To Perform Online

We give 5 recommendations for those, who are planning to perform online – to present a project or read a report at the conference. They will help to orient the audience more deeply in the context of the performance and to deliver the key messages more distinctly.

Online you struggle for the attention of the audience with the most insidious “enemies” – memes in friendly chats, a cat on the place of work, with the boiling kettle…

Why is this battle much more difficult to win than offline?

The problem is in the following: in the digital environment it's more difficult for people to concentrate: from the speaker less non-verbal signals ,but more distracting factors come.

Highlight the structure at the beginning of your performance

As in offline speech here, it is also important to think over the structure in advance – to form blocks and logical relations among them.

But you should place the table of contents at the beginning of the presentation – for the audience to orient better. So the possibility to show vividly the system of ideas and to stress the attention on important things immediately will appear.

Make a dynamic presentation

Online presentation looks differently: in fact, it is infographics on a big screen, and a speaker in a little window. Keep it in mind and plan beforehand how to attract attention.

Read: How to place much text in a slide

For example:

don't show the presentation linearly. Switch it on and off if necessary for dynamism;
put your notebook farther, connect the buttonhole (if necessary), and alternate plans: close-up, waist-high, full-length plans.

Use Storytelling

A bright story is one more instrument of focusing the audience's attention. It is based on emotions, human experience and empathy.

Work with the audience with the help of interactives

Interactives are instruments that transport the audience from the passive state into the active one and additionally include the audience in the process.

It's important: an interactive must be meaningful, versions for "checkmarks" (send the smiley to the chat, if you are from Georgia) work badly – there is a risk to arouse irritation and lose trust.

To make a good interactive it's necessary to understand what experience you want to plan for the audience and what for.

For example:

A question or quiz. The reference may be easily dropped in a chat: in that way people will quickly interact with the content.
The MIRO board or the mindmap. You may fulfill a simple task (create, draw, combine) or make a complicated framework.
Filters for the face or the background. The effects of enriched reality coolly work for immersion in the context. The main task is not to overdo and choose the proper thing.

Think better of your workplace

A comfortable chair, good light, clean camera, proper background and water at hand is the minimum, when the performance will be pleasant for both the speaker and the audience.
Versions of design may be borrowed in bloggers' or streamers' sites.