At the national conference for the AWC (Association for Women in Communications) I was excited to speak at a session with Maria Henneberry about creating and conducting online training through webinars.
AWC organizes and runs a webinar series about a variety of communications topics (I’m on the Tech Committee that finds topics and speakers) plus we run webinars at Tourism Currents related to social media, technology and tourism/hospitality.
So, I have webinars on the brain these days. What are the main things to remember?
Do NOT make boring slide decks, take advantage of the web and multimedia tools, remember that your voice must show the enthusiasm you feel (since in many cases attendees can’t see you) and keep an eye on online presentation tools like Zipcast that easily and cheaply bring video into the mix.
Here’s the direct link to the webinar how-to presentation on my SlideShare channel, and let me know in the comments below if you have questions or feedback.
Better online training: how to create and conduct webinars
Sheilia:
I like some of the things you’ve said.
As a rule of thumb for slides for webinars and presentations, the standard font size should be 40, not 30. I disagree with Guy on this one. I also disagree with his formula of 10-20-30. If you seen him present lately, you’ll see that he does not follow his own formula as he actually has a lot more slides.
If you’re doing a 30 minute webinar, I say one slide per minute. Go for a minimum of 40 size font, the bigger the better. I personally like 60 font size. Keep one point per slide.
Remember in webinars, you need to make your presentation more interesting that any of the distractions. The more vibrant slides that you have that connect with your presentation the better.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks very much for your thoughtful response!
Yes, I told the AWC audience that the Guy Kawasaki “rule” was originally for those who craft startup pitches/presentations to venture capitalists (Guy was tired of sitting through lots of really bad ones, so he came up with 10-20-30.) It’s not meant to apply across the board, but I thought it was an interesting way to look at things.
And yes, the bigger the better when it comes to fonts. 30 is where you START blowing it up. 🙂