Tips for Hosting an Effective Web Conference
by Mick Popp, CEO of the World Conference Center.

I receive several requests every day for tips on hosting an effective web conference at the World Conference Center. Therefore, I am publishing this article in an effort to help those who need a little help. We will follow this article up with a WCC Web Workshop, on Tuesday night, Feb 5th in the WCC. We will go over the points with practical demonstrations. The points in this document may make specific reference to the World Conference Center, but the information is generic and may be applied to any web conferencing situation.

1. Select your key presentation ideas. There is little point in writing a script for your presentation before you have decided exactly what you want want to show your guests. Once you have selected the key issues for presentation and/or discussion, you can simply follow the format of (a)  present the main idea you want to show to your guests. (b) Do your presentation (c) recap or summary, what did they just see?
2. Write yourself a full script. The primary reasons being (a) When you write stuff out, you tend to remember it better. Once you have written it, you can then manipulate the words and phrases in a manner that you feel comfortable with. (b) Once you have it, you can practice your presentation before the event. The World Conference Center has the added advantage of the follow-me browser, so you can always use your web page as your script if you don't have time, or if you get stuck. 
3. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect, so don't get hung up on that. It just has to present your concept in a manner that other people can follow. The more "perfect" you are, the less likely people will be to join your group, or to do their own presentations, because they will feel that they can't do it as well as you did. If you miss a few things, who really cares? Most of them won't even notice unless they have seen it all before and you can hold Q & A at the end to give you time to review your presentation as well.
4. You can copy someone else's presentation method, but don't copy someone else's presentation style. Your presentation should be as "you" as possible. The more "you" it is, the more comfortable you will be with it, and the more comfortable your guests will be. The more frequently you do it, the more relaxed you will become. Then you can work on polishing your style, but remember, don't get too good. If you are too good, your presentation can lose its credibility.  "Find your own road and drive it". Some people are  very enthusiastic. Others are calm and/or reserved. Personally, I am not the RA-RA and enthusiasm type, I prefer to do presentations and let the people think about what I am saying. I want people to see and understand the concept I am presenting, rather than get swept away with all the  hype and enthusiasm and join something they may regret later. In my opinion, It's better to have committed people who understand rather than flash-in-the-pan people who cost you time, money, productivity and maybe even your business, if they create enough of a stir.
5. Practice with a few people you trust, or feel comfortable with before the live presentation. If you have a WCC moderator account, you can log in 24/7, so you have adequate stage time to prepare your presentation. If you feel uncomfortable about doing your presentation, this practice will boost your confidence levels. Even ask them for constructive criticism and take notes (not offense) at what they say. However, it is important to be very careful about what you try to implement from their observations, especially if there is little time to practice before your presentation. If you don't feel comfortable with a concept, DON'T DO IT!
6. Practice with distractions - the TV on, the kids fighting in the background, the husband calling for his dinner, the wife calling the husband for dinner and visa-versa etc. This could very well be the reality of the situation when you are making your live presentation, especially if your office is at home, in the living room. It’s great to be able to practice in a sound proof studio, but in reality, most people's home offices have no such facilities. Practice at the same time, and even on the same day of the week as your presentation will be, if possible, that way you are attempting to duplicate the situations that may occur, so that you can make adequate preparations for them.
7. If you have time, record yourself and listen to it. Just any home cassette player is good enough for this purpose. If you have a voice recorder on your PC, even better. Use that if possible. There are several reasons for this. You can check your microphone volume. You can check your voice quallity. You can check that you are not spitting at your guests. Watch your ps and qs. If you are spitting, ajust your microphone position so that you are not. Also, check for heavy breathing into the microphone. There are few put-offs worse than presenter spitting their ps and breathing heavily into the microphone. You can also add the audio to your web page and create a power point type presentation for people to view and listen to later, if you do it that way. The WCC offers a very good voice recorder and web audio creation tool for free to all platinum members, so you can download and install that one if you are a platinum member. The cost to non-paying members is $30 or to retail customers is $39. That's a once only payment.
8. Learn how to operate the web conference room effectively. How to do hands-free voice. How to load your web pages. How to use the white board. How to give everyone chat, text and white board facilities. How to remove privileges from people who are trouble makers. How to evict trouble makers, how to lock you room, which lobby to use for a video presentation vs. an audio presentation. What will you need? What will your guests need? Send them a list of things to have on hand via email a day or so before your webinar.
9. Is your equipment reliable? Is your headset or microphone reliable? Is your headset getting a bit sad and weathered? Have you run over the cord one too many times with your office chair or sucked it into your vacuum cleaner once too often? Do you want to make it an audio and text presentation only, or do you want to do it as a live video webinar? (** see item 12) If you are using web pages, you probably don't want to go the video route, because people have to change pages too frequently and you can easily lose them.
10. Other planning. What can you do with the kids? The dog? The husband or wife? All of whom may want your attention during your presentation. Don't get me wrong here, I love my wife and my kids, but they all have an uncanny ability to interrupt me during important meetings, and get annoyed with me If I say I can't, I'm busy. Make sure they know how important the presentation is to you, that you are not available during the allocated time slot for your presentation and that they may even need to make themselves scarce while you do it, depending on how close to the center of the house your office is.
11. Do you have a power point presentation to show? If you do, get it converted to a click-through html presentation and hosted on either your or our servers well before the event. We offer a Platinum Members file hosting service for just such events, if you don't have your own hosting. The reason being, .ppt files come up in front of the WCC screen, and you lose control of the room when you can't see it because of the ppt, and you can't access the talk button etc. The software to do this is available as a free download. If you are comfortable with doing it, then it is free to do it yourself. If not, our hosting wizard and in-house programmer, Dennis, can do it for a small fee. After your presentation, give your guests a link where they can go and see the ppt online. My advice is don't give it to your guests till you have finished your presentation. Remember, they are likely in a similar situation to you, they have kids, a dog, a husband or wife and that is just one more distraction that neither you nor they need.
    
12. If you are doing a **video presentation, practice body language, particularly hand gestures and head nodding. You don't want to look like a robot doing the video presentation. With video, you need to be aware of what you’re doing with your hands, and your head. practice nodding in front of a mirror. You may want to try imitating the moves of TV news presenters. They are trained in the art of being effective "head nodders" and video marketers from the waist up. Don't touch your nose, whatever you do, and don't scratch your ear lobes when someone asks you a curly question. Those are among the body language indicators of someone who is not telling a truth, or searching for answers they may not be sure of. eg. I remember years ago watching TV. The then Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was at a press conference. He was asked about a rumored take-over attempt by the then treasurer, Paul Keating. Bob Hawke's response, while rubbing his nose was, "I aah.... trust Paul Keating implicitly." To cut a long story short, within days, Bob Hawke was no longer the prime minister. Mr. Keating had become the Prime Minister who gave Australia "the recession they had to have". NEVER rub your nose during a video (or live) presentation!
13. Prepare and pre-load your room if you have several web pages you want to refer to.If your presentation is all to be done from a click-through html presentation adapted from a ppt, there is no need to do this, because it will follow the page sequence as you click the buttons. However, if you are going to be showing a couple of different sites, especially ones that don't link together or open in a new browser window, you are better off pre-loading your room and then just clicking the forward button to progress to the next part of your presentation. Again, Web presentations can be formatted into click-through html by simply taking a snapshot of the screen, pasting it to a ppt page and then converting it to a click-through html presentation. Again, you can do this yourself with free software, or you can pay our techie to do it for you. Prices by negotiation.

Log to our home page to register and download your conference software if you have not already done so. If you are on the WCC mailing list, you are probably already a member. If you are viewing this online, in a click exchange or from a safelist advert etc., then you probably need to register 

Any other tips, log to our forum and make a post.