Giving Public Speeches Online: Part II

See below (or archived in June 2018) for Part I.

Preparation for Online Speaking

            First, recognize that this is a different type of venue.  You have two main tools:  your voice and your visuals (slides).

If monotone and monorate speaking is horrible for face-to-face speaking, it is truly the “Kiss of Death” for web speaking.  The key word is “energy”—an energetic voice has variety and interest to it. Since we tend to have a lower energy level when we sit, some experts suggest that web conference speakers stand to approximate the real speaking experience. This suggestion makes sense.   As we have mentioned repeatedly through this book, preparing means practicing your speech orally and physically, many times. Audio-recording yourself during your practice on your smartphone or other device is a good first step, followed by critically and honestly thinking about whether your voice if listless, flat, energy-less, and likely to induce snooziness.

            Second, your visuals.  Most of us are tempted to put far too much text and too many graphics on the slides, and since the slides are the primary thing the audience will see (rather than your full body), the temptation is even stronger.  As one expert on web speaking suggested, if your presentation in the workforce is likely to be graph, data, and information heavy because it’s all information the audience must know, send the information in a report ahead of time. We’ve mentioned before that speeches are not good for dumping a great deal of information on audiences.

            Therefore, keep your visuals simple.  They do not have to have lots of clip art and photographs to keep attention.  One rule business speakers like to use is the “10-20-30: rule:  No more than 10 slides, no more than 20 words on the slides, and no font smaller than 30 point.” Using 30 point font will definitely minimize the amount of text.  Inserting short videos and planning interactivity (such as polls, which the software supports) are also helpful.

            Also in the realm of preparation, avoid two other problems.  Since some of your presentation might be visible, be sure your background is “right.”  Many people perform webinars in their offices, and let’s be honest, some offices provide backgrounds that are less than optimal.  They are either messy and disorganized or have distracting decorations. In other cases, you could be sitting in a neutral place with a blank wall behind you, but that setting can have its own issues. One writer talks about a speaker who wore a white shirt against a white background and almost disappeared.

            It goes without saying that the web speaker must be master of the technology, not be mastered by it.  Technology messes up.  That is a fact of life.  One of the sources for this appendix was an archived video of a webinar about web speaking by an expert; during the webinar, his Internet connection was lost! Even if the connection is strong, the speaker must know what buttons to push on the software.  For this reason, it might be a good idea to have an “assistant” who handles the technology and makes sure it works so that you can focus on the communication.