Why is interactivity important if I'm just giving people information? In rare cases, one-way, lecture-style delivery may be acceptable when delivering facts and you may not need the flexibility to adapt messaging to the needs of viewers. For the most part, however, even informational speeches can benefit from dynamic selection of content. Remember that audience members probably are thinking, "How does this relate to me?" Anytime those kinds of questions are possible, visual interactivity is advisable. Plus, circumstances can intervene to reduce the amount of speaking time available or otherwise necessitate a change in timing or focus. Having the ability to adjust to such circumstances can mean the difference between a marginal and a superior performance.
People like to feel a sense of connection to the speaker. They need to relate their current knowledge and perspectives with the new concepts being revealed. A speaker's willingness to answer questions and change focus on-the-fly helps them do so. Back to Top
How do I keep from getting lost when navigating? Finding content and staying oriented within a presentation network is quite easy, actually, if your organization is good and you make use of Visual Cues. Organization is a potent tool for selecting individual pieces of information, yet all the while knowing where you are.
Consider a real life experience of looking for milk in a grocery store. How do you go about finding a gallon of milk? Obviously, you don’t search aisles containing produce, hair spray, or cat food—you head straight for the refrigerators in the dairy section. In the same way, effective organizational structure tells a presenter exactly where to find a needed slide. That slide probably wouldn't make sense if placed anywhere else.
Visual Clues such as text, picture thumbnails, colors, and shapes guide the informational searching process. If your company sells products, and a link on your Main Switchboard reads PRODUCTS, it’s pretty obvious where you will go to find a product picture. If a trainer has a section for healthcare-related topics and those links are always blue and grouped together on a switchboard, then she can overlook all other colored links when searching for a healthcare topic. Back to Top
How do you find anything with so many slides available? Finding content in a Presentation Network can be difficult—or it can be extremely easy. It all depends on your organizational structure. If you’ve ever worked with Web or database design, you may be familiar with the term information architecture. This term refers to the process of organizing information so that a single item can be quickly located within potentially thousands of available options. Good information architecture doesn't happen by accident. It requires careful analysis and planning. Relational Presentation workshops place significant emphasis on this topic because of its importance.
Normally, our approach to information architecture results in a hierarchical structure that has no more than three levels. That way we rarely are more than three or four clicks away from any piece of content, anywhere in the network. Back to Top
Can I use Relational Presentation and still present linearly (slide-to-slide)? Relational networks can be as linear as you want them to be. Some presenters keep most of their content in standard linear shows, and then do three things:
They link all of these slide shows together via a switchboard.
They integrate internal navigation within the linear shows so that individual slides are randomly accessible if desired.
They attach a Resources section (accessible from every slide in every show) that contains supporting materials arranged in categories.
With this organizational strategy, content can be delivered either in traditional linear style or as randomly as desired. Back to Top
What does interactivity mean in a Relational Presentation context? Relational Presentation incorporates a variety of interactive techniques collectively known as Visual Interactivity. The overall idea is for the presenter to constantly read the audience and adjust visual display to meet their needs best. For example, if attendees at a training event seem to be having a hard time paying attention (you are training in the after-lunch slot or perhaps the room temperature is too warm), switching out to a funny video clip gets attendees laughing and usually revives their energy and attention.
In workshop sessions, we also explore four different kinds of visual interactivity using relational techniques:
Passive: A relational presenter constantly looks for nonverbal cues such as eye contact, attention, body posture, smiling, looks of confusion, yawning, and so forth, to gauge whether or not to make adjustments to the selection and order of content.
Active: When an audience member gives verbal feedback, such as asking a question or making a comment, the presenter attempts to respond visually with something in his or her presentation network—“Ah yes. Let me show you something that might help answer that question…”
Full-Visual: This style of interactivity is the holy grail for a relational presenter. The audience members themselves actually begin using the presenter’s own slides to visually express their ideas or clarify their questions. In other words, the viewers become visually expressive as well. They may make comments, such as “Go back to the slide that showed…” or “Our situation is probably closest to example three. Can you go into more detail on how that works?”
Multiple Presenters: In this case, two or more presenters control the same network so that they interact visually with each other and with the audience, all at the same time. The results can be wonderfully dynamic. Back to Top
What does "customizing the message" look like? The best way to prepare for a speaking event, in our opinion, is to carefully prepare what you want to say under ideal circumstances, and then plan for variations. Have numerous examples available that you may or may not show. Have varying levels of detail available as well. If the audience turns out to be more sophisticated than expected, don’t bore them with content they already know. If they give you blank stares, be prepared to search out their areas of confusion and offer more detail.
If your audiences regularly contain certain groups or types of people, but you don’t know who will be present, or when, come prepared with examples or entire tracks that appeal to the likely variations. An example might be a trainer who works with teachers. At a conference he might encounter teachers at several grade levels and need visuals that address different needs and perspectives, depending on whom he is talking to at the moment.
A relational speaker, to prepare for such situations, typically has switchboards set up that feature relevant categories of information. Appropriate topics, then, are chosen on demand while interacting with audiences.
How do you deal with handouts when giving an interactive session? Providing handouts to an audience often is necessary and desirable. At the same time, doing so (in our opinion) has done more to destroy the effectiveness of digital communication than any other factor. We'll look at why, and then discuss practices that are appropriate with interactive delivery.
The vast majority of PowerPoint users, when providing a handout, use the software's handout functionality to print the slides that will be shown. This practice encourages speakers to place a great deal of text on slides, so that audience members will have the necessary facts and details later. The result: a horrendously uninteresting and boring visual performance. Creating handouts from slides also encourages speakers to keep all of their content in a single linear slide show. It's easier to print that way. This practice tends to discourage the use of helpful animations, hidden content, video, audio, and other media—because these items don't print well. In short, we strongly recommend that you DO NOT print slides as handouts, period. If the audience needs a handout, then give them a real HANDOUT, a one- to four-page summary that has been condensed appropriately, with added visuals.
Aspire training materials have additional suggestions as well, such as recording performances (very easy). When presenting relationally, either make up a separate, real handout with key facts, references, and so forth, or put together a short summary slide show (linear) from key slides that will be covered. If using the latter strategy, you might consider putting detail in the notes section and printing the slide show with notes. Back to Top
Can a Relational Presentation platform be used as an intranet? Absolutely. Normally these ideas are used in a live presenter-to-audience context, but Relational Presentation works exceptionally well as a content management strategy, especially if you have a lot of pictures and other media. Some companies are starting to build parts, or all, of their intranets based on this approach rather than an html structure, due to the ease of creating and modifying content.
Portability is another issue. When an intranet is PowerPoint-based, you easily can transfer a chunk of it to any computer and be ready to present in a live context. We've seen people arranging their content in clusters so that entire categories of information are basically "plug and play." In other words, a presenter just plugs a module of content into his or her network when needed. Back to Top
