Tamar Weinberg from Pistachio Consulting posted this interesting piece about presenting in the age of Twitter. His advice will help anyone who finds themselves sharing ideas in front of an unattentive audience. You may have thoroughly prepared for the presentation and expected a more engaged audience. You tell yourself that they are obviously more engaged with what’s happening on their laptops. No one is actively whispering nor jotting down notes! However, avoid internalizing this and bitterly concluding that your presentation failed. That is unlikely the case.
How to Present While People are Twittering
by Tamar Weinberg
February 27, 2009
People used to whisper to each other or pass hand-scribbled notes during presentations. Now these notes are going digital on Twitter or via conference-provided chat rooms.
Up until now, this back-channel has been mainly confined to the Internet industry and technology conferences. However, a survey of leadership conferences from Weber Shandwick shows that there is a significant increase in blogging and twittering at conferences.
So the next time you present at a conference, instead of being confronted by a sea of faces looking at you, you may be phased by a sea of heads looking down at their laptops. The challenge is how to adapt to presenting with the back-channel.
Read more on how Twitter helps you and your audience during a presentation.
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I’ve felt this challenge was coming and certainly I’ve been on a laptop at conferences, but I always made and effort to remain engaged with the presenter.
It will be interesting to see how this changes presentations in the future.