Part 2: the Speaker's Nightmare
The previous post in this series is about the accessibility and inclusivity aspects, and provides the background for the research and experience discussed here.
This post will cover the speaker experience, and the following posts include awards, and lastly, the conclusion and a consolidated list (with links) of all the tools and resources covered in this series.
The Speaker’s Nightmare
What are the biggest issues that most speakers face? Audio/Visual issues and talking into a void tend to be the things of nightmares for most of us. And guess what? You can still have this “traditional” speaker experience with virtual events too: A/V issues are often similar, and instead of that worst case scenario of addressing an unresponsive room of people on their phones, now it’s a blank screen.
There are some new problems too, but fortunately, there are some really fantastic organizers out there who have shown me some effective ways of mitigating these.
AUDIO-VISUAL ISSUES
It’s become unavoidable that speakers now have to be a lot more familiar with A/V troubleshooting, with anything from their internet connection to a potential bug in the presentation software. However, most conferences now have mic-checks as a baseline for testing out audio, webcam, and slides with whichever event platform(s) they’re using. This is typically done at least a week ahead of the event.
- Pre-recorded: more conferences are allowing for (or requesting, often as a backup) a pre-recorded talk. There are pros and cons for this, but generally I find that it allows for more flexibility, particularly when the speaker and attendees are not in the same timezone. My favorite software for pre-recording talks for this format been OBS.
- “Green rooms” are becoming more common as well. This is where the speaker joins a separate video chat with one or more organizers (but no attendees), well in advance of their talk. In the best experience I had, instead of making me sit through my pre-recorded talk (which, from experience, is just — cringe) the organizers chatted with me in a separate “room” during my talk, and did some practice Q&A. As a result, I had my best Q&A session (ever) because I felt more prepared, relaxed, and supported. For the organizers, they avoided having dead air, which helped keep up the energy and momentum of the event. With live talks, there are still great opportunities through leveraging the increased chat room use by seeding or encouraging audience engagement during the Q&A.
TALKING INTO THE VOID
This is many people’s worst fear about public speaking, and is an issue with both in-person and virtual events. There are some fascinating psychological papers on this phenomenon, as well as many resources on how to address it individually so I won’t go into that here. Personally, with virtual events, I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds: I get to avoid the Silent Room of Terror from in-person conferences. And, I put photos of friends right behind my webcam, so presenting at conferences now feels like like geeking out with my buds.
Even with effective techniques though, the toughest part can often be the feeling of disconnection right after a talk. If you’re a conference organizer — this can be alleviated by enabling stronger connections between the speaker and their audience in various ways, including:
- Q&A prep — as I mentioned earlier, finding ways to avoid dead air during the questions and answers portion is beneficial to the speaker, the organizers, and the audience. The most successful ones I’ve experienced occurred when there were seeded or backup questions, either submitted by the speaker, or by the organizers. At one conference, the organizers leveraged the fact that all talks were pre-recorded, and they watched each talk and came up with questions (which they shared with the speaker) in advance. To avoid the outcome where no one wants to be the first one to ask a question, the organizers also added their seeded questions to the event chat during the talk, which did increase attendee engagement.
- Virtual speaker lounge — particularly with virtual, speakers often have last-minute questions for the organizers, and it can be uncomfortable, or just plain inefficient, to ask them in a large public chat channel with other attendees. Having a separate chat space just for speakers to quickly access the organizers can make a big difference in the speaker experience.
- Separate channels for each talk — although this risks getting chaotic if there are already other channels or it’s a multi-track conference, I’ve mostly found that the pros outweigh the cons. Namely, this allows for better separation of concerns and keeps announcement channels clear. There are also easy ways of mitigating the downsides, like being clear in announcements and notifications about where to find these other spaces, and using familiar tools for communication, like Slack or Discord.
BONUS POINTS
Another speaker I was “hanging out with” (virtually, across many timezones, like you do nowadays), told me he kept wishing more conferences would replicate a virtual version of the traditional “speaker dinner.” In the “before times,” these were typically done to help speakers ease into the event and bond with their peers, which often makes a big difference in how connected a speaker feels to the event, and how relaxed they are giving their talk. I have only seen one conference attempt this (because I suggested and hosted it). I would love to see this become more common.
In This Series
Post 1: Accessibility + Inclusivity
Post 2: The Speaker Experience
Post 3: And the Award Goes To…
Post 4: Conclusion + Resources
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