Date post: | 03-Mar-2017 |
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Webinars pose a challenge to the basic adult learning principle of involving
the learner in experience-based activities that have immediate relevance to
work.
“Soft” skills or professional development skills webinars are harder to
design than technical training webinars as designers must creatively turn
instructor-led classroom activities into activities that grab the participants
through cyberspace.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
No doubt you’ve heard the basics of building effective webinars:
use colorful graphics and animation, keep bullet point lists to a minimum
and include lots of interactivity.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
But Here Are Six Critical Elements That
We’ve Found Valuable For Leadership
Training Webinars:
1. Grab Attention First!
Do something interactive with your participants within the first two minutes.
Yes, a brief introduction is needed and establishing the credibility of the
facilitator is important, but all webinars start that way. Experienced webinar
participants (and that’s probably most of your employees) become immune
to webinar introductions and continue to multi-task until grabbed.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
1. Grab Attention First!
So grab them first! You’re setting the expectation that when your facilitator
said in his/her introduction, “this will be an interactive webinar,” he or she
really meant it.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
1. Grab Attention First!
Grabbing participants at the start also puts them “on notice” that they may
not be able to multi-task or answer those e-mails during this webinar… this
webinar may be very different… and hey! possibly fun and interesting, too!
We start our webinars with an interactive brain teaser that has relevance to
the topic. This sets up a nice transition to your first learning objective.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
2. Find Out Who They Are
Webinars we’ve attended go to great lengths to make sure that participants
know who the facilitator is… his or her credentials, experience and
expertise. How many webinars have you attended that asked who you are? If
possible, follow your introduction with a quick survey and poll your audience.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
2. Find Out Who They Are
Experienced facilitators leading instructor-led programs always find out
“who’s the audience?” and tailor the course to the participants’ role, level of
experience or business function. Your webinar facilitator needs the same
information to make the content relevant.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
2. Find Out Who They Are
A standard slide in our webinar deck is “Who Is Out There?” and sets up a
poll with varying descriptions of possible participants. Not only have you
given the facilitator the opportunity to know “who is out there” and tailor
his/her comments and questions to those participating, you’ve also told the
participants that they’re important to this webinar… it’s about them and the
learning will be tailored accordingly.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
3. Two Voices… and Both with Energy
Unfortunately, in many webinars, the facilitator’s voice starts to sound like
“wah, wah, wah” after 20 or 30 minutes. You’re changing your colorful
graphics frequently and keeping it visually interesting… think about making it
equally aurally interesting. Your facilitator should keep great energy in his/her
voice, using lots of inflection and emphasis on important words and phrases.
(It’s also OK to laugh on occasion.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
3. Two Voices… and Both with Energy
And here’s the secret weapon: use your web administrator or technical
support person! We’ve had the great fortune of working with a web
administrator who has a great speaking voice and we use him throughout our
webinars. He reads the polling questions, summarizes and broadcasts the
results, reads the questions that enter the chat room and even role plays
situations with the facilitator to model a concept.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
3. Two Voices… and Both with Energy
This is especially useful with soft skills training… modeling how a manager
might handle a difficult employee, dissatisfied client or stressed manager.
Encourage a conversational style between the facilitator and web
administrator throughout the webinar. They don’t have to be “Click and
Clack” or Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but a humorous exchange
between the two adds levity and humanity to the webinar.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
4. The Power of the Pause
Your great facilitators who are experienced classroom trainers will need to
learn a few new tricks and break some old habits when delivering a webinar.
Energetic classroom facilitators are wonderful at being able to bring up the
next slide in their presentation deck at just the right moment. This takes even
more practice with a webinar – the facilitator will want to completely finish
each thought with the screen that the participants are viewing and pause as
the next screen appears, rather than talk through the transitions.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
4. The Power of the Pause
Remember that no matter what the facilitator is saying, when the next
screen or graphic or bullet point appears on the webinar screen, that is what
your participants are reading. It takes practice to stay in synch with what
your participants are seeing.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
4. The Power of the Pause
Another important pause that takes discipline is after you’ve asked the
participants to use the chat room to respond or asked for any questions. Be
assertive with the pause – and wait. It takes time for participants to
formulate, then type, their questions and responses. Unlike the classroom,
where you can look out at blank faces or raised hands, you must get
comfortable with silence when delivering webinars. Remember, silence on a
webinar indicates to participants that it’s time for them to do something!
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
5. Practice Does Not Make Perfect.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
There’s no getting around it… webinars involve technology and technology
(the Internet, your computer, your webinar administrator’s computer, the
webinar platform system you are using, your firewall, even your power) can
have its good days and its bad days.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
5. Practice Does Not Make Perfect.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
We have made it a policy to have a technical run-through not 30 minutes
before the webinar, but the day before the webinar. Beyond the technology
check this provides, the rehearsal also allows your facilitator and webinar
administrator to “choreograph” their interactions, set-up the polls and how
the polling results will be broadcast, when the facilitator will stop for
questions, practice of any role-plays, etc.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
5. Practice Does Not Make Perfect.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
Often, the rehearsal takes longer than the actual webinar – so allot sufficient
time for a thorough run-through – but it pays off when the webinar flows
seamlessly and the facilitator and web administer present the material like
skilled professionals.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
5. Practice Does Not Make Perfect.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
The rehearsal doesn’t eliminate the need to sign-on 30 minutes prior to the
actual webinar – you’ll still want to do your sound check and have “all
systems go” when your participants start to sign on. Be aware they may sign-
on 5 or 10 minutes before the webinar, so have all of your private
conversations finished by the time the first participant appears.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
6. Watch. Watch. Watch.
This is one final piece of wisdom we’d like to share. If you belong to learning
and development or industry-specific professional groups, you will receive
offers to attend free webinars. Even if these are marketing webinars selling a
product or service, sign-on and watch as many as you can.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
6. Watch. Watch. Watch.
Though many will turn out to be “death by PowerPoint,” you may stumble
upon some that are highly creative and give you wonderful new ideas for
delivering information interactively. The world of virtual learning is growing
rapidly and you can tap into a world of creativity every day.
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for Engagement and Learning
If you’re looking to get better at Webinars,
communication, or leadership in general
Infopro Learning offers leadership and
Organizational Development for
Communication.
Also, read my article on Presentation Skills,
for how to have a great learning experience
with presentation training.
To Read the Original Article Click Here:
Leadership Webinar Wisdom: Six Critical Elements for
Engagement and Learning
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Learning for Performance.
A global, award-winning learning and training solutions company for almost 20 years, InfoPro provides performance improvement strategies,
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One of the world’s leading providers of learning and training solutions.
About InfoPro Learning
For more information, visit www.infoprolearning.com