👌3 tips for your next virtual meeting or session
The latest news from StreamAlive and the world of online, offline, and hybrid live events.
Hi there! In this week’s newsletter:
John Chen’s 6-step strategy to host better live sessions
Why we deleted the Run of Show feature
3 essential tips for your next live session
An introvert’s guide to visibility in the workplace
Learn the 6-step strategy to host more engaging virtual meetings and events
John Chen has been hosting virtual events for nearly 40 years. He knows so much about the subject that he wrote a best-selling book about it: Engaging Virtual Meetings.
John is my ‘go-to’ person when I want to be sure that my online meetings, webinars and conferences are engaging!” – Ed Cohen, Chief People Officer, SprintRay Inc.
I want to thank John Chen! I wish I had that tutorial about a year ago when we first started using Zoom. That was OUTSTANDING!” – Andrew Berlin, Co-Owner Chicago Cubs
There are lots more testimonials on John’s website but we think you get the idea 😎
We’ve asked John to join us for a #StreamAliveShowcase event to teach our users the techniques he uses to turn an uninterested audience into active participants.
📆 March 13th
⌚ 11am EDT | 3pm GMT | 8:30pm IST
If you run virtual meetings or live events and feel like your audience tunes out or drops off, then this workshop is for you. John is going to teach us:
The 6-step ENGAGE method to solve your live event challenges
Why the first 5 minutes of your live event are the most important
How to design live events to maximize engagement
How to improve knowledge retention
How to get attendees excited for your next live event
As always, registration is free but seats are limited, so save your seat today.
We also have some more exciting #StreamAliveShowcase events coming up and we’d love to have you join us for them as well!
Mar 13 - John Chen is a master at creating engaging virtual events and he’s going to be teaching you the methods he uses to keep butts glued to seats
Mar 27 - We’re delighted to have Manish Pandey return for another #StreamAliveShowcase event to bring us his latest tips for content creators
Apr 10 - Also returning for another session is Devaiah Bopanna, as he talks about how brands can go viral
Apr 27 - The one and only Jan Keck is joining us for a practical session on fostering design group experiences that spark engagement, increase trust and foster deep connections so nobody feels left out.
May 8 - We’ve got facilitation guru, Myriam Hadnes joining us to teach us how to have more effective meetings
Jun 5 - Neela Saldanha has dedicated her life to understanding human behavior and deciphering what makes us tick. She’ll be sharing her discoveries with us at her event.
Jul 2 - How can design systems improve your productivity? That’s the question Manish Agarwal will be answering in his session.
Save your seat to all of these events today!
Why we deleted the Run of Show in StreamAlive
(Don’t worry, we’ve saved all the run of shows that you have already created. We’ve just made them more awesome)
This week StreamAlive took a big leap forward with how our users create presentations.
For regular users, you would be used to creating a ‘Run of Show’ where all your audience interactions and slides are sequenced.
Run of Show comes from the events industry to detail the order in which speakers will appear on stage.
During our training sessions and one-on-one calls with users, it became apparent that ‘Run of Show’ wasn’t a universally understood phrase and people were not associating it with creating interactions and adding slides.
So we’ve made a big change.
We’ve created the Presentation screen.
It still works the same way you created a Run of Show, but now it’s in a more familiar interface.
You’ll also find all your previously created Run of Shows re-imagined as presentations.
Here’s a quick tutorial to get you up to speed with the new way of adding interactions to your presentation.
This is Version 1 of being able to create your presentation in StreamAlive—there is much more to come!
3 presentation tips we learned from John Chen when we had a meeting with him
A few weeks ago we had a meeting with John Chen to invite him to do a workshop for StreamAlive users.
What was supposed to be a 20-minute call turned into an unplanned 60-minute masterclass. We can’t wait for him to do his actual training session with us next week!
The three takeaways I took from that meeting on how to do more engaging virtual events were…
Stand UP! This is John’s number one tip. You have more energy and sound better when you stand up. Sitting down means your voice can sound lethargic, but standing up and moving around adds a dynamic to your voice that is infectious.
Look at the camera! If you’re like me then you have a laptop webcam but I’m looking at the audience members on my external monitor. This might be OK for small meetings, but when you are presenting and not looking at the camera it causes a disconnect between you and your audience.
John recommends setting a webcam at eye level above the screen you use to do your presentation so that you can make eye contact with your audience.
John did one cool trick where he was making a point and leaned in towards the camera as he was doing so. The effect it had was drawing me into what he had to say: I was hooked and couldn’t look away if I wanted to.Get a StreamDeck! If you’re regularly doing meetings or virtual events with dozens of attendees then a StreamDeck can be a game-changer for your virtual events.
From simple things like switching cameras—creating a TV-show experience for your users, different camera angles keeps things interesting, to switching browser tabs.
One way that John uses StreamDeck is to have pre-recorded chat messages for questions he regularly gets asked. I asked him what technology he uses. So many people ask him this during an event that he created a pre-written response which he could publish in the chat at the click of a StreamDeck button.
These are just three tips I learned. There are going to be a lot more tips in John’s upcoming #StreamAliveShowcase workshop, so make sure you register today.
Even if you can’t attend, we’ll send you the recording afterwards.
What we’ve been reading
It can be difficult being an introvert in a virtual world. If you’re not likely to speak up in real-world meetings, the urge to turn off your camera and stay silent in online meetings can be even greater.
Unfortunately, in large meetings, this approach means you can become more, and more invisible.
Harvard Business Review recently published an article on three ways introverts can become more visible in the workplace, but telling an introvert to speak up in a meeting doesn’t seem like a ground-breaking piece of advice.
We think StreamAlive can help make the workplace and classroom a more equitable place for introverts.
For example.
A shy student who is reluctant to raise their hand in the classroom to ask for clarification on a topic could be helped with StreamAlive’s in-person browser-based chat.
The teacher could create an in-person session for their class and ask students to access the chat. This makes it a lot easier for introverted students to bring up their questions.
In a related vein, during big meetings or company town halls, the host could ask if people have opinions on what is being discussed. Using Talking Tiles or Transient Thoughts, introverts can have a voice without putting too much spotlight on themselves.
What do you think? Do you have any techniques for helping introverts get visibility without attention?
Catch us on our social pages
If you haven’t already, check out our social media pages to stay updated on our quirky takes on the latest social media trends and the occasional piece of engagement-related advice.
All the best,
Peter and the StreamAlive team