5 Tips for Running an Effective Online Presentation

1. Agenda: Prepare your agenda on a PowerPoint slide in advance and load it into your meeting. The agenda will create a visual reference for you and your audience. It’s a good idea to use the annotation tools to highlight and check off items as you go.
2. Invitations: Use the virtual meeting technology to send invitations. Invitations provide a link and the audio information necessary to attend the meeting. And invitations allow attendee’s to add the meeting to their calendars, ensuring they’ll join on time.
3. Speakers: Create a schedule for your speakers and manage the transition from one speaker to another verbally, much like a radio broadcast. Assign someone to keep track of time and to announce time frame intervals via the chat tool, timer tool, or verbally, depending on what is available.
4. Communication: Use the audio and the chat to encourage dialogue and allow attendees to comfortably provide input. Ensure each attendee is connected to the audio and can both hear and be heard.
5. Technology: Use the features of the virtual meeting room to enhance the meeting experience. For example:
• If you’re working on files, share the application and view the document together in real time.
• If you’re referencing websites, use the web share feature to view the website in real time.
• If brainstorming is on the agenda, use the chat to effectively manage the process in a quick and organized manner.
• If you’re developing a process flow, use a whiteboard and the drawing tools to demonstrate the ideas together and save it for reference at the conclusion of the meeting.

By the Numbers!!

if
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Equals
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

then

K + N + O + W + L + E + D + G + E
11 + 14 + 15 + 23 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5 = 96

H + A + R + D + W + O + R + K
8 + 1 + 18 + 4 + 23 + 15 + 18 + 11 = 98

Both of these are important, but on a scale of 1 to 100 what’s most important?

A + T + T + I + T + U + D + E
1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 = 100

How to Get Your Team Members to Stand Up and Lead

To win in today’s market, team members have to step up and be ready to take a leadership role. It is not easy to instill leadership abilities in others. It’s very important to also understand that some people do not share the same goals and aspirations as you might. Keep an open mind and learn to use different techniques to inspire different people. Here are a few ways that you can inspire your team members to stand up and lead.

Challenge – Issue a challenge - (In today’s market environment, you probably have many challenges to issue!) Some people need a specific challenge to motivate them. By laying down a challenge you also create a very clear and measurable goal for the staff member to achieve.

Appeal to more noble motives - Many employees can think that their work does not make a difference. By appealing to a noble motive, you can increase morale while also setting higher standards for your staff members.

Be sympathetic - Never tell a person they are wrong. Rather listen and be empathetic to the other person’s ideas and desires.

Evidence - Back up your ideas with proof. By providing evidence you can give instant credibility to your ideas. If you have evidence, even staff members coming in from a totally different perspective from yours will take notice.

Listen - Listen to what your staff members have to say. Some employees may not have aspirations to reach top corporate positions; rather they are content if their opinions and ideas are valued.

Ask questions - Instead of giving direct orders, ask questions to guide your staff members to think through the issues – and come up with solutions themselves.

Make your staff members feel important - And do it sincerely. Faced with the market challenges today, your employees must be reassured that their contribution and leadership DOES have a huge impact on the company’s survival, stability, and growth.