Ever
wonder why webinar presentations can be so uneven? Some are engaging while others, well…”At
least I can get some work done.” Assuming the technology is “good enough,” how
can the content design and delivery increase the likelihood that it’s a “3 ‘M’”
webinar experience – meaningful,
motivational, and memorable?
Consider
some feedback from a recent one-hour "Leading with Passion Power: Inspiring Others with Courage,
Clarity & Creativity" webinar for Sovereign Health Group/Treatment Centers. HQ’d in San Clemente, participants were
coast-to-coast.
Subject:
Great talk! Love your authenticity!
Date: 1/20/2016
From: hugdoc@gmail.com
Dear Stress Doc,
Just want you to know how much I enjoyed your lecture today. You made many great points and I will keep you in mind if anyone asks me about someone to have come and speak!
Deborah McMahon
Hugs from The Hug Doctor
Date: 1/20/2016
From: hugdoc@gmail.com
Dear Stress Doc,
Just want you to know how much I enjoyed your lecture today. You made many great points and I will keep you in mind if anyone asks me about someone to have come and speak!
Deborah McMahon
Hugs from The Hug Doctor
-------------
We are
continuously receiving mails of appreciation from the audience. People are excited to watch your presentation on
our website. We
also received lots of appreciation messages and questions during the
presentation. However, keeping in mind the time frame, we
were not able to ask you all the questions.
Shruti
Vashisht
Sovereign Webinar Team
Sovereign Webinar Team
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How do you project “authenticity” when folks can’t look into
the windows of your soul? As a presenter, how do you create “excitement”
when you cannot see your audience, you cannot reach out and literally touch
someone. And the way the webcast was
structured, the tech support person could only read the Qs in the last ten
minutes of the program. How do you generate
an overflow of questions? Participants
clearly wanted to hear and learn more.
And perhaps that last sentence is key: With audience numbers approaching 100, how do
you turn passive, solitary listeners (if you’re fortunate) into engaged and
enquiring participants?
Top Ten Webinar
Engagement Tips and Techniques (plus a little lagniappe):
1. Ask a Brief Number of Concise and Powerful
Questions. After reviewing the key
program objectives, I announced that the essence of the program can be captured
by three questions:
1) Are you courageously developing and passionately
projecting your unique energy and experience, strengths and skills?
2) Are you truly “being heard or are you just making noise?”
3) Are you developing collaborative, mutually productive,
and innovative partnerships?
It’s hard to be unresponsive when someone’s grabbing at your
head- and heartstrings.
2. Start with an Identifiable, Playful-Edgy
Opening. A light repartee that
speaks your audience’s language is an effective and “Emotionally Intelligent”
way to quickly get or sustain attention.
As these were employees or affiliates of substance abuse treatment
centers, the soon to be delivered punchline was particularly apt. After announcing that “my goal is to help an
audience become more FIT – by making the presentation FUN-Interactive-Thought-provoking – and sharing my Triple ‘A’
Method – “to help folks grapple with anxiety,
act out a little aggression, and
engage life’s ‘slings and arrows’ with playful yet purposeful absurdity”…I then add: “FIT, Triple ‘A’….you already know something
about me: that I’ve been living in the DC area way too long. I’m convinced if you’ve been in the DC area
for a year or have to deal regularly with government regulations, you should be
mandated to a 12-Step AA Group – Acronyms
Anonymous!”
In addition, I lay down another challenge while also
skewering an all too recognizable target.
Letting folks know that, “this program won’t be all fun and games…I can
be tough. During a resilience workshop,
I recall a somewhat pompous State Dept. Manager less asking, more declaring,
‘what do you call if you don’t have any stress!?’ My immediate reply, Denial,” never fails to generate some appreciative laughter.
3. Do an Abrupt 180. Now to be truly surprising, to once again
grab people’s attention, as well as
to keep them in a state of “what’s coming next?” anticipation, throw the group a major curve. One preferred method: to suddenly close down
the opening banter and ask, “What do think of this guy up here, so far, just
after five minutes, even without visuals?”
No one expects this maneuver. As
it was a “muted” webinar, I supplied possible answers, including both positives
and negatives, such as “you enjoy your work,” “you like to talk about yourself
(or, even better, have others talking about you”), and that “I need to be
center stage.” (Once an audience member
somewhat derisively predicted I would talk about my deprived childhood.
;-) I must confess, there are times when
I do like being the focus of attention.
Naturally, I remind the group of the old adage: Vanity thy name is Gorkin! People appreciate when a leader does not take
himself so seriously; can poke fun at him- or herself.
Especially in a webinar, I want people absorbed in the
message along with my animated verbal
style and tone. As Marshall McLuhan noted,
radio is a “hot” medium; it embraces intensity and meaningful possibility. I want speaker-audience interaction that
stimulates compelling mental images. I
want folks entertaining my supposition that people are already sensing this webcast
“energy” and “passion.”
Yes, there is method to my message and media madness…With a
series of personal questions, I’m about to plug energy and ideas into their
heads and hearts.
4. Speak to and Engage an Audience’s Head and
Heart. And the spark comes from my
paraphrasing key questions off a Power Point Slide:
a) when and where, that is, in what circumstances, do you
have your best energy (apart from the bedroom; this is a PG presentation?),
b) what internal or external factors encourage “out of the
box” or “head and heart flow?”,
c) what factors impede this flow, that is, shut down your
creative juices?, and
d) what’s the connection between purpose, passion, and pain?
I then highlight specific dynamics that impede focus and flow,
which drain energy and feed procrastination – such as rigid perfection, not
embracing the learning value of error and “failure,” avoidance, when it comes
to protecting your “time and space,” an inability to say “No,” not knowing how
to start slow or small, 11th hour arrogance, etc. I succinctly capture issues and interventions
with which all can relate. (Email stressdoc@aol.com for more information on
“Emancipation Procrastination” and other performance enhancing techniques.)
5. Use Bullet Point Acronyms, Aphorisms and
Analogies. In addition to those “big
questions,” some other laser techniques and pointers keep speaker and audience
on the same screen:
a. Acronyms:
As alluded to above, I shared some of my PANIC acronym for overcoming “procrastination” – “Perfection, “(Overcoming) Avoidance,” “No & Negotiate,” “Initiation,” and “Compartmentalization.” Another favorite is “Confronting Your
Intimate FOE: Fear of Exposure!” The value
of acronyms is clear: they capture key
points in a concise and meaningful as well as memorable fashion. Or they can have a surprising, insightful,
and/or humorous impact, such as FOE or, in a stress workshop, the real meaning
of the stress signal, TMJ: Too Many Jerks!
b. Aphorisms:
I like providing pity and poetic passages that touch and challenge
people in deep places and spaces. For
example, my burnout prevention mantra – “The Vital Lesson of the Four
‘R’s”: If no matter what you do or how hard you try, Results, Rewards,
Recognition, and Relief are not forthcoming, and you can’t say “No” or won’t
let go (because you’ve invested so much time, identity money, and energy-ego –
TIME), trouble awaits. The groundwork is
being laid for apathy, callousness, and despair! (I told you I am the founder of Acronyms Anonymous.)
c. Analogies:
And a final rhythmic, prose-poetic, highly visual, Phoenix-like metaphor
on the awesome “nature” of generative grief:
Whether the loss is a key person,
a desired position, or a powerful illusion, each deserves the respect of a
mourning. The pit in the stomach, the
clenched fists and quivering jaw, the anguished sobs prove catalytic in
time. In mystical fashion, like spring
upon winter, the seeds of dissolution bear fruitful renewal.
Closing Summary
Part I has outlined five of the Stress Doc’s Top Ten Webinar Engagement Tips and Techniques for
insuring a more “Wild & Wired Webinar” experience. These are:
1. Ask a Brief Number of Concise and Powerful
Questions
2. Start with an Identifiable, Playful-Edgy
Opening
3. Do an Abrupt 180
4. Speak to and Engage an Audience’s Head and
Heart
5. Use Bullet Point Acronyms, Aphorisms and
Analogies
Part II will conclude with the final tips and techniques:
6. Launch into
Stories. Lawyer Bob
7. Be Out-Rage-ous!.
8. Be a Role Model.
9. Project Your
Emotions into Almost Every Word.
10. Provide a Mantra
and a Model.
And a little lagniappe:
11. Use a Posed Question
for Last Personal Sharing.
Mark
Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and
"Psychohumorist" ™, is a former psychotherapist and Stress &
Violence Prevention Consultant for the U.S. Postal Service. Mark is a Trauma Debriefing and Critical
Incident Consultant for variety of organizations, including the national
post-earthquake, Nepali Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative. He has led
numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for US
Army Senior Officers and Sergeants. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of
Anger, and Resiliency Rap ™. His latest, soon to be published book, Fierce Longing…Fiery Loss: Relearning to Let Go, Laugh, and Love. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a
"workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). Email stressdoc@aol.com for more info.
