Thanks for the link love, and what a good post. All good advice, especially the idea of having a friend moderate and report on any backchannel conversation so there is no need to fear it. I’ve heard arguments against monitoring the channel (i.e., the speaker should be SPEAKING), but most of us have partners that act as timekeepers or question-gatherers, so why not assign the responsibility of monitoring and, if necessary, addressing the back channel as well?

Thanks for a great post.

You’re quite right to pick me up on this – in this post I was attempting to highlight some of the points in my eBook – and I’ve over-edited in the process.

So I’ll elaborate here:

I’m intending what I describe as the first “survival” stage of presenting with Twitter to be for people who don’t have much familiarity with Twitter before their presentation and for whom just being on stage is an overwhelming experience. I work with lots of people who are nervous about speaking. Just speaking at a conference is a massive deal for them. Suggesting that they also have to find someone to be a moderator and taking questions from twitter as well, could be too much.

But, if they’ve got a supportive meeting planner/conference organizer (like you) who can organize that for them, then I can see that that would work.

Thanks for your input, Sam.

Olivia

First, I would like to say that I did read this post on Sunday. I was surprised by your “survival” strategy because I think presenters need the most help when they are scared and in survival mode. Your “Pre-presentation” ideas are excellent – but the strategy for “during the presentation” isn’t really a strategy or even a plan. If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that the speaker turn off the backchannel and ignore all questions and comments on the backchannel for the duration of the presentation. I don’t think that is a very good suggestion.

I would like to propose another way forward. To me, a speaker that is headed into a backchannel environment in “Survival Mode” needs a survival kit and support from others. For example, I would like to see the speaker consider the backchannel for Q&A at a minimum.

Then, I would propose that the event organizer (or the speaker) announce to the audience how the backchannel will be used for this session. Then, I would suggest that the event organizer (or speaker) find a moderator to process the questions or comments. This way, the speaker can respond to the audience’s needs (via the moderator) and not feel like he (or she) has to become overwhelmed by all of the new things to do.

To me that is a much better survival strategy than “turn off the backchannel”.

By the way, I did read your ebook (on Sunday). Good job catching some of the most recent case studies that popped up in the last week or so. Also, I liked some of those new backchannel presentation tools.

- Sam Smith
@samueljsmith