Friday, September 18, 2009
Two Ways to Let Your Audience Co-Create Presentation Content
Your audience has the technology. They're carrying smart phones. They have net books or note books.
So why not let them use their snazzy tech tools to co-create presentations? Here are two tech-driven ways to let your audience co-create presentation content.
PollEverywhere. Audience interactivity is a big part of the draw of PollEverywhere. You ask your audience a question; they can answer using Twitter, text messages, or the web. The PollEverywhere online service instantly tabulates audience survey results in chart form in your PowerPoint presentation.
I used PollEverywhere in class earlier this week -- it took me only a few minutes to craft a few cheeky surveys using the service. Downloading the poll as a PowerPoint slide (ppt or pptx) was a smooth, one-click operation. When students took the poll, results weren't exactly immediate -- I estimated a 15-20 second lag time before the graph started moving and changing before our eyes. Not bad at all.
PollEverywhere also allows you to ask open-ended questions as well as create bar or column charts. You may download survey results in CSV format, tweak colors and font sizes, and embed polls in web pages. This tool is very simple to use, yet fun and potentially quite powerful. Free for a small audience of 30 or less, PollEverywhere also provides more robust options with its paid services for use with larger audiences.
Twitter Hashtags. In the 1990's, I would often moderate candidate forums during election years. To keep these town hall meetings civil, we would pass out index cards and ask the audience to write out their candidate questions. Audience members passed their written questions to volunteers who made sure that the most popular and well-framed questions were brought forward to my lectern.
Today's audience may warm to a similar approach that is more transparent than using index cards. Why not ask a modern audience to Tweet their questions with a special Twitter hashtag for panel discussions? This lets a tech-savvy audience easily see the most popular and well-framed questions, while preventing boors from hijacking the Q&A portion of the program with tiresome or poorly-framed questions. Services like Tweetchat and Twitterfall let the panel and audience easily visualize the scope of questions surrounding the topic at a larger meeting, forum, or conference.
How else have you used technology to encourage audience interaction in your presentations? What works well? What doesn't?
Your audience has the technology. They're carrying smart phones. They have net books or note books.
So why not let them use their snazzy tech tools to co-create presentations? Here are two tech-driven ways to let your audience co-create presentation content.
PollEverywhere. Audience interactivity is a big part of the draw of PollEverywhere. You ask your audience a question; they can answer using Twitter, text messages, or the web. The PollEverywhere online service instantly tabulates audience survey results in chart form in your PowerPoint presentation.
I used PollEverywhere in class earlier this week -- it took me only a few minutes to craft a few cheeky surveys using the service. Downloading the poll as a PowerPoint slide (ppt or pptx) was a smooth, one-click operation. When students took the poll, results weren't exactly immediate -- I estimated a 15-20 second lag time before the graph started moving and changing before our eyes. Not bad at all.PollEverywhere also allows you to ask open-ended questions as well as create bar or column charts. You may download survey results in CSV format, tweak colors and font sizes, and embed polls in web pages. This tool is very simple to use, yet fun and potentially quite powerful. Free for a small audience of 30 or less, PollEverywhere also provides more robust options with its paid services for use with larger audiences.
Twitter Hashtags. In the 1990's, I would often moderate candidate forums during election years. To keep these town hall meetings civil, we would pass out index cards and ask the audience to write out their candidate questions. Audience members passed their written questions to volunteers who made sure that the most popular and well-framed questions were brought forward to my lectern.
Today's audience may warm to a similar approach that is more transparent than using index cards. Why not ask a modern audience to Tweet their questions with a special Twitter hashtag for panel discussions? This lets a tech-savvy audience easily see the most popular and well-framed questions, while preventing boors from hijacking the Q&A portion of the program with tiresome or poorly-framed questions. Services like Tweetchat and Twitterfall let the panel and audience easily visualize the scope of questions surrounding the topic at a larger meeting, forum, or conference.
How else have you used technology to encourage audience interaction in your presentations? What works well? What doesn't?
Labels: content ideas, PowerPoint Presentation, Twitter
¶ 9/18/2009 03:32:00 PM
Comments:
Links to this post:
<< Home
Hi Laura
Having the audience ask questions via twitter is really effective. When you have lots of questions coming in you can ask the audience to help prioritize them by asking them to retweet the ones they're most interested in.
Olivia
Having the audience ask questions via twitter is really effective. When you have lots of questions coming in you can ask the audience to help prioritize them by asking them to retweet the ones they're most interested in.
Olivia
Thanks for popping by & commenting, Olivia!
I agree.
One of the questions I get, though, is "what about the 'trolls' who ask off-topic questions, or use the hashtag just to get attention at a big conference?"
While it's true that spammers + boors might tweet questionable content, the Twitter 'block' button is quickly becoming an effective deterrent to this sort of nefarious activity!
The cream rises to the top, yes? ;)
I agree.
One of the questions I get, though, is "what about the 'trolls' who ask off-topic questions, or use the hashtag just to get attention at a big conference?"
While it's true that spammers + boors might tweet questionable content, the Twitter 'block' button is quickly becoming an effective deterrent to this sort of nefarious activity!
The cream rises to the top, yes? ;)
Hi!
Congratulations! Your readers have submitted and voted for your blog at The Daily Reviewer. We compiled an exclusive list of the Top 100 speaking Blogs, and we are glad to let you know that your blog was included! You can see it at http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/speaking/3
You can claim your Top 100 Blogs Award here
P.S. This is a one-time notice to let you know your blog was included in one of our Top 100 Blog categories. You might get notices if you are listed in two or more categories.
P.P.S. If for some reason you want your blog removed from our list, just send an email to angelina@thedailyreviewer.com with the subject line "REMOVE" and the link to your blog in the body of the message.
Cheers!
Angelina Mizaki
Selection Committee President
The Daily Reviewer
http://thedailyreviewer.com
Congratulations! Your readers have submitted and voted for your blog at The Daily Reviewer. We compiled an exclusive list of the Top 100 speaking Blogs, and we are glad to let you know that your blog was included! You can see it at http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/speaking/3
You can claim your Top 100 Blogs Award here
P.S. This is a one-time notice to let you know your blog was included in one of our Top 100 Blog categories. You might get notices if you are listed in two or more categories.
P.P.S. If for some reason you want your blog removed from our list, just send an email to angelina@thedailyreviewer.com with the subject line "REMOVE" and the link to your blog in the body of the message.
Cheers!
Angelina Mizaki
Selection Committee President
The Daily Reviewer
http://thedailyreviewer.com
I think you're spot on about engaging the audience - but some presenters get caught up just in the technology - needs to be a balance between that and actual story telling - quite like this piece here as a general tips on powerpoint http://www.cxo.com.au/management/531304/
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
<< Home
