Now, more than ever business people are expected to be multi-talented, they are presenters, actors and performers, while acting as technician and host at the same time. Standing up in front of an audience is one thing but doing it on camera requires a different set of skills.
Your audience, for one thing will be remote, at best you will have a thumbnail picture of them. You will have to simultaneously control the crowd, operate slide shows, PowerPoint presentations as you introduce multi-media clips, all at the same time as you speak.
For those new to Video Conferencing here are a few tips to enable you to give the best of performances and plan for the unexpected.
Visibility is probably one of the most important things, there is no point making a video presentation if you clash with the wallpaper behind you and either disappear completely or clash so badly you give everyone a headache. You want to make sure you are distinguishable from your surroundings.
Prepare, if you are going to use visual aid, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation, Excel spreadsheet or video clip make sure it works. Watch it first yourself and see what your audience will get. Make sure you understand the technology, setting up, starting, pausing and stopping the program.
Establish whether you are going to have an open mic arrangement where people ask questions or join in during your presentation or if there is a electronic, hands up signal. Make sure again that you, yourself know how this function works.
If you are going to annotate images or documents decide on hand written or typed comments. If you have appalling hand writing that is difficult to read then use typed annotations. Most video conferencing programs allow for both forms of writing.
Practice talking to yourself, because no matter how many live conferences or lectures you have done, online video conferencing is nothing like standing on a stage. Quite often you are remotely located in an office, talking to yourself with your image filling the screen in front of you. This can in itself be quite distracting, so practice talking out loud in an empty room, while looking in a mirror.
The main preparation to giving a good video conference is to know your topic thoroughly and feel totally at ease with the technology. This way you will not be worrying about what your are going to be saying next or how to operate the next slide you have ready.
Alex uses video conferencing equipment for his business on a weekly basis. He has been trying out different makes of video conferencing software over the last few years.
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