How to give great demos – with Andy Kriebel & Eva Murray [Video]

If you do demos at work or online, check out this fantastic video (below) from Andy Kriebel and Eva Murray.

In it, Eva shares lots of excellent tips for giving better demos, and Andy shows how clear and helpful a good demo can be.

Andy happens to be demoing software. But many of these tips apply to other demo types too. For instance, Eva shares a story (at 5:57) about learning ballroom dancing by seeing someone demonstrate the steps.

In this clip, you’ll find what I think are the best 8 minutes of advice on how you can give great demos. (Or, watch the 1-hour video this clip comes from.)

Eva starts by contrasting slide presentations (which tend to be slow and fairly easy to see) with demos (which are often fast-paced and hard to follow).

If you prefer, you can also scroll down to read a list of the tips…

Here are Eva’s tips, plus some discussion points (in italics). After you go to any of these sections of this post, you can click a time (mm:ss) to watch the relevant bit of the clip:

Advertisement

Teams calls – stop “unruly unmute” (and “vulgar video”)

How often do your Teams calls get disrupted by background noise? You know, like when someone thinks they’re on mute, so talks to a person next to them.

And hands up if you’ve even watched swirling video of the ceiling – or worse – from an attendee who didn’t realise their phone’s camera was on.

The latter’s what you might call “vulgar video” – and it’s so distracting!

Luckily though, you can use little-known features in Teams to take back tech control. (That way, you and your audience get a great experience – as you both deserve.)

What’s more, you can do so either:

• During your meeting
• Or in advance.

And without nagging everyone to put themselves on mute 🙂

 

Here’s how

Speak online – 8½ terrific tips from Eric Winters [Video]

In a rush? Watch the video (30 mins) or read the tips.

When you present online, the tips below will help set you up for success. They come from my friend Eric Winters, who’s a coach, author, and international public speaker.

I love the metaphor Eric uses to explain why it’s hard work watching an online talk:

“There’s a good reason they call it paying attention,
because you have to give up a lot of energy…

So if we want to help our audiences…
we need to lower the price
of paying attention”
Eric Winters – at 1:42 in the video

In his video below, Eric presents what he calls “8½ tips” to elevate your online pres­entations. The clip’s about 30 minutes long, and he spends about 2-3 minutes dis­cussing each tip.

Below the video, you’ll also find:

• a list of the tips
• discussion of each one
• useful links to help you build your skills.

 

The video

As I think you’ll see – and as Eric’s live audience commented – this is a very engaging and helpful session:

 

The tips

Here are Eric’s 8½ tips – click any of them to jump to the relevant part of my post:

Presenting online? These 5 words make you sound nervous

Suppose you’re presenting on­line. You might be using Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, or one of the older tools like Adobe Connect or WebEx.

Whatever the platform, if you want to share your screen, what do you say?

Most presenters I’ve heard – myself included – say something like this:

“I’ll just share my screen…
Can you see it yet?”

But thinking carefully about it, I realised that approach has 3 problems:

WebEx Training Centre – insider tips and lessons learnt

In this post, you’ll see the tips I found helpful (and the lessons I learnt) when hosting a series of internal training webinars in WebEx Training Centre. If you apply these tips and lessons, you should find it easier to host smooth events yourself (in WebEx or a similar system, like Adobe Connect).

You can click any of these links to jump straight to the relevant section of this post:

9 tips to design presentations for webinars – critique of Ellen Finkelstein’s post [Part 2]

When you prepare for an online session, do you wonder:

• How long should your introduction be, and what should it focus on?
• How much content should you show on each slide?
• Is it OK to use animations, and if so, what sort should you use – and when?

In this post, you’ll find answers to those questions, and more. It’s part 2 of a review of Ellen Finkelstein’s post called:

9 tips to design presentations for webinars

(Be sure to also check out part 1 for my review of Ellen’s tips 1 to 4.)

In this post, we’ll look at the last 5 of Ellen’s 9 webinar tips, which I’d summarise like this:

9 tips to design presentations for webinars – critique of Ellen Finkelstein’s post [Part 1]

Do you ever present online – at work or for yourself? If so (or if you’re about to for the 1^st time), you’ll find superb tips on Ellen Finkelstein’s blog.

Ellen’s a PowerPoint MVP who presents and hosts lots of webinars, including the annual Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

Below, you’ll find part 1 of a review of Ellen’s post called:

9 tips to design presentations for webinars

In part 1, we’ll look at the first 4 of the 9 tips (plus a few of my own), which – among other things – deal with using your webcam, and interacting through polls or other means.

(Be sure to also check out part 2 for my review of Ellen’s tips 5 to 9.)

I’d summarise the first 4 tips like this:

How to rock at webinars – 9 concrete tips to keep people engaged

Think back: How many of the webinars you’ve attended were worth your time?

Sadly, I find they’re often time- wasters, and I’m sure many people agree. (If you have a strong opinion either way, please say so.)

So, to stand out from your competition, here are 9 tips to help you rock at webinars! (Each tip’s marked as being easy, medium, or hard, so you can choose the ones that suit your current skills.)

2 kickass training activities – put your learners’ needs 1st, and last!

You can use this pair of audience activities or interactions to “bookend” your training:

• The 1^st is a superb addition to your session’s opening.
• The 2^nd is an engaging way to get feedback at the end.

Interaction #1: Let the “attenders” set the agenda^(*)

Have you ever seen a trainer do something that stayed with you for decades?

More than 20 years ago, way back in the 20^th century, I saw a trainer use such an awesome technique that I’m still talking about it now – in the next millennium! So before I start to feel too old, let me share it with you.

10 tech tips for webinars and online meetings

Short of time? Get to the tips.

As a presenter, it’s increasingly likely that you use webinar tools (like Zoom or Adobe Connect or Cisco WebEx) – or that you soon will. And you might well hold virtual meetings or training workshops using those or similar tools.

Whatever type of online events you run, you’ll find some useful tips in this post.

Still, you’ll want to choose which tips to use according to factors like the size of your audience and your comfort with running the online event in the 1^st place. That’s because some of the tips (notably numbers 6 to 10) require more effort than others.

You can click any of these links to scroll to a specific tip: