Feb
This is a guest post from esteemed presenter and expert Olivia Mitchell.
People used to whisper to each other or pass hand-scribbled notes during presentations. Now these notes are going digital on Twitter or via conference-provided chat rooms.
Up until now, this back-channel has been mainly confined to the Internet industry and technology conferences. However, a survey of leadership conferences from Weber Shandwick shows that there is a significant increase in blogging and twittering at conferences.
So the next time you present at a conference, instead of being confronted by a sea of faces looking at you, you may be phased by a sea of heads looking down at their laptops. The challenge is how to adapt to presenting with the back-channel.
Photo credit : Pete Lambert
Benefits of the back channel to the audience
As a presenter, the idea of presenting while people are talking about you is disconcerting. But to balance that, there are huge benefits to the individual members of the audience and to the overall output of a conference or meeting.
1. It helps audience members focus
As a presenter, you might be worried that the back-channel will be distracting. The opposite seems to be true. Dean Shareski says:
The more I’m allowed to interact and play with the content the more engaged and ultimately the more learning happens. The more the presentation relies on the back channel, the more I focus. Knowing that my comments are going to be seen by the presenter or live participants, seems to make me pay more attention.
Rachel Happe adds:
Twitter allows me to add my perspective to what is being presented and that keeps me more engaged than just sitting and listening - even if no one reads it.
2. The audience gets more content
People tweeting during your presentation add explanations, elaborations, and useful links related to your content. Liz Lawley comments:
My “take-away content” from the backchannel equalled or surpassed what I got from presentations directly.
3. Audience members can get questions answered on the fly
In the past, you might have lent over to you neigbor and said “What did she mean by that?” or you remained confused. Now, audience members don’t have to wait to clarify things they don’t understand. They can tweet their question and another audience member will tweet back with the answer. Audience members who tuned out because they didn’t understand now stay engaged.
4. The audience can participate
The back-channel blurs the line between the presenter and the audience. Now everyone can be an active participant. Here’s an account from Gary Koelling of a twitter-fueled participative meeting:
And what struck me was the dynamic of this meeting. It was participatory. No one was talking out loud except the guy presenting the ppt. But the conversation was roaring through the room via twitter. It was exploding. People were asking questions. Pointing out problems. Replying to each other all while the ppt was progressing along it’s unwaveringly linear path.
5. The audience can innovate
As your presentation sparks ideas, audience members can tweet them and build on each others’ thoughts.
6. You don’t have to be physically present to participate
Not only can you watch a live videostream of the presentation, but you can also tweet or chat with the physically-present participants.
7. You can connect with people
Being at a conference where you know no-one or only a few people can be intimidating. People who know each other cluster together and you can feel out of the action. But if you participate in the back channel, you’ll get to know people virtually, and can then introduce yourself physically at the next break. Liz Lawley states:
But the backchannel doesn’t have a limited number of chairs. Anyone can join—and as the two-day event wore on, more and more people did. It allowed conversations to occur between people who wouldn’t have known to seek each other out otherwise.
8. You can do something else
And lastly, if the speaker is tedious, you can get on and do something productive and no one will know.
What about the speaker?
Yes, presenting with the back-channel is challenging. Prepare yourself for what it will be like. We’re used to having eye contact with our audience and using that eye contact and audience reaction to measure how well we’re engaging the audience. Now when you say something brilliant, instead of nods of appreciation, there will be a flurry of tapping. Here’s the positive spin:
The typing means you’re provoking interest
Martin Weller: I want people to be backchanneling during a talk I give because it shows what I am saying is provoking some interest.
Your colleagues can answer questions for you
David Harrison: I knew some of my colleagues who’d helped with the presentation were following the event but what I couldn’t imagine was how powerful a force having your co-workers liveblogging whilst you were talking could be.
You’ll get immediate feedback
Paul Gillin: Having recently waited six months to get audience evaluations from one presentation, I can tell you that the immediacy of the tweeted feedback was wonderful. I was able to use it to get a read quickly on the tech-savviness of the audience and adjust accordingly for the rest of the day.
They won’t fall asleep
Martin Weller: And, if by some freak chance what I’m saying isn’t interesting, then I’d rather people were doing their email or reading blogs than sitting in my session feeling resentful because they are trapped. Hey, I’ve had people sleeping during a talk before - I’d rather they were tapping away on their keyboards.
Managing the back channel
We used to suffer in silence through bad presentations. Today, the audience is now connected. They get to know that others are suffering too - and that changes the way they react.
The most notorious impact of the back channel was at the SXSW ‘08 conference during the Keynote Interview. Sarah Lacy was interviewing Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. Audience unhappiness with the direction of the interview spread through the back channel and ended up with the audience taking over the interview. Check out Jeremiah Owyang’s account at A groundswell at SXSW 08: How the audience revolted and asserted control.
But if you monitor the back channel, the results can be very different. This is an account by Jeffrey Veen of moderating a panel at a conference. He monitored the back channel through his phone:
As the conversation on stage continued, the stream of questions and comments from the audience intensified. I changed my tactics based on what I saw. I asked questions the audience was asking, and I immediately felt the tenor of the room shift towards my favor. It felt a bit like cheating on an exam.
What this means is that when you’re presenting with the back channel - you need to monitor that channel and be prepared to change course and adapt. Robert Scoble says:
I hate being captive in an audience when the people on stage don’t have a feedback loop going with the audience. We’re used to living a two-way life online and expect it when in an audience too. Our expectations of speakers and people on stage have changed, for better or for worse.
How to monitor the presentation back channel
Set up a system to enable you to keep in touch with your audience through the back channel.
1. Ask a friend or colleague, or a volunteer from the audience to monitor the back channel and interrupt you if there are any questions or comments that need to be addressed. Jeffrey Veen calls this person an ombudsman for the audience.
2. If you can’t find someone to take on this role take breaks - say every 10 mins - to check Twitter. Robert Scoble calls this taking a twitter break. You can combine this with asking the audience for “out-loud” questions as well. It’s good practice to stop for questions throughout your presentation - rather than leaving questions till the end.
3. If you’re courageous and know your content backwards, display the back channel on a screen that everyone (including you) can see. This is potentially distracting for you and has the downside in that the visibility it provides can provoke silly tweets from some (eg: “Hi Mom”). But it does mean that you can react immediately to any issues. Spend some time at the beginning of your presentation explaining to your audience how you will respond to the twitter stream and audience members are more likely to use it responsibly.
Presenting while people are twittering is challenging. But isn’t it better to get that feedback in real-time when you can do something to retrieve the situation - than wait till you read the evaluation sheets a few days after the conference - and find that you bombed?
How have you monitored the presentation back channel? Do you have any other advice?
Olivia Mitchell blogs at Speaking about Presenting. Visit her blog for more tips on how to prepare and deliver an engaging presentation.
Learn more about Twitter for business in our “Wednesdays at 1″ webinar series:
- Twitter for Business 101 February 25, 2009, 1PM EST
- Advanced Twitter for Business March 11, 2009, 1PM EST
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Thanks for this very interesting input – I’ve been wondering for a while what would be the best microblogging practices during conferences or business meetings/presentations and this provides an excellent resource.
I particularly appreciate the idea of a back channel manager or “microblog pause” for gathering the feedback during a live session. Will be definitely trying this out.
Just wish they made keyboards totally silent.
Ideally, at some point in the future (if more students start to use Twitter) this could be modeled, practiced, and used as a teaching strategy in a large lecture classroom. There may be people already playing with this.
Excellent post but I still hate it when people don’t look at me when I’m talking. It seems rude, no matter what the reason. If I was an instructor I’d expect people to be taking notes but that’s a lot different than people tweeting about me or asking each other questions while I’m talking.
Guess I’m just an old school fuddy duddy.
We must be on the same wavelength. I wrote about this:
http://harbrooke.com/2009/02/project-management-helped-by-microblogging/
last week and noted that “As a speaker, it’s tough to look out into an audience and see many of them with their heads facing down, looking at their devices. However, maybe we need to get past that feeeling of awkwardness and assume people are taking copious notes.”
I love the Ombudsman concept and will be using it this week in my presentations in NY and Chicago.
Thank you.
Twittering during a presentation is today’s version of passing notes in class. It can be interesting, interactive and harmless. While we speakers can assume this activity shows interest, that would be a mistake. The tweets could have NOTHING to do with our presentations. Or everything to do with our comments. We just don’t know.
Audience facial feedback is important for entertainers, speakers and teachers and can often determine how much more the audience will receive. On the other hand, when I see people taking notes (manually or with their laptops) I am encouraged.
While the back channel gets to connect with their circle as they sit in a roomful of people they don’t know, they may be missing the opportunity to meet new people sitting around them. And that would be unfortunate.(Disclaimer: I wrote Face to Face: How To Reclaim the Personal Touch in a Digital World, Fireside).
I enjoy doing presentations with live internet access, so I can jump to online examples in response to live questions. Can’t wait to add a twitter stream to that mix!
Thanks for providing a context in which to think (one definition of great writing; I’m blanking on the source right now) about this new presentation style..
You left out a huge bonus to the presenter: key highlights of your presentation are being sent out to an audience much bigger than those in the room. If you have something truly insightful or newsworthy to say, your message may be retweeted far and wide.
Yipee…. this will explain it to folks who don’t get it.
I think anything that brings an outside audience into a presentation can be a great thing.
Managing the backchannel and using it to the presenters advantage, that’s the high point of best practice.
There can also be a backchannel running on Youstream.tv for folks outside the room. It would be really nice if comments posted there on on other streaming services could be brought forward into the Twitter Stream so folks could be connected regardless of the platform they are using for communication.
Thanks for capturing so many positives out of the head-down focused output that audiences are engaging in.
I saw an interview @thecleversheep posted a little while back where university professor was using a backchannel for students to add notes to presentation slides. The comments from all students contributed to the converstation. Interestingly, the comments were made without names! This dissolves awayt the personal interest in twittering for the sake of getting attention and focuses instead on contributing value to the shared conversation. Afterwards, students can access the slides and the notes, links and comments.
Wouldn’t this be an interesting innovation for @slideshare? To be able to integrate audience tweets into slides that are being presented at a conference into an archive for distribution. Sort of like what some of the video conversation tools are doing where folks add their notes to the video.
I used back channel a few years ago - someone set up an IRC channel. Curious what you think of that option. Seems to be less distracting, as the audience won’t be getting all their other twitter traffic during the talk.
Are you sure that Twittering during a presentation is a positive trend? Think about why some companies have a “no laptop” rule during meetings.
If you’re going to be tethered to the device, why show up at all?
Very interesting… much to think about since this is going happen whether we as speakers want it to happen or not… depending on the audience. In January I gave a keynote to an audience of college and high school people in counseling, recruiting and such… 2 of 250 had Twitter accounts.
That said, I do fear this problem. Over many years, one of the consistent items on evaluations is this: (1) Didn’t get to ask enough questions, followed by (2) Came here to hear the speaker, not the silly questions.
Much of what’s recommended above threatens to fall into this same divide… would certainly recommend finding out first how many in the audience have Twitter accounts at all. If few, then certainly don’t go through the exercises described here.
The best comment for either situation… build in “break time” to handle questions at regular intervals. But control the time spent on that so that the advertised information that brought people to the presentation in the first place is indeed covered. And never let the “loudest” Twitter highjack the presentation with a new variety of personal war stories.
And yes, I tweet at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
As a blogger, and Twitterer I’m often one of those people in the audience at a conference. I can see the point about it being a bit rude, but at the same time if people are doing it they are extending the reach of your otherwise closed event.
I would say that speakers should use this phenomenon and have a slide with a tinyurl near the end of where people can find the slides, and if you’re confident in your ability to present (and it’s being recorded), a tinyurl of where people can find a video recording of your presentation. That way people can tweet it and blog it while they are still engaged with your content.
@innovate
Well, as someone who was thrilled to have @Pistachio tweet positively about my co-keynote at the Enterprise 2.0 conference last year, I have to say that Twitter (and things like it) add a whole ‘nother dimension to presenting. Magnifying the conversation OUTSIDE of the venue you’re in has tremendous benefits. I’d take my chances with participation of any kind, whether out loud in public or virtual, rather than just talking heads, any day of the week.
Every webinar I’ve done for the last year or so, I always suggest that people fire up twitter in addition to OR IN REPLACEMENT OF the built-in Q&A of most webinar/webcast platforms. A tiny percentage actually use Twitter as the alternative in my experience, but the continuing growth of Twitter use will no doubt morph that over time.
Something is missed when people tweet during a presentation. The audience may hear the person speaking, but they’re missing the non-verbal communication. We can’t do all things at once.
personally i believe that to constantly twitter (or talk, or text, or whisper) during a presentation (or meeting for that case) is rude.
advise at start that you will be monitoring the twitter conversation and asking ppl to step forward to explain their tweets (pos and neg) to entire audience.
advise that as a lot of ppl wont be twittering that it’s only fair that the ppl who are share their though stream (aka though leadership! lol) with the entire group.
embrace the crowd, isnt that what all this social media is about
mike
Great post! Thank you for clarifying this phenomenon for speakers and live-tweeters alike.
I have Live Tweeted 2 conferences so far, Innovation3 in Dallas and recently I just tweeted a couple sessions at Saddleback Small Group Confererence in Irvine, CA just for fun. It helped me to focus on the content and absolutely helped “spread the wealth” to twitter buds who were not able to attend.
The Saddleback conference (#ssgc) was a 3-day event and I only attended the last day, but was able to “pre-attend” by following the few tweets sent out the first two days. Not a huge Twitter-literate bunch, but I did get a few nuggets before actually setting foot in Irvine, CA.
I value event twitterers because I’ve benefited from their service. I get to experience a small taste of the event and am grateful. This is made me want to give back & do it when I can.
Thanks for this!
http://twitter.com/decart
As an event attendee, I find it very distracting when other people around me are tapping away on a computer, phone or PDA. I try and sit where I won’t be distracted by those who wish to divide their focus from the speaker and participants in the actual presentation room (you know, the ones who paid to be there, took the time to attend, etc.). That’s my take.
The other issue that has not been addressed is what is the content of the tweets being exchanged with this less-committed audience of secondary attendees? If they are fact-based (i.e., focus on the actual presentation) that’s not so bad, but when you get into the “opinion-laced” areas (particularly the ones that are bordeline slanderous/libellous) I think the tweeters might want to think twice. Are you familiar with this article on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website, “Rules of engagement for the social media set”? It’s a good, cautionary tale, methinks. Make sure to read all of the comments…plus note the number of “recommendations” for the article: http://tr.im/g4jq
Extremely interesting. While most of my collegues have never heard the word ‘twitter’, I see nevertheless this interesting evolution taking place.
) while twittering.
Why not do the presentation directly from slideshare, after pointing the audience to it, so they can follow the slides on their laptop (better for the neck !
It’s very intriguing how the the presenter feels that they “own the show”, and must have 100% visual concentration from the audience, failing to realize that greater back-channel participation is actually greater immersion in the topic at hand.
Being one of those wholly-consumed audience member/participants, I’m glad, for one, to see that this perspective is shared by others, and that the benefits of discussing the material live-stream are being recognized.
Thanks Olivia.
- Daiv http://Twitter.com/DaivRawks
As a presenter, I like the idea of offering multiple means of communication and avenues of engagement while, at the same time, getting instant feedback and the opportunity for adapting (changing on the fly) one’s talk based of people’s interest, Q&A and meaningful commentary.
As a participant, I enjoy being able to post comments or questions without disrupting someone’s presentation or discussion, and to have the session’s blogs and microblogs logged for immediate or future review.
Multi-tasking is where it’s at.
@joanna yes, I have used Twitter as a backchannel in the classroom at Bentley and plan to at Harvard Business School this spring.
@hughbriss it can be unnerving, yes, but it can also deliver a MUCH better style and degree of interaction between speaker, audience and material, and for a “breaking eye contact” cost equivalent to note-taking. so long as that cost is weighed against advantages, I think net-net, more becomes possible.
@SusanRoAne very nice to see you here, Susan. I’ve actually seen audience members in the same room as drastically MORE likely to connect due to incidentally breaking the ice via Twitter. In general (and vis-a-vis your book) what fascinates me about Twitter-mediated business relationships is how very many lead to face-to-face connections and back to Twitter again. There is a very real “social lasagna” where Twittered and F2F interactions build onto one another to create a much stronger relationship than the “meet once, exchange cards, follow-up” formalized model, which can be a real dead-end.
@johnbordeaux IRC can be another great backchannel, but i think it’s frequently too techy and too informal. On Twitter everything is linked, trackable and even Google-able. You TRULY own your words, and that accountability does tend to elevate the backchannel’s tone versus IRC.
@peterkim I am sure it is a REAL trend, with both good and bad consequences. It is a skill to be learned, tempered, and used when most appropriate and productive. Loss of presence of mind and poorer reflection on/integration of material is a risk. But so is missing out on important audience contributions and feedback that do not otherwise gain voice.
@highedmarketing I love that with something like Twitter, lots of questions can circulate amongst the group without necessarily disrupting the presentation’s flow the way a typical Q&A period does. The speaker can go back and answer later in a way that only the questioner and those who wish to pursue it have to hear.
Extending the reach of the event is tremendously valuable and important. I believe the smart conference organizers will learn to tap into this. You attract interest and participation from a much wider audience, AND you offer a networking tool to help attendees remain in contact after the event, extending the perceived value derived from it.
It was back in 2005 that I presented a paper entitled “Using Networked Technologies To Support Conferences” - see
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/eunis-2005/paper-1/
This explored the origins of what later became known as ‘amplified conferences’ (a term which is now in Wikipedia.
The paper suggested the need for a meta-framework for adopting this new way of working, to address the issues mentioned in your post and in the responses.
As a speaker others “Tweeting” while I talk but at the same time, I can understand how that would be disconcerting to someone not used to Twitter or the backchannel phenomenon.
One thing conference organizers can do is make known the #hashtag beforehand so everyone uses the same one. I’ve seen several conferences with multiple #hashtags because there was no official tag provided. Getting everyone on Twitter to use the reference point makes it so much easier for tracking and monitoring purposes.
Oops, should have said “I don’t mind others Tweeting while I talk…” above.
Sorry about the glitch.
@LaraK on Twitter.
I’d also suggest making presentations more soundbite heavy- easier for twitters to grab a good quote for their followers that way. I was recently at an education panel and I kept tweeting about only one guy in a seven person panel, because he had the great one-liners that would fit in 140 characters and would be snappy for those reading the tweet out of context.
@tarametblog