Rocking the Digital Stage
How to perform an engaging online presentation, Danja Bauer edition.
For many people, presenting online can be even more daunting than presenting in front of a live audience. Including myself.
I believe this also applies for many researchers and staff at the International Institute of Applied Science Analysis (IIASA). In such an international and interdisciplinary environment, having to speak in front of an online audience is practically a given. That doesn’t mean everyone would be automatically good at it.
Practice does make perfect. That’s why, starting in October 2023, IIASA Public Speaking club started to hold online meetings to complement its regular biweekly onsite ones. The goal is to help improve members’ confidence and skills in public speaking not only offline, but also online.
Performing Public Speaking
For the club’s second online meeting held on Thursday, 9 November 2023, our club founder, Vanessa Boas, invited a special guest. Her name was Danja Bauer and she introduced herself as a professional public speaking coach and singer.
For some people, the last bit of her introduction may sound a bit odd. After all, what is the point of putting ‘public speaker’ and ‘singer’ in a parallel like that?
As someone who enjoys both public speaking and singing, I could certainly relate with the speaker. Growing up, I saw my father and his colleagues perform at weddings. From time to time, I would take part in his crew of MC, singers, and musicians. There I learned how singing and public speaking often go hand-in-hand, since both share one key element: performance.
Not only do both require confidence to stand in front of many people and interact with them. Both also aim to deliver words in an engaging and meaningful way, hence the importance of employing facial expression and body language.
Five Advice to Rock Your Online Presentation
Danja encapsulated her advice on doing an online presentation in five points.
Speak like music
One of the most common complaints regarding many online presentations, especially those in the academic community, is how the delivery is often so monotone it lulls people to sleep. The fact that more than a half of the club members who were present during the meeting agreed on this issue certainly speaks volume.
If we regard speaking like playing music, we may be able to avoid this mistake. Music has different genres, like pop, jazz, rock, etc. Each one invokes different feelings and speaks to different people. Similarly, we cannot speak to researchers like we can politicians or a bunch of five years old. Keep in mind who we are speaking to as we device and deliver our online presentation.
Convince with content
Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle wouldn’t work without logos or the appeal to reason. We need to be able to provide quality content through thought provoking facts and valid data. Researchers, in particular, need to maintain that the knowledge and logic they present would always be backed by science.
What’s important is to make sure not to overdo this, which may end up overwhelming the audience with irrelevant and convoluted substance instead. If we use presentation slides, we should make it brain-friendly by only putting a few things we want to emphasize on.
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After all, presentation slides and handouts are two different things. Plus, we want the audience to pay attention to us, the presenter, not the slides.
Connect through storytelling
Our brain is very responsive to stories. That’s why storytelling has long been held as a tried and true method to convey a message, one that preceded our human history. Ever wonder why gossip has such a power to connect and bring people together?
Still, stringing together facts and pointers doesn’t necessarily make a story, let alone a good one. There needs to be a structure that involves an introduction, a sense of rising conflict, and a resolution in the end.
Now, a well-structured text alone is not enough. Imagine reading a storybook without expression and gesture, and use the same voice and tone for every single dialogue. Wouldn’t that make it harder for us to connect with the story?
Excite with stage performance
If our audience is mostly excited throughout our online presentation, that means we may have done a good job. In order to achieve that, we can learn a few lessons from a stage performance.
Just because we could hide behind a camera, that doesn’t mean we should ignore what makes someone a good stage performer.
First, one should be able to interact well with the audience. That means looking at the camera when we speak, which is equal to looking at someone’s eyes in a face-to-face encounter.
Second, we ought to come with a high energy. It is both easier to get distracted and harder to hold people’s attention during an online session. A high energy could help catch the audience’s attention in the beginning and energize them throughout the presentation.
Third, express ourselves by speaking with all parts of our body. We can use vocal varieties, hand gestures, facial expressions, or a combination of all to appeal more to the audience.
Last but not least, excite ourselves first with what you’re going to present, be it the topic or the content in general. If we are excited with what we are doing, it would be easier to spread the excitement to others.
Leave an impact
What often sets apart a presentation from many others is the intention behind it. Having a clear intention would help us shape our online presentation into something truly impactful.
While planning on a presentation, we could ask ourselves, “What do you want to achieve from this? How do you want people to feel, think, and/or act in regards to your presentation?” Use the answers as something to aim and motivate us in giving an online presentation to the best of our ability.
“What you want to ignite in others must first burn in yourself.”
- Aurelius Augustinus
