Watching the Australian Open tennis tournament got me thinking about how speakers deal with speaking when they don’t have a live audience to speak to.
This year’s Australian Open started with spectators. After a cluster of covid cases were found to have originated at a hotel, Australia went into a five-day lockdown, which meant no spectators for five days. Then, after those five days, spectators were once again allowed.
The announcers talked about the challenges of playing to an empty stadium versus a full stadium. Some players seemed to welcome the quiet because they were better able to hear their own thoughts and concentrate on their game. Then there are players like Naomi Osaka who said: “I feel like I feed off the crowd’s energy. So, if I’m just having a bad day, it’s a little bit lonely.”
Honestly, I think most speakers can appreciate what Naomi was saying considering what we’ve had to deal with. Last March, speaking to a live audience came to a grinding halt. Everything was cancelled—national conferences, local meetings… everything. Fortunately, speakers were able to take advantage of technology and start presenting online. Now, in addition to Zoom, there are new and exciting opportunities for creating virtual presentations beyond PowerPoint, such as Pretzi and Powtoon.
And wow! We have so many ways to interact virtually instead of just standing in front of an audience. We can use chat windows to ask questions and see participants answers. We can take polls and see the results in real time. People can ask us questions and get answers in real time too. We can screen share. We can break audiences into smaller groups. We can use live quizzes and games such as Kahoot! All of these provide virtual speakers with opportunities that typical live conference speakers don’t have at their fingertips.
It’s very possible that the future of conference speaking will be changed forever as a result of all that speakers and event planners have learned since last March. And even when we are able to get back in front of audiences again, smart speakers are going to look for ways to incorporate some of those technologies into their face-to-face presentations… because let’s “face” it, they work!
Back to the Australian Open, it also reminded me about speakers who are “taking a break” from speaking, or who have decided not to speak until they can return to a live audience. My question to them is, “Why would you deprive your peeps of hearing your awesomeness when they might need your help solving their problem now more than ever?”
We’re all in the same boat here. We all lost our in-person audiences, as well as all the energy and synergy that comes with a live audience. But we’re also at a point in time where we might just have to get over it too. It’s doubtful the speaking world is going to go back to what it used to be. Yes, we’ll be able to speak to live audiences again (hopefully sooner than later!), but we’ve got to face the reality that some speaking opportunities will stay virtual rather than going back to live.
Making adjustments is going to be easier for some people than it is for others. I’d rather be proactive about learning more about what’s possible right now, rather than waiting to see how things shake out. That way I’m prepared to share my problem-solving solutions regardless of whether it’s a live or virtual platform. How about you?
‘Til we speak again,
~Beth
The Call No One Looks Forward To Making
