Web conferencing gives each participant an equal voice and permits group members to ultimately include all inputs.

Strategy 10: Create Information for other Applications
Most attendees of interactive online meetings or presentations realize that their inputs may be used in follow-up applications. For example, new sales contacts realize that the contact information they provide is important and will be entered into applications like Salesforce.com, Seibel or Oracle. This knowledge positions participants as equal partners in any online session, regardless of who is presenting or facilitating.

A key issue is the degree to which interactive data capture becomes a burden to participants. PresenterNet makes this process easy by providing an array of InterActor functions that make participation simple. Though easy and straightforward to participants, the resulting data can be written directly into application databases so that presenters have no follow-on data entry tasks.

Summary and Conclusions
The preceding 10 strategies represent the top methods for making online sessions interesting and engaging to audiences. Overall the key is to create an environment similar to an in-person meeting, while leveraging the additional capabilities of Web conferencing. In this environment, participants feel that they are part of an online dialog, retain messaging, and understand presentation content while also contributing to presenters.

PresenterNet offers a wide array of methods to make presentations truly interactive, thereby creating the most positive experience for all participants. At the same time, this approach enables presenters to have the greatest possible impact, adding value through interactivity.