Bradley Johnson Productions Posts

https://www.rohitbhargava.com/2020/03/5-reasons-virtual-meetings-suck-and-5-ways-to-fix-them.html

With the concerns about a global health pandemic, the necessity of shifting more events and meetings to be virtual is on everyone’s mind. There’s only one problem: most of us have spent too much time in virtual meetings that are a waste of time.

I should know, I’ve probably spoken or participated in well over a hundred over the past years – both as a virtual keynote speaker and a remote workshop leader.

Some of them have sucked.

But I don’t believe that virtual meetings or presentations need to be bad. The real problem is that no one seems to know how to run them well.

Thanks to concerns about the coronavirus, we seem to be headed into a season where more events will happen virtually. So we should all have an interest in making them better. To start, let’s consider five of the most common reasons that virtual meetings go awry …

Problem #1 – Increased distractions.

Presenting the same thing you might have done in person in the same way doesn’t work in a virtual session. There are too many distractions and other things people may be doing at the same time.

Problem #2 – Lack of audience.

The entire idea of a laugh track for television sitcoms was created because the lack of an audience made creators worry that people wouldn’t know when to laugh. In a live meeting, we can look to the people around us for a cue as to how we might react. A virtual setting lacks this and so we feel isolated in our reactions and it’s harder to engage.

Problem #3 – Intrusive malfunctioning tech.

If you have ever started a conference call with ten minutes of participants asking if you can hear them, you’ve already experienced this. The fact is, much of the technology used for virtual sessions creates a lot of friction. People have to download something, microphones don’t work and Internet connections fail.

Problem #4 – No accountability.

When you are sitting in a live meeting or you show up late, there is a reputational and social cost to being tardy or being on your phone or checking out. Everyone else can see what you’re doing. In a virtual session, there isn’t any social pressure to keep you engaged or to prevent you from multitasking.

Problem #5 – One-way interaction.

Too often in virtual meetings one side has a camera on and is delivering content while the other is silently and invisibly listening. This creates an unbalanced meeting because one side has no insight into how the other side is reacting.

So, how do we fix these issues?

It’s easy to think that these are all thing that will always be the case with virtual meetings. After all, it’s not reasonable to “lock the doors” of a virtual session or force everyone to be on video to hold them accountable, right? And you certainly can’t wish away technical issues just by hoping they don’t happen.

Yet despite the difficulties these problems create, there are some techniques I have seen and used myself to help make virtual meetings and presentations a LOT better than they might otherwise be. Here are a few suggestions:

Solution #1 – Make virtual tech an advantage.

If you know everyone who is participating in your meeting will be on their computer during the session, a lot of possibilities open up. You can have them all visit a landing page directly to enter information. You can host and integrate a live poll. You can even tailor your content based on immediate responses you get. Virtual meetings can enable faster real time engagement if you can bake the interaction into the session.

Solution #2 – Use multiple mediums/styles.

While people may be able to sit through an hour long meeting or a 45 minute keynote, the rules are different for virtual sessions. In a world where people are used to 90 second YouTube videos, keeping their attention is more demanding. Sometimes, I will integrate videos more frequently into virtual sessions, or use interactive exercises asking participants to draw a picture or answer a question. These allow for a mental break and help audiences stay engaged for longer because you are mixing up the content.

Solution #3 – Reduce the friction.

Often the technology platform for a session is selected based on what is the approved platform for a particular organization or what presenters are most comfortable using. Both are not great ways to choose technology. Instead, consider what tech would be easiest and fastest for your audience to get working. Who has the best live support to help people with issues? What tool doesn’t require downloading? Considering the friction of the tech tools for your audience first can help prevent tech issues later.

Solution #4 – Expect distractions and reiterate often.

In a virtual environment, repetition becomes much more important in order for ideas to stick. When you are presenting virtually with slides, for example, you may need to insert more summary slides or add more “bottom line” style reminders to reiterate your main points. Just because your audience may have been distracted or multitasking doesn’t mean they are bad people or didn’t really want to hear your message. Being more patient and proactive by changing your presentation style slightly can make a big difference in what your audience retains afterwards.

Solution #5 – Focus on the follow up.

Perhaps even more than in-person meetings, the follow up from a virtual session becomes much more important. If you have recorded the session and promised to share it, make that happen quickly. If there are downloadable materials make them easy to find and get. The moment right after a virtual session is a critical one for engagement and a time when your audience may be most receptive to anything you can share. So plan the follow up and do it quickly.

Is the future about virtual events?

I have never been someone who believed that virtual events could replace in person events. There is something magical about getting the right people in the room to make connections and a serendipity that happens face to face which is impossible to recreate virtually (yet!). I hope that live events never get replaced.

I do, however, believe that a virtual presentation can be highly effective and in many cases preferable – for example if you have a widely distributed group that can’t be in the same place at once, or a global health scare that makes travel riskier. Hopefully this list helps you transform your next virtual meeting or presentation into one that doesn’t suck and really does engage your audience.

We all need to find more ways to make our virtual meetings better. For the near future, it’s at least pretty clear we can expect to have more of them.

https://www.rohitbhargava.com/2020/03/5-reasons-virtual-meetings-suck-and-5-ways-to-fix-them.html

With the concerns about a global health pandemic, the necessity of shifting more events and meetings to be virtual is on everyone’s mind. There’s only one problem: most of us have spent too much time in virtual meetings that are a waste of time.

I should know, I’ve probably spoken or participated in well over a hundred over the past years – both as a virtual keynote speaker and a remote workshop leader.

Some of them have sucked.

But I don’t believe that virtual meetings or presentations need to be bad. The real problem is that no one seems to know how to run them well.

Thanks to concerns about the coronavirus, we seem to be headed into a season where more events will happen virtually. So we should all have an interest in making them better. To start, let’s consider five of the most common reasons that virtual meetings go awry …

Problem #1 – Increased distractions.

Presenting the same thing you might have done in person in the same way doesn’t work in a virtual session. There are too many distractions and other things people may be doing at the same time.

Problem #2 – Lack of audience.

The entire idea of a laugh track for television sitcoms was created because the lack of an audience made creators worry that people wouldn’t know when to laugh. In a live meeting, we can look to the people around us for a cue as to how we might react. A virtual setting lacks this and so we feel isolated in our reactions and it’s harder to engage.

Problem #3 – Intrusive malfunctioning tech.

If you have ever started a conference call with ten minutes of participants asking if you can hear them, you’ve already experienced this. The fact is, much of the technology used for virtual sessions creates a lot of friction. People have to download something, microphones don’t work and Internet connections fail.

Problem #4 – No accountability.

When you are sitting in a live meeting or you show up late, there is a reputational and social cost to being tardy or being on your phone or checking out. Everyone else can see what you’re doing. In a virtual session, there isn’t any social pressure to keep you engaged or to prevent you from multitasking.

Problem #5 – One-way interaction.

Too often in virtual meetings one side has a camera on and is delivering content while the other is silently and invisibly listening. This creates an unbalanced meeting because one side has no insight into how the other side is reacting.

So, how do we fix these issues?

It’s easy to think that these are all thing that will always be the case with virtual meetings. After all, it’s not reasonable to “lock the doors” of a virtual session or force everyone to be on video to hold them accountable, right? And you certainly can’t wish away technical issues just by hoping they don’t happen.

Yet despite the difficulties these problems create, there are some techniques I have seen and used myself to help make virtual meetings and presentations a LOT better than they might otherwise be. Here are a few suggestions:

Solution #1 – Make virtual tech an advantage.

If you know everyone who is participating in your meeting will be on their computer during the session, a lot of possibilities open up. You can have them all visit a landing page directly to enter information. You can host and integrate a live poll. You can even tailor your content based on immediate responses you get. Virtual meetings can enable faster real time engagement if you can bake the interaction into the session.

Solution #2 – Use multiple mediums/styles.

While people may be able to sit through an hour long meeting or a 45 minute keynote, the rules are different for virtual sessions. In a world where people are used to 90 second YouTube videos, keeping their attention is more demanding. Sometimes, I will integrate videos more frequently into virtual sessions, or use interactive exercises asking participants to draw a picture or answer a question. These allow for a mental break and help audiences stay engaged for longer because you are mixing up the content.

Solution #3 – Reduce the friction.

Often the technology platform for a session is selected based on what is the approved platform for a particular organization or what presenters are most comfortable using. Both are not great ways to choose technology. Instead, consider what tech would be easiest and fastest for your audience to get working. Who has the best live support to help people with issues? What tool doesn’t require downloading? Considering the friction of the tech tools for your audience first can help prevent tech issues later.

Solution #4 – Expect distractions and reiterate often.

In a virtual environment, repetition becomes much more important in order for ideas to stick. When you are presenting virtually with slides, for example, you may need to insert more summary slides or add more “bottom line” style reminders to reiterate your main points. Just because your audience may have been distracted or multitasking doesn’t mean they are bad people or didn’t really want to hear your message. Being more patient and proactive by changing your presentation style slightly can make a big difference in what your audience retains afterwards.

Solution #5 – Focus on the follow up.

Perhaps even more than in-person meetings, the follow up from a virtual session becomes much more important. If you have recorded the session and promised to share it, make that happen quickly. If there are downloadable materials make them easy to find and get. The moment right after a virtual session is a critical one for engagement and a time when your audience may be most receptive to anything you can share. So plan the follow up and do it quickly.

Is the future about virtual events?

I have never been someone who believed that virtual events could replace in person events. There is something magical about getting the right people in the room to make connections and a serendipity that happens face to face which is impossible to recreate virtually (yet!). I hope that live events never get replaced.

I do, however, believe that a virtual presentation can be highly effective and in many cases preferable – for example if you have a widely distributed group that can’t be in the same place at once, or a global health scare that makes travel riskier. Hopefully this list helps you transform your next virtual meeting or presentation into one that doesn’t suck and really does engage your audience.

We all need to find more ways to make our virtual meetings better. For the near future, it’s at least pretty clear we can expect to have more of them.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWritePractice/~3/ykyQxzhTEco/

Today we are going to write a story. A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. A story starts when something happens. A story starts with an inciting incident. An inciting incident is something that prompts action.

The Cat Who Writes

Hello. Before I give you your writing prompt today, please let me introduce myself.

I am Harper. I am a cat. A cat who writes. I dictate to my typist.

This is my office. A cardboard box. I don’t need a desk.

I am honored to write for The Write Practice and share my writing knowledge. Joe Bunting might actually be a cat.

Are you ready to write with me? Here is my first writing prompt for you.

Beginning

A story starts when something happens. A story starts with an inciting incident. An inciting incident is something that prompts action.

Without an inciting incident, nothing meaningful can happen. And when nothing meaningful happens, it’s not a story.

— Shawn Coyne

Shawn Coyne wrote The Story Grid, one of many books I am studying now to learn the art of writing a story.

I have spent years studying the art of taking a catnap. However, I want more from my life than just finding sunbeams. Writing gives my life meaning. And, after all, I am named after Harper Lee, the writer. I, however, plan on writing more than one book.

Today’s story starts with a stick of butter. I am a cat and I love butter. I don’t know if all cats like butter, but I do, and so does Annie; she is the golden retriever I live with.

Annie took a stick of butter off the counter and she didn’t want to give it up. Annie is the protagonist of this story. She is the central character, the “hero” of the butter story.

The story begins with dialogue. The antagonist is speaking. They actively oppose Annie from eating the butter.

I personally just want Annie to share the butter with me.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6d1I5WaEDc?feature=oembed&w=1080&h=608]

Here is the first line of your story:

“Release. Drop it. Annie, look at me. You’re not looking at me. You can’t eat the butter stick,” said _________ .

(Give the antagonist in your story a name.)

You can begin your story with the dog stealing the butter. It is up to you. This is your story. Or you can begin your story with the video.

Middle

The middle of the story is where the story takes place. Will the antagonist be able to take the stick of butter away from Annie?

This is the part where you get to write the Middle, and then you get to write the End.

Use your imagination. Take Annie on an adventure, the conflict over the stick of butter.

Let the suspense build with progressive complications, the rising action of the story. What does Annie do to evade the antagonist? How does the antagonist try to take the butter?

Or let’s just call the antagonist the butter thief. Annie did not steal the butter. It was on the counter, which means it is her food. Why do only people get to eat butter?

End

We need a resolution to the story. How does this story end? Does Annie get to keep the butter and eat it? Does Annie share the butter with me, Harper?

The end of the story is where the conflict gets resolved. Or where we find out what happened to Annie and the butter.

Your Story

I am very curious to read what you will write. This is a writing prompt based on a real-life butter event with a dog. I was there, and I know what happened in real life.

But I think your story will be even better.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Can you think of real-life experiences that you could turn into writing prompts? Do they also involve butter? Let me know in the comments.

The post A Writing Prompt From a Cat, A Dog, and a Stick of Butter appeared first on The Write Practice.

https://www.rohitbhargava.com/2020/03/5-reasons-virtual-meetings-suck-and-5-ways-to-fix-them.html

With the concerns about a global health pandemic, the necessity of shifting more events and meetings to be virtual is on everyone’s mind. There’s only one problem: most of us have spent too much time in virtual meetings that are a waste of time.

I should know, I’ve probably spoken or participated in well over a hundred over the past years – both as a virtual keynote speaker and a remote workshop leader.

Some of them have sucked.

But I don’t believe that virtual meetings or presentations need to be bad. The real problem is that no one seems to know how to run them well.

Thanks to concerns about the coronavirus, we seem to be headed into a season where more events will happen virtually. So we should all have an interest in making them better. To start, let’s consider five of the most common reasons that virtual meetings go awry …

Problem #1 – Increased distractions.

Presenting the same thing you might have done in person in the same way doesn’t work in a virtual session. There are too many distractions and other things people may be doing at the same time.

Problem #2 – Lack of audience.

The entire idea of a laugh track for television sitcoms was created because the lack of an audience made creators worry that people wouldn’t know when to laugh. In a live meeting, we can look to the people around us for a cue as to how we might react. A virtual setting lacks this and so we feel isolated in our reactions and it’s harder to engage.

Problem #3 – Intrusive malfunctioning tech.

If you have ever started a conference call with ten minutes of participants asking if you can hear them, you’ve already experienced this. The fact is, much of the technology used for virtual sessions creates a lot of friction. People have to download something, microphones don’t work and Internet connections fail.

Problem #4 – No accountability.

When you are sitting in a live meeting or you show up late, there is a reputational and social cost to being tardy or being on your phone or checking out. Everyone else can see what you’re doing. In a virtual session, there isn’t any social pressure to keep you engaged or to prevent you from multitasking.

Problem #5 – One-way interaction.

Too often in virtual meetings one side has a camera on and is delivering content while the other is silently and invisibly listening. This creates an unbalanced meeting because one side has no insight into how the other side is reacting.

So, how do we fix these issues?

It’s easy to think that these are all thing that will always be the case with virtual meetings. After all, it’s not reasonable to “lock the doors” of a virtual session or force everyone to be on video to hold them accountable, right? And you certainly can’t wish away technical issues just by hoping they don’t happen.

Yet despite the difficulties these problems create, there are some techniques I have seen and used myself to help make virtual meetings and presentations a LOT better than they might otherwise be. Here are a few suggestions:

Solution #1 – Make virtual tech an advantage.

If you know everyone who is participating in your meeting will be on their computer during the session, a lot of possibilities open up. You can have them all visit a landing page directly to enter information. You can host and integrate a live poll. You can even tailor your content based on immediate responses you get. Virtual meetings can enable faster real time engagement if you can bake the interaction into the session.

Solution #2 – Use multiple mediums/styles.

While people may be able to sit through an hour long meeting or a 45 minute keynote, the rules are different for virtual sessions. In a world where people are used to 90 second YouTube videos, keeping their attention is more demanding. Sometimes, I will integrate videos more frequently into virtual sessions, or use interactive exercises asking participants to draw a picture or answer a question. These allow for a mental break and help audiences stay engaged for longer because you are mixing up the content.

Solution #3 – Reduce the friction.

Often the technology platform for a session is selected based on what is the approved platform for a particular organization or what presenters are most comfortable using. Both are not great ways to choose technology. Instead, consider what tech would be easiest and fastest for your audience to get working. Who has the best live support to help people with issues? What tool doesn’t require downloading? Considering the friction of the tech tools for your audience first can help prevent tech issues later.

Solution #4 – Expect distractions and reiterate often.

In a virtual environment, repetition becomes much more important in order for ideas to stick. When you are presenting virtually with slides, for example, you may need to insert more summary slides or add more “bottom line” style reminders to reiterate your main points. Just because your audience may have been distracted or multitasking doesn’t mean they are bad people or didn’t really want to hear your message. Being more patient and proactive by changing your presentation style slightly can make a big difference in what your audience retains afterwards.

Solution #5 – Focus on the follow up.

Perhaps even more than in-person meetings, the follow up from a virtual session becomes much more important. If you have recorded the session and promised to share it, make that happen quickly. If there are downloadable materials make them easy to find and get. The moment right after a virtual session is a critical one for engagement and a time when your audience may be most receptive to anything you can share. So plan the follow up and do it quickly.

Is the future about virtual events?

I have never been someone who believed that virtual events could replace in person events. There is something magical about getting the right people in the room to make connections and a serendipity that happens face to face which is impossible to recreate virtually (yet!). I hope that live events never get replaced.

I do, however, believe that a virtual presentation can be highly effective and in many cases preferable – for example if you have a widely distributed group that can’t be in the same place at once, or a global health scare that makes travel riskier. Hopefully this list helps you transform your next virtual meeting or presentation into one that doesn’t suck and really does engage your audience.

We all need to find more ways to make our virtual meetings better. For the near future, it’s at least pretty clear we can expect to have more of them.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/markgrow/~3/QBQnQ5W2GIQ/

We are literally living in one of the most important moments of world history, and we’re all playing a part in it.

Make no mistake, nearly every person on this planet is fighting a war for personal and economic survival, and, in the process, creating one of the most significant stories of our lifetime.

These are the stories we will be telling our friends, children, and grandchildren for years to come – the narrative of our life within this cataclysmic moment in history.

We are all suffering in some way and experiencing loss. How are you transcending this difficult hardship? The answer to that question is how you will define your story for the rest of your life.

Someday, I am determined to tell my coronavirus war story about:

• Courage

• Generosity

• Innovation

• Power of the human spirit

• Dignity

• Compassion

• Teamwork

• Resolve

• Humor (we always remember the funny parts!)

• Triumph

Think of your life in the context of the history that is being written before our eyes. What is the story you’ll be telling when this is over? What is the story others will be telling about you?

Don’t let this narrative just happen to you. This is your story. Take control.

Write it now, every day, without compromise.

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

The post This is your war and your story. Write it well. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.