Hi, my name is Alan Richardson and I've done a lot of videos,
a lot of talking at conferences and online conferences.
And in this video just want to give you some tips for talking at online
conferences,
because currently so many conferences are going online and it is a very
different experience and preparation experience, particularly for the speaker,
right?
Because what we are trying to do as speakers is captivate people's attention
much, much more directly than if we're on stage. If we're on stage,
everyone is forced into the room, they're sitting there, they're watching it.
They can't really get out easily. They can't leave.
When they're watching at home, they have so many distractions.
There's so many other things they could possibly be doing,
except listening to you. So,
our job as speakers on online conferences is to try and grab that attention as
much as possible. So I'm going to try and give you some tips for that.
Now with an online conference,
I think the temptation very often is for people to just knock up some slides and
then we'll just wing it. They'll just, they'll just work through it.
The whole point here is we have to prepare and we have to prepare probably more
than normal because the slides that you create are going to be slightly
different. They have to grab people's attention and keep people's attention.
That means more on screen - more quickly.
You know when you're watching TV shows and they change scenes really rapidly,
camera angles, we're so used to that, we don't even notice it.
But if we do an online video and it's just slides and the single slide is there
for three minutes while we're talking about it, people get bored.
They need something to distract them and keep their attention moving.
If you have the ability to put yourself on the screen as well as slides,
then that's going to give you an edge over everyone else,
but you don't have to do that. Well there's things we can do a minimum level,
so practising is slightly different. When I practise for a face to face talk,
I stand up, right? I do the talk properly. I have my clicker,
I'll click through the system and work through it.
And I'll practise it in chunks because I know that when I'm doing it live,
yhere's more energy and it will come together.
But I want to make sure the timing is there,
but I want the physical energy to be there - the bigger me.
When I'm doing an online conference,
it's not so much a physical presence anymore. It's a variable presence.
I have to change the way that I use my voice. I have to have more rhythm,
I have to have more variety in how I talk.
And I can't leave a lot of gaps. When we're doing a lot of public speaking,
face to face, we can leave gaps.
We can leave pauses in our delivery for the people.
But if we do that online and our face is not showing,
that is dead time.
That's just a slide with words or an image and no sound.
We can't do that. So when we are talking at an online conference,
we have to have more audio, fewer gaps, fewer pauses,
but more variety in our talk. And if you can get your face on screen,
the variety is then in your facial expressions and your emotion that comes
through there. It's not a physical presence anymore.
It's a face presence because the camera is in.
It's a difference between acting for stage and acting for film.
So there are different techniques and skills we want in there.
So if you want to learn more about this and and take lessons from acting,
study film, acting tips rather than stage acting tips.
So when I practise for an online talk, I talk with no interruption,
I make sure I can do the entire talk all the way through with no gaps.
I'm trying to have a flow to my talk.
I don't want to have too many ums and ahs I haven't practised this particular
talk because I'm doing it live. Because the difference between live video,
which has more energy and a talk where you're trying to convey particular
information directly.
Now I do have a script here to help guide me,
but I'm going off piste and off-script and more often.
Hopefully you won't even notice that I'm doing a script.
But now that I've told you, you'll notice.
When I'm doing an online presentation, I do not work from a script.
I have the information that I need to prompt me on the slides.
So one of the tips for online conferences is to have more slides.
When you're being given advice about face to face talks,
you're very often told to cut down on the slides - remove the slides entirely,
just have images on screen to support you so that people are focusing on you.
Now when we do online talks,
very often you won't see the person because it's just a voice and just slides.
Where's your attention going to go? It's going to drift off.
So we need to have more slides that are changing more rapidly to capture
people's attention. So very often while do is I'll have slides with more words,
but they will change more frequently.
So I might have four bullets for covering the topic that I'm talking about,
but each of those bullets will be on a slide and those slides,
will change every 15 seconds and I will work through it.
I will have more slides rather than less.
And I will have more words rather than images because that's how people are
watching.
They can listen and they can see the words at the same time and it doesn't
contradict because we get that an adverts all the time.
So very often when people do face to face talks, they would use videos,
they'll use sound,
they'll use a whole bunch of different props and stuff coming through.
With online, we want to keep it as simple as possible,
because very often we are not in control of the technology that is being used.
So if you have animated images, they might not show up.
If you have embedded videos, it might not work. If you have sound,
you might not have set up the sound correctly to pick up your desktop sound.
There's way too much that can go wrong.
Keep your presentation as simple as humanly possible and rely on the variety in
your talk and put in the content to grab people.
And here's the best tip you're going to get, which is all about audio.
Have the best audio that you can.
If you have a webcam mic or you have the internal desktop or laptop microphone,
do not use those. Those are not what you use when you're presenting.
If you use those,
you're going to get the worst audio experience for your listener, possible.
Remember, they're probably on headphones.
They're probably listening to what you're talking about.
They won't be able to hear you. You need to have good audio. Now,
it doesn't have to be expensive. At the moment,
I'm using the most expensive mic I have.
There we go this is a Rode Procaster on a shock stand with a boom mic and I've
probably made the audio go really terrible there,
but that's not what I've always used. That's really recent kit to me.
Remember I've done hundreds upon hundreds of videos,
so I have some pro level kit. Not a lot of pro-level kit, but some.
Didn't always work with that. The last mic that I used was this.
It's an iRig HD. The HD2 is what's out now. This was on a cheaper boom stand,
for about $10 with a cheap pop filter.
And I've used this for years and I've recorded online talks with this.
But up until a couple of weeks ago, that was pro kit for me. When I started,
I used just a simple desktop USB microphone.
This is a Logitech something or other. It's not even a special thing.
But this is better than the built in webcam or laptop microphones.
Pretty much any external microphone is going to be better than your built in
webcam or laptop microphone.
If I'm travelling and I knew I'm going to have to do a talk,
I will have just standard Apple headphones. These are my emergency headphones.
I don't like using these,
but this is what I'll use because the mic is still better than the in built one.
If I'm travelling and I know in advance,
then I'll use these Plantronics headphones with a boom mic.
Headset with a boom mic is much better than just the microphone dangling off.
And I have some her Lavalier mics. This is the iRiG lav,
comes in a little box, which we can use.
But you don't need to spend a lot on kit. Any,
pretty much any USB mic will be better than your inbuilt ones.
And that's the most important thing that you can do for any online talk.
Have some decent audio in there. Give it some emotion when you're talking.
And if you only do that, you'll be better than 50% of the people out there.
Now when we practise, you want to practise that flow. You want to get the,
you want to try and remove the ums and ahs.
It doesn't matter if you get rid of all of them,
but keep practising to have a flow because we're trying to direct the person
listening just through our voice. We don't really have any other props to hand.
So our voice has to bring people through.
That's particularly true if you just have slides behind you.
Your voice is the key thing. So work on that. Now,
one of the hardest things to get used to when you're doing an online conference
talk is that you're talking to yourself. You're not seeing an audience,
you're getting no reaction whatsoever from people in front of you because
there's no one in front of you.
So tips I try and do is practise talking to yourself so you get used to it.
And the way I do that is by recording - recording my practise sessions so I can
listen back, check the audio, and just get used to the sound of my own voice.
And if I can, the software that I'm streaming with, whatever it is,
have my webcam output visible there so I can see myself.
So I'm talking to myself, at least I have one friendly face that I'm looking at,
but sometimes I scowl so. But I'm still friendly. I'm still, I know what I mean.
So I might scowl, but I'll be friendly. Have your own face there.
So you're used to talking to yourself because you will get no feed back.
I remember I did an online talk once where it was complete isolation.
I basically got a text message saying 'go' and that was it. I was on my own.
I didn't even know when it was finished.
The questions came in later on over text. It was really hard,
but it's going to be one of the hardest things that you do unless you practise
talking yourself,
getting used to saying stuff with no feedback coming back whatsoever,
but still being able to generate some emotion or levity or rhythm or change in
your voice.
That's what you practise and that's why you practise so hard for the online
talks because you're basically doing it straight to camera with nothing else in
the way. Okay, you can see I'm using a chroma key background.
This is an Elgato popup green-screen. You don't need one of those, right?
Very often you'd be using Zoom.
Check whether the virtual backgrounds on Zoom can work for you without a virtual
background. If I'm using Zoom, I don't need the green screen.
It pretty much knocks out the background or zoom your webcam into your face so
there's less of an area.
What you want is just more of you and less of your room.
That's all you want and if you can get your face on screen at the same time as t
he slides, that's a massive bonus.
Hardly anyone does that with online conferences,
but it just increases the engagement that you're going to get with that talk.
But you don't need a lot of kit.
The most important thing to invest in is a mic and it doesn't even have to be a
great mic. It just has to be better than your webcam or your computer.
So test all the microphones that you've got.
Record it as you practise and use the one that is best. But you evolve,
you iterate, you increase the pro level of your kit, the more videos you do.
And if you're just starting out, you just have whatever headset works.
So quick summary. Presenting online is very different.
We do have to practise because we're practising to get our voice working not our
physical delivery.
Practise with the kit you're going to use so you get used to it and make sure
you have an external microphone and listen back when you record every practise
session to make sure that that audio is getting better and that your delivery is
getting better. But it is practise.
And the reason you practise is because you are going to be talking to yourself
so you better get used to it. One of the things I did in order to practise is I,
every day I recorded a Instagram video because no one was following me in
Instagram. No one was going to see it,
but it got me used to talking and got me used to talking live and it got me used
to talking live on camera.
So any tips that you can do to get used to practising straight into camera by
yourself will help you.
And subscribe to this channel so you can see any more videos I create.
And if you've got any questions on this,
ask and I'll create more videos to explain more tips.
A headset with a boom mic is much better than just as something dangling down.
Oops.