If you are creating a webinar, whatever you do, don't focus on the bullets! Think about the presentations you have been to in the past. What makes you think? The presentations I remember are the ones that got me engaged and working on a solution that I could start implementing when I got back to my office. Typically, it was something out of the ordinary.
So what happens when you are faced with a presentation created in the format of A bold headline and a series of bullets? You know the ones…found on Powerpoint templates the world over. Microsoft might as well fill in the content for you.
The importance of Blah Blah Blah
- Minutae you will never remember
- Pocket lint is more important than this
- You are now bored beyond measure
These are brutal. Lots has been written on this but somehow they still persist. Usually I would make sure I kept enough attention to get the key items, made sure I had a phone #, email address etc in case I needed it, and asked for a hardcopy for reference. Because face it, it's a reference book, not a presentation. Then I paid ½ attention while completing my expense report, made a to-do list, read over items that had been sitting in my "to read" folder for oh so long, probably would have thought about what's in the fridge for my kids' lunches for the next day... Basically, unless I received an urgent client call, I was still sitting there at the end of the presentation.
Now think of this in terms of a webinar. The second one of the blah, blah blah slides comes up, I am toggling over to my inbox, thinking about my next blog, wondering how this presenter was chosen, Ok, yes, I'm thinking it's a lead for Potomac Webinars. Seriously, what I am NOT doing is learning the content. Perhaps I'll consider getting the link to the webinar if it has good content, but usually I get so annoyed and know I can find the info somewhere else that I just…END THE SESSION.
There are lots of tips, tricks, etc for creating engaging webinars. One that everyone can start with—that can apply to their onsite presentations as well—is creating visually interesting slides. Use the whole slide, put your information in a new format. For example, use WORDLE. From the Wordle site: "Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends." Below is a Wordle I created about Webinars.
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My notes are where the bullets happen. I might say when presenting this slide, something like "Creating a webinar requires a lot of planning, It can get daunting and seems to start cluttering up your thinking. Among other things, there's timing to consider, technology, communication planning, managing audience feedback, getting a presentation webinar-ready, cost, registration process, even voice issues" Then the next slide would offer some tips on setting up stages of a webinar plan.
I love Wordle. It is such a cool little tool. I'd like to use one in every presentation I give (but yes, that might get boring). You don't need to use it, but it will be in your best interest to make sure you are creating an engaging webinar. Otherwise, it's just not worth the effort.
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