Improving your virtual presentations

 

We’ve been coping with virtual presentations and meetings for the last 18 months, and let’s face it Zoom, Skype for Business, Teams and all of the other virtual meeting platforms have been crucial in enabling us to continue to fulfil our roles, to work collaboratively and to interact with our service users. Although some of us are now beginning to return to office spaces, even if only occasionally, the landscape of work has changed forever. Many of us will now be comfortable in delivering online presentations and attending virtual meetings. Our fears and unfamiliarity with the technology are hopefully a distant memory. Whilst we may have conquered our online presentation fears that does not mean we cannot improve our camera techniques and set up!

In three short YouTube videos Mark Bowden, human behaviour and body language expert, provides some great tips and some interesting perspectives on enlivening our online presentation styles and thinking about the set-up from where we are presenting. Mark offers simple solutions that will add the edge to your presentations which should help you engage more effectively with your online audience.

Virtual meetings andpresentations training for working from home. (6 mins 35 sec). Mark suggests: making meetings short; raising your laptop so that your camera is level with your eyes; remembering to smile, and to look into your camera; thinking about lighting; and keeping your frame animated.

Virtual Presentations Best Practices: 5 Expert Tips (Part #2) (5 mins 43 sec).  In this video Mark draws on the techniques of the Dutch Masters to help you create an online presence that will further engage with your audience. This is about vanishing points, the magic of thirds, and great use of lighting. Mark also invites you to consider what your background says about how you want to engage. You may want to ditch the post-modernist Zoom backdrop in light of this!

How To Best Present OnCamera From Home Office (Part #3) (4 mins 22 sec). This video reminds about the importance of gesture and animation in communication. Mark urges us not to sit on our hands but through gesture and movement build and retain the energy within our presentation.

 

We may not all be as dynamic, energetic and camera savvy as Mark but hopefully there are some tips from these presentations that you can take away and action. Is it time for you to up your online meeting capabilities?