The Virtual Presenter's Handbook Summary:

Note: a full table of contents can be seen here: http://www.thevirtualpresenter.com/?page_id=495

Web seminars (“webinars”) are online seminars or presentations used to engage remote audiences with any content that can be presented from a computer desktop. Because presenters and audiences are connected live, web seminars can be interactive and engaging, just like when every person is in the same room.

Web seminars are made possible by software that connects each person via an Internet connection. Using the software is simple, like logging into a Web site. Every person participates aurally with audio conferencing using their telephones or computers with headsets. Many solutions offer video to enhance the visual connection between teachers and learners.

Web seminars deliver many potential benefits. They reduce travel for presenters and attendees alike. They can reach more attendees than in-person presentations, and they may reach attendees who otherwise could not make the in-person presentation. And they may make it possible to include presenters not otherwise available to be able to reach those audiences.

Replacing 100% of face-to-face meetings shouldn’t be your goal, but the ability to dialogue with an audience at a distance is a unique and powerful tool (read: way to inspire, teach, and persuade) that many organizations are now adding to their communications toolkit. And this means presenters, speakers, marketers, trainers, executives, and a host of other roles need to evolve or fall behind.

As you begin to present using web seminars, two key opportunities and one problem will emerge.

One, you can discriminate between when you really need to be face to face and when you don’t.

Two, you can spend a lot more nights in your own bed.

The problem?

To use a favorite analogy, “Microsoft will teach you how to use Word, but not how to be a writer.”

The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook is the collected wisdom I’ve gained over ten years in the business and literally a thousand presentations online. It covers key principles that apply to successful online presentations, regardless of web conferencing tool you are using.

Oh, and there is one other problem: There is no other resource like it.

Books on presenting don’t cover presenting online, and content from web conferencing companies is shallow at best (that’s okay – they’re in the software business, not the presentation skills business).

Thanks in advance – for your interest, and ultimately for your feedback whether public or private. If you know me, I don’t present without talking with my audience, and I won’t write that way either.

Roger


About the Author:

Roger Courville is a ten-year veteran of web seminars and presentations – from startup to Microsoft to co-founding two companies with partner and industry veteran Scott Driscoll.

1080 Group is a training and consulting firm providing companies with knowledge and skills to better communicate and compete with virtual presentations by teaching trainers, marketers, and salespeople how to design, promote, and deliver innovative web seminars and presentations. Our team has a collective experience that includes hundreds of clients, thousands of web seminars, and more than a million web seminar attendees.

A more extensive bio can be found here: http://1080group.com/roger- courville.php