ICE: This acronym stands for interaction, color and entertainment. Never neglect these three tips, if you wish to engage the participants of your meetings.
As a big consumer of webinars and virtual conferences, one of the first tricks I learnt is that by simply muting my mic I can avoid being detected while taking a short nap, since I prevent the speaker from hearing me snoring that way. In facts, the big advantage of virtual conferences on real classrooms is that the speaker cannot see you, and – honestly speaking – many virtual conferences are incredibly sleep-inducing.
The point to catch is that running a virtual meeting is tricky, as there is no real contact between the speaker and the audience. So, it is really hard to understand whether you as a speaker are involving participants or not, and in what measure. This problem, which is common to real life meetings, is exacerbated by the nature of the medium: watching a screen is more tiring than listening to a speaker that physically stands in front of you, and keeping concentration on a distant presenter during a virtual conference is difficult because there are more possible environmental distractions that haunt participants’ minds.
How to assure that your audience is engaged during your conferences? It is enough to follow these three basilar tips that the acronym I.C.E stands for:
I as Interaction.
University lectures are boring, and virtual conferences are not university lessons. So, let’s change format and shift to something more involving, like, for example, dialogues; answering your participants or giving them the possibility to put questions is a quick and easy technique to keep them awake.
C as color
Black and white screens are particularly sleep-inducing. So, choose video conferencing products that assure you and your audience colors and a great HD quality, like R-HUB TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com). Additionally, TurboMeeting offers users a whole set of great tools to engage their audience, like polling, raising hand buttons, desktop sharing, file sharing, and many others.
Accompany your presentations with some colorful slides, photos and graphics. A well-designed slide is a powerful mean to get your idea/information across, as the eyesight is the sense that people use most to learn.
E as entertainment
There is nothing as boring as a monotone tone of voice. Thus, it is important to be able to use the full vocal range. It is also important to mix data presentations with jokes and stories in order to give some moments of rest to your audience. In one word, try to give and have fun while giving your presentation.
In conclusion, a good conference is the result of the interaction between the speaker skills and the quality of the conferencing tool that the speaker uses. If I.C.E will help you to deliver good quality presentations, do not underestimate the importance of having the right product on hand among the dozens available on the market today.
If you are interested in R-HUB`s TurboMeeting, and you would like to get a free demonstration or a free trial, this is possible. Please contact R-HUB (http://www.rhubcom.com) for further information.