 Okay, hi everybody again. Again this is Kyla, and you are at Training and Invisible Audience Delivering effective webinars. We're really happy that everybody can be here with us today. We have about 185 participants today, and I'm expecting to have a little bit more than that. So we're really excited to get started. And first of all to get started, I did want to go ahead and introduce ourselves. Stephanie, do you want to go first? Hi, I'm Stephanie Girding, and as a master's student I was really petrified of public speaking. So I made it my number one goal then to overcome my nervousness, and now a large part of my career involves public speaking. So it's really a passion of mine to help others thrive as trainers. And I even wrote a book that was titled, The Accidental Technology Trainer. My training topics focus on grants and technology, planning, advocacy, and leadership areas. I first became involved with online training by teaching distance learning college classes way back in 2002. We've come a long way from then. And in the last few years really the majority of my training events have taken place online. So I looked it up, and in fact this year alone I've delivered over 40 webinars. So thousands of audience members around the world. But definitely I'm always learning more about this unique presentation method. So I'm really glad that we can all be here today to connect and learn and share together. Awesome. And again I'm Kyla Hunt. I'm the webinar program manager here at TechSoup. And I actually got into doing webinars and online training through my prior job. My history is in the library field, and I was working for a state library. I was working for the state library of Texas, and I helped them do a lot of webinars and create online courses. And then I came out to San Francisco. So I'm really excited to be talking with you guys a little bit about doing webinars today. Also assisting us with chats is Elia and Anna. And it doesn't say this up there, but Sarah Washburn, who I'm sure a lot of you librarians know her name, is also going to be helping us out a little bit with chat today. So we're really excited to get to talk with you for the next hour. And just for a second I wanted to go ahead and put up this poll. We were talking about how webinars are pretty popular, and we were just interested as to why that would be. So if you guys could take a couple minutes and answer, have you conducted a webinar before? Yes, we are planning to. We are just considering it. Or no, I just want to attend a webinar. So we'll take a little bit and make sure everybody answers. I was looking at everybody registered, and we had about 30% of people from public libraries, 60% from nonprofits, and about 10% from government or other agencies. So a nice break down there. And also in the chat if you want to share why you were interested in attending this webinar with us today, what it was you wanted to learn, that would be great too. Definitely, definitely. Or for some reason we didn't really get your breakdown correctly. And you are in an organization that you feel is outside of for-profit, nonprofit, or library. Feel free and enter that in. I'd be interested to see if there are any governmental agencies here with us. So yeah, Lori is saying that she would like to learn more tips and tools to make webinars more engaging. See a lot of these are coming in. Jessica says she is working for the U.S. Food and Drug Association. That's great. All right, and I'm going to go ahead. It looks like the results have kind of trickled. So let's go ahead and look at the results. So it looks like a lot of you have actually conducted webinars before, 40%. So that's actually really, really interesting. And if you want to go ahead and put that into the chat just to see if you've actually conducted webinars for a small amount of people, if it's for a really large group, that's actually always interesting to hear. It looks like about 20% of you are planning to conduct webinars. That's really great that you really want to learn how to do it. About an extra 20% are just considering it. And another 20% are just, they just want to attend webinars and they just want to learn. So that's really great. And it looks like, yeah, Lisa says that it looks like she is doing webinars and it's usually an average of 10 people. Jenna says 20 to 40. I'm seeing some that, I saw one participant that said they expected a small group and it ended up being 500 participants of that. So it's always really interesting. Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, so let's go ahead and get started with the content today. So a little bit about what we want you guys to take back from this. We are going to talk a little bit about how to actually the planning process of delivering webinars. Talk a little bit about how long that process takes because it can take a fair amount of time. We could talk about encouraging you guys to answer our questions and talk with us a little bit and ways to really promote that kind of interaction. Just talking about general best practices because I think there are general tips and tools that you can consider when you are first planning a webinar. And finally we are going to talk a little bit about software and the different software options that are out there. And TechSoup does provide some in our stock so we are going to mention that as well. Wonderful, and I did see someone asked in the chat whether we'd be sending out these slides later and you will get a follow-up email that will have a link to the recording and to the slides and any resources that we shared too. Okay, well I think the other thing that we really want to make sure is part of this webinar is just that we set you all up for success. So thank you all for sharing in the chat just so we know a little bit more about where you are coming from and what you are wanting to achieve. And we are hoping to just kind of learn from you as we go and also try to be sort of mentors for you as we are sharing what we have learned doing webinars through the years. Great, and actually there is a question that just came in and I did want to address it because I think this speaks to a little bit about doing interaction for webinars. So Amanda was asking is there some reason I am not seeing all of the chat? And that is because what you guys see in your chat is really what we send out and we are seeing what you guys send in. And so Sarah is diligently trying to copy some of your responses into the chat pane so you can see more of it. But we do want to, as we see things come in, we will probably mention your first name if we see something really interesting or if we see a question come in that we really want to address at that moment, we will try to do that in that way. Yeah, and definitely if you do have questions throughout the webinar go ahead and ask them in the chat. And we actually are keeping track of those as well so if we don't get to them during the presentation we will try to answer them at the end or follow up. Definitely, definitely. So another, are these mine? Yeah, go for it. So another great thing, we thought we would talk a little bit about why you would want to use webinars, just some major points. One thing is that you really can train anyone anywhere. Who knows? Maybe we have some dogs watching us today, but usually we just have some cats that are laid across the laptop. But really one of the wonderful things and we do training all around the world using this technology. But I've seen people that have used it within their organizations even just within the same town if they are in different buildings or any of those kind of things. So oh and Simon said their dog has her head on the laptop right now. We are reaching out. So that's I think one of the really wonderful things is being able to train anybody from anywhere. And of course it does help alleviate the need for travel as well and with a lot of budgets being cut and that kind of thing, this can be a really wonderful aspect as well. And we are seeing a lot of online conferences now even developing which is really interesting. And I know for me as a consultant it's really wonderful to be able to connect with people this way instead. And one of the things that I think is interesting is that it saves a lot of my clients money as well because normally they would have to pay for all of my travel. And recently I had someone who wanted to fly me out for a training that was across the country and I said could we do it online instead? And I think it can be a really valuable opportunity for that as well. So thinking about that as another benefit. And you can really reach a large amount of people as well. It's really interesting. I wanted to actually speak a little bit to the point of just leaving the need for travel. And this can be a large amount of people as well is that we can do this internationally. So we can have webinars with people all over the world. And I know both me and Stephanie have participated in our facilitated webinars like that. And reaching a large amount of people, it's really hard to find a space for 300 people at the last minute but we can easily do a webinar with 300 people just really, really quickly. And I think that's one of the major, major strengths of conducting webinars. Definitely. Yeah, I know even my husband, his company is very large and they use it for all kinds of things like human resources or they have a company-wide meeting online where they have people from all over the world. So it definitely can be a good platform. And I think even if you are doing a smaller webinar, it can be a really great way as well to connect people. Definitely, definitely. And it's interesting, I just saw a question that came in that was asking what some of the drawbacks are. And we are going to be talking a little bit about that. But I think part of it is just you are losing a little bit of, because we can't see you. And so if we made a joke, we can't necessarily hear you laugh. And I think that is a little strange when you first start. Yeah. And Stephen just asked why we don't have open chat enabled for participants? And we really would if we could, but that's just one of the features of this software that we can't open it up. So that's why it's not. We'll talk more about some of the other features that we have and other platforms as well. And of course another great thing is that you can really provide last-minute training. So I know some organizations that even kind of use it as a tech support mechanism. If somebody needs some training and you can just connect to them on the fly really from a remote location. So if you have tech support somewhere else, or just want to show something to someone or collaborate together, it's a good way to be able to do that as well. And one of the other things I think is really great is that you can really collaborate. It is a different way of collaborating for sure. But I've seen some libraries and organizations actually do things like planning meetings with their staff if they're at different locations to just kind of bring everybody together, which is kind of interesting. And I even saw someone do an activity where people were able to comment anonymously. So a little bit different than a face-to-face meeting where people might not want to speak up. So that can be a really good thing as well. And so the title of our presentation today is Training in an Invisible Audience. So we wanted to talk a little bit about what some of the differences are between face-to-face training and online training, because it is a kind of strange feeling. For me, I think it helps to just sort of think of it as a phone call or a conversation that you're having. But it is true that you don't get reactions back from people. You can't tell who's paying attention. I just recently saw somebody that had done a poll where they'd asked what people are doing while they're listening to webinars. And most of them were like checking email and filing papers, cleaning their desks, all kinds of things like that. So it is a different experience that way and just have you keep people involved. But also, yeah, and Rachel says, knitting even. But I don't think it's a bad thing. Sometimes I'm doing other things while I'm listening to webinars as well too. So I don't think that that's really a bad thing, but definitely a different experience for the presenters because you're not getting that feedback. You know, you make a joke and you don't hear anybody laugh. So you have to just kind of laugh at yourself, which can make you feel a little crazy to see if you get used to it. So definitely… I think I laugh at myself all the time. Okay. Anything else you want to add on with that, Kyla? It was interesting when you were saying that you can't really see who's paying attention. And I was talking with somebody yesterday about another platform, another webinar platform, then this one, which is a GoToWebinar. And using that tool, you can kind of see if somebody else has a different window open and they're looking at something else. Kyla Deborah just added that in the chat that she uses that and they can see. Yeah, there are some of the platforms that can do that. For me as a presenter, it's kind of disturbing to me because I'm like, wait, why did they stop paying attention? Even though I know myself when I'm attending a webinar, I will go check my email and do different things too. So I think it's just something we have to learn to, you know, not be too worried about. Right, exactly. We're getting some questions about some different technology options and platforms, and we will be talking about those later on in the webinar as well. Definitely. So I do want to go ahead and talk a little bit about actually planning and delivering webinar trainings because I think even though you can do last minute webinars, it does take a little bit more time to actually conduct a really well thought out and well promoted webinar. So I did want to talk a little bit about what that timeline would look like. So this is just a little diagram of the process. I usually start planning a webinar about two months or maybe a month and a half in advance and that usually comes in selecting the topics and trying to figure out what I would want the participants to come away from a webinar on that specific topic with. Sometimes I come across these topics when I'm just reading an article or reading a blog. Sometimes somebody actually comes to me and asks if we can do a webinar on something. And sometimes they come from the surveys that people always fill out at the end of the webinars because we do try to ask the question, what would you like to see in additional trainings? And we do take those suggestions really seriously. And if we see one topic coming up and popping up constantly, then we do try to address that at some point. And so like I said, I usually try to select the topic about two months in advance because sometimes it does take a little bit of time for the next step which is identifying speakers. Because sometimes you actually have to put a call out or you have to actually ask for volunteer speakers. One thing that I've noticed that has been really, really helpful is that when you're talking with somebody, if you meet somebody at a conference, if you read an article by somebody, and that is where the webinar idea initially came from, you can go ahead and try to contact that person and see if they would be willing and able to do a webinar. I know I did that at my last job when I was doing a webinar series on seniors and libraries. And I was reading an article on senior spaces by Alan Kleiman. And I decided that that would be a really, really good topic for a webinar. And then I just reached out to him. I tried to find his contact information. And he was actually a really great speaker. And we had a really great series with Justin doing the speaking. So my point is that speakers can come from anywhere and just always kind of keep that in mind when you're talking to people if they seem really engaging in real life. They probably seem pretty engaging in webinars too. The next kind of step in there would be to really start promoting the events. You can do that in any kind of way you want to. Any listservs that you are signed up on, try to get that out there. Anybody that has a blog or a website, try to get them to promote it in that way. More people will be interested just like that one person that commented that they only expected 20 or 30 people at their webinar and they got 500. You will actually discover that a lot of people will be interested in your specific webinar. Building the content, it can take about a month time. And that's why I really would urge you to identify and contact the speakers about a month in advance so they have time to actually create the content that they want to present. And I would always kind of encourage them to have you look at it beforehand to give feedback and to maybe have somebody else look at it because especially if you're creating the content, sometimes that cannot look as great as you actually are thinking if you're the only one who's ever looked at it before. And then finally, and we will come back to this again and again, always, always practice. Have at least one practice session because technology, especially webinar technology, can be really, you never know what's going to happen with it. And it's great. It has great capabilities, but you always want to make sure you're comfortable with the platform, that your speakers are comfortable with it, and that you have a kind of plan for something goes wrong. And we'll talk a little bit more about that kind of plan later. I'm finding some questions that are coming in about PowerPoints and how should online PowerPoints be different from live PowerPoints. I want to talk a little bit about that later, but I did want to mention that it's just like any presentation that you don't want to be saying exactly what's on your screen. You might want to be a little bit more visual than you would be in real life simply because they can't see you. All they're seeing is your slide deck, and all they're hearing is you. And so you need your slide deck to kind of reflect and compliment what you're seeing and what you want to try to get across. Another question asking if Prezi works for webinars, I have seen it work really effectively. And if anybody has ever seen Prezi in action, it's a really large picture and then it zooms into one specific spot. And it's a really interesting kind of visual aid that's an alternative to PowerPoint. I have seen it used effectively, but it just depends on how easily you can manipulate the software. And finally, the last step is when you're actually conducting the webinar, do try to create as interactive a learning environment as the technology that you're using allows you to. Because like I said, some softwares only allow you to see the chat, only see the chat that the presenters are sending out so you can't really talk to each other. You can just mention people's first names and kind of try to address what's happening in the chat as you're talking. That creates a little bit more of an interactive environment. You can do polls. Some different softwares do allow people to talk with each other or use a whiteboard capability, and that's really great. But really at the very low end you should be able to create some kind of interactive learning environment just by addressing the people that are in the audience like they're people. Do you have anything to add to that, Stephanie? No, I think that's great. So let's talk a little bit more about designing a webinar in the presentation. And this is actually something that I came up with, this workshop plan for my book. But it's interesting that it translates very well whether it's an online or a face-to-face workshop. It's really just taking the time to plan it. And Kyla, you can jump in with any of these if you want to. But I think one thing is having a title that's engaging if you can, and that might be something that's good to kind of brainstorm with somebody, but also descriptive. So people should be able to tell actually what it is. And then thinking through who are you going to be training? What is it that they're really going to want to know, really making sure that you identify that, because that's a really important part of it. And then thinking through how long do you want to be? I think that was one of the questions I saw in the chat mentioned. How long can you go? And I've seen webinars that are only 30 minutes that are just really quick. I think the most I see is usually hour-long. Hour and a half I think is okay, especially if you have time for questions at the end. I do have some people that like me to do two hours long. Definitely if you do something that long make sure you give them a break so that they can kind of get up and move around. And you will need to make it really interactive if you do that as well. But then really thinking through what's the big goal? What do you want people to know at the end of the webinar? And one of the things that really helps in figuring out what content to cover are learning objectives. So I'm going to talk more about those in just a minute. But then going through and really writing up a description about what you're going to be covering. And this serves a lot of good purposes. And one is in marketing or even just telling people what you're going to be covering is letting them know that information. And I'm also going to talk to you a little bit about modules and timing because I think that's a really important thing especially when you only have an hour to get your information across. Evaluation I think is always really important. You can always use feedback from people to improve and just to make sure that they got it, that they understood what it was that you were talking about. And then really thinking through what are the materials and supplies that you need? Do you need to probably create a PowerPoint? Do you want to include handouts, links, all of those kind of things? So a little bit more about objectives. So for me this really made a big change in my training when I really understood how important it is to identify your objectives for any kind of training. So just really what it is that you want people to be able to think or do or feel at the end of the training I think is really important. And it's true that more content doesn't help people learn better. It just kind of might be overwhelming to them which doesn't help at all. So one thing that I think is really good is just trying to think of like what are the top three things that I want you to know at the end of this session? Just really kind of framing it that way. And then just building everything around that. So here's an example from a longer workshop but it really works for anything. So at the end of the training that I wanted them to be able to explain reasons to use social software, define web 2.0 terms, explain examples, practice using some of the technologies. And then at the end of course be able to just indicate increased confidence. So sometimes what we're doing is we're taking in person workshops and we're translating them into the online environment which I think is a really good thing that we can do. And to think about how something that you might have interactive in a face-to-face environment how you can make that different in online. So I've got one example that I'll share with you for this specific class how I was able to do that and make that change in some of that. But just even thinking through what those top things are that you want them to learn I think are really important. And then those are the same things that you should share also in your marketing. It's the same things that we shared marketing this workshop, this webinar, and also with our objectives that we shared with you at the very beginning of this webinar so that people really know what it is that we plan to cover. And I think another good thing to do is to kind of make it bite-sized for people. So by that I mean just really thinking through taking each objective and then spending 10 to 15 minutes on each one. So what are those top three things that you want them to know? Divide those into 15-minute segments and you've got 45 minutes right there with 15 minutes left for questions. So that's a really good way for people to learn because we do get bored after time. I know we have a lot of comments that are coming in about slides. So we'll go into talking about that next. Yeah, I did see a question that just came in from Donna asking if slides with more text would be better for webinars simply because that's all people have to look at. And I think that it doesn't necessarily have to have more text on it. I think each of the slides needs to be a little more interesting because like I said that is all anybody can look at. And it should not be identical to what you're saying. You can have text on it. It just shouldn't necessarily, you shouldn't be reading what is on your screen at any given point. So for example this slide is a really, really colorful slide. It's really interesting. A couple slides ago we had a slide that had a lot of text on it. I think both slides had something different than what the person, given person was saying, either me or Stephanie was saying at that moment. So they should be complementary but not identical. They should definitely, definitely be a little more interesting maybe than it would be in real life if that makes sense. Right. And I find that with online I use a lot more slides as well. I go through my slides pretty fast, but letting them see something different, I mean that's all you guys have got to look at. So trying to engage that way I think by using more slides. Angela in the chat just gave a really great comment. She said, she's always said, if your PowerPoint can replace you, you aren't doing your job. So I love that. Sometimes I have people say, well can I have your PowerPoint? And I'm like, well yeah, but I don't know how much you're going to get from it alone. But I mean just like this slide, we've got two words on it. So I think another thing is when people are designing PowerPoint slides you need to think about that you're designing them for the participants, for the people that are going to be looking at them, not for you yourself. If your PowerPoint slides are just a lot of bullets, think about am I just using this to remind myself of what I'm going to say. And you know, I know some people that use PowerPoints for that, they have two versions of their PowerPoints. They have one where they really do use it to just think through what they're going to say and make bulleted points and that kind of thing. But then they have another version that's much more graphic that has all the images on it. So I do understand using that to kind of think through things as well. I just saw that Donna mentioned the book Presentations Then. And yeah, that book is really really great. It gives really great examples. And I'll put that title into the chat pane really quick so everybody can see it. Okay, we have a little bit of an interactivity for you all to do. This is my, I'm not an artist to slide, but to be a keyboard of key training skills. So in the chat, if you'll just type in which of these you would like us to talk about. You have a couple in mind that we're going to talk about anyway, but if you can type in the chat any of these that you find particularly interesting to us. I saw the first one was coffee, just kidding. Honestly, honestly, I mean I think that really is just a synonym for energy. It's always good to sound. Like if you're talking and you sound like you have more energy than you usually do, your voice will come across normally. I think whatever it is that you need, I think some people do need coffee to get there. But whatever it is that can kind of help you get your energy up or just to remember that nobody wants to listen to somebody who really sounds like they're exhausted and tired and that's hard to listen to. So trying to keep your own energy up. Okay, we've got lots coming through here. I've seen facilitation come up quite a bit. Usually we do have one specific facilitator and then the other people do the content. You can do it in different ways. So for example, for this webinar I feel like me and Stephanie are kind of co-presenters and co-facilitators at the same time. And we'll talk a little bit about this. It's always really important to at least have two people on your event at the very least like one to facilitate and take care of backend stuff and one to actually do the content. Yeah, so let's see what happens. I've seen respect come through a few times. So I think that that one's really important is that you just try to respect the people that you're training, your participants and try to think of things sort of from their aspect, what it's like for them, how you can make them feel more comfortable. It's really interesting. I see today that a lot of people are kind of intimidated by the online environment, especially if you're doing a smaller webinar where you do want a lot of interactivity. For some people it's the first time that they've done a webinar and they're not quite sure what to expect. Are they going to be called on any of those kind of things? So I think just kind of respecting that I think is very important as well. And I've seen play come in quite a bit. And I think that especially has to do with, for one, don't be scared to ask people to do something like this where it's just a little activity and you're asking people to type something into the chat pane really quickly. And don't be scared to talk to the participants in kind of a joking way even if you can't hear them laughing back. You can always assume that they are. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Stephanie? Yeah, I just think we might as well have a good time. I think that's okay. And somebody in the chat said humor is important. And I think that kind of goes along with that definitely. Definitely, definitely. We'll try to get a couple of those later. I don't know if Sarah or Anna or Elliot if you see any other ones that you see that have come across a lot. We'll go ahead and go with a couple of the ones that we picked that we haven't covered yet. So I think we both think that one of the most important ones is flexibility. And you just really never know what's going to happen. So just being able to be really flexible and kind of go with the flow, I think we've probably both seen all kinds of different things happen, go wrong. You just never know with technology what's going to go on. So I've had, I've lost internet connections, all kinds of different things have gone on. So just really trying to make sure that you're flexible. And I think the other thing that's important with that is that you remember your participants or remember what it's like for them as they're listening to it. I know I heard a webinar recently where there's a lot of technical problems and I felt like they could have done a little bit better job of hiding those from the participants. So sometimes just thinking through how you can do that. I know one thing that we do here is we use Skype sometimes that we can chat with that with each other if we're troubleshooting things, something that's not on the main chat. But just trying to make sure that it's a good experience for those people that are listening. Anything you'd add to that, Kyla? Kyla, just definitely, and we'll talk a little bit about this later, but just to keep calm and just to know that for some reason something happens and you have to take a moment to address it. Sometimes you can honestly use it as kind of a learning experience. I've seen demos that have happened. We're like talking about Jing or talking about Google Places and the presenter is trying to provide a demonstration on it and something happens that isn't supposed to happen and things don't go as planned. And they always did a really, really good job at just saying that, well, this is an example of a practical difficulty that could go wrong and this is maybe how you would address it. And so I think just keeping that kind of idea in mind is always really, really key. I also think something that's really important is if you ever can, let them do it. So if you are doing some kind of technical training, this can be a really good thing depending on your software platform if you can let them experience and do it. I actually saw one trainer who had a longer webinar and she would actually teach them for like 20 minutes and then give them a break for about 15 minutes to go and try it out themselves on their own computer and then come back together to talk about it. So I thought that was a really interesting way to use the technology. These pictures are of my daughter last year, kind of brought home letting them do it to me because we were at a Chinese restaurant and she really wanted to use the chopsticks and I thought this is not going to go well. She's three. This is going to be a giant mess but I decided, well, I'm at a restaurant. I'll just let her go and see what to do. So we didn't show her how to do anything and she was able to figure out, as you can see, how to do it herself. And I think that that's something to just keep in mind when you're doing training is that sometimes we think we have to show them step by step how to do it. They can't figure it out for themselves. But really, as adults, we often can. So giving them a chance to just go and explore on their own I think is a great lesson as well. Also just letting people be involved using the chat. We'll talk more about asking questions and that kind of thing. But really, as adult learners, it helps us to process it ourselves. So asking for feedback, sharing, really collaborating together with your participants I think is an important part of that. And we'll talk more about storytelling in a little while, which I think is an important part. But we're all people and we want to make connections. And I saw in the chat somebody said they were interested in that sometimes they have the exact same thing offered in different ways. And one way is a webinar and one way is self-paced. And why is it that people want that webinar? And I think it's because we do want that personal connection. We do want to interact with each other. So I think that that's an important part of it, more that we can do that. Instead of just doing a dry presentation that it wouldn't matter if it was a recording or not, instead trying to involve the chat, involve the different tools that you have to really make that more of a connection. And Mary Ann just posted in the chat about Adobe Connect, which we'll be talking about later and how they have breakout rooms. And I've used that a lot recently for some work I'm doing with the Public Library Association. And I just love it. So you can actually send people out into other rooms where they can have a different PowerPoint slide and an exercise that they can work through on their own, and then bring them back together to be able to talk. So I think that's a really good method that you can use as well. We talked a little bit about energy already. Anything else you want to add to that, Tyler? Kyla? Not really. It definitely does sound bored when you're trying to do this. I mean you really want to kind of go over the top and how energetic you sound. And I know that's something that I myself struggle with. So that's just definitely something to keep in mind. Yeah, and just thinking through, I know some trainers do things differently. Like one trainer that I know says she likes to stand up, but she feels like that gives her voice more energy to stand up. And I usually get really excited about my webinar, so I usually have a lot of energy. So actually something that I do is I have a little quick yoga sequence that I do because I work from home. So usually I do that to kind of thinner myself instead. That's kind of how I have to deal with my energy instead. And in the chat someone just said energy is smile when you talk. And that's definitely true too, is keep that smile on your face. It does really come through. And this is definitely have patience with everything you do, which is have patience with the platform because sometimes technology is technology and it can get a little unpredictable. And so just have patience with it. You really can figure it out. Have patience with the participants because if they've never used a particular kind of platform it's not necessarily going to know how to use it. So have patience if they ask the same question a couple of times. Just keep answering the question and it should all work out. And finally have patience with yourself because sometimes you can get flustered. It's a little alarming sometimes to know that you're talking to 235 people at once that you can't see and you have no idea what their reaction is. So just try to keep calm and have patience with yourself definitely. Okay, great. And we have gotten a lot of questions in the chat about this. How do you encourage participation interaction? One of our objectives. So I think one thing is really just trying to keep people engaged however you can. So again using your voice that you have and your presentation as well, trying to use that, and then trying to use any other tools that you have. So definitely using the chat and poll waiting if you have that. We'll talk some more about some of those other methods. And this is a book that I really have enjoyed training the active training way from Mel Silverman. And so he talks a lot about making things active. And one of the things he talks about is that beginnings and endings are really important. We tend to forget the stuff in the middle. So making sure that at the beginning you do set things up in a comfortable way for people. Again going over those objectives are a great way to do that letting people know what you're going to cover. But then wrapping things up if you can wrap it up with a review or something like that. So I think these are all kind of good things, keeping those discussions going, letting people learn from each other. Again a wonderful way to use that chat. And I do find a lot of times that one of the other benefits of online training is that when people start using that chat and really sharing with each other, I've seen so much learning going on that wouldn't have happened in a face-to-face training when everyone was just sitting there. So I do think that that's a really good way to do it as well. So here's an example of trying to use an activity. And this was the workshop I showed you before that was a face-to-face that I moved to an online one. So face-to-face I had this bingo game. So they were trying to find out about this a few years ago. So a lot of these terms were new to people and maybe they still are today. So we did a regular bingo game with bingo cards and that kind of thing where people could, what we did was we draw from a hat and we did this with TechSoup at a conference. So we would draw one of these terms from a hat and then we would ask somebody in the audience to define it for us and to let us know how the organization was using it. Sarah said, yeah, it was a lot of fun. But it was really interesting because definitely we got so much more out of that experience than if I just stood there and defined the terms myself. So instead letting them define it and letting us all hear how it was really being implemented in different places. So moving this on online environment this can be done the same way. So what I did was have this slide up used an arrow that I would show which one we were going to be talking about. You can do different things. You can push out bingo cards to people and if you want to get really fancy about it but if you want to keep it just low tech you can do it that way as well. Just kind of a way for people to share information. Just kind of like the keyboard one that we did. So some other things that you can think of and if you want to share in the chat ways that you have to increase learning and retention, trying to keep things interactive that would be wonderful as well. I do think it is important to think about that some people are just lurkers so you're not going to get everybody participating. And that's okay too. I really think that that's something that's okay that somebody might just be listening or they might not want to use the chat or not being able to participate that way. Sarah said lurkers learn too definitely. So I wouldn't worry too much about that. Doing something like action plans where you have them have something that they're working on throughout the session or have them work on something before they come to the session and then you talk to it together with them and then they have some things to go and work on afterwards. Doing some kind of scavenger hunt online that can always be a fun thing so giving them some sort of excitement and then letting them go and work on it as well. That can be a good thing to do. And Janice shared using the webinar's whiteboard with participants. So some webinar softwares have a whiteboard that people can write on or type on. So that's a really good way of getting some interactivity as well. I always like to do like top 10 lists, have people share what are your top 10 tips. That's a good way to kind of keep people talking together. And then using a variation on any kind of games, so Jeopardy Games or any of those kind of things. And then I think extending that learning into other online spaces as well. So whether it's follow-up blog posts or a wiki that people can post to any of those kind of things I think can be a really good way to keep that going. And probably my favorite one is just asking questions just like we've been doing today. So just posing questions to the participants to have them answer in the chat. And I've done this where I've had some groups that they don't chat a lot. They'll only put in the chat if I do specifically ask them a question. So sometimes that really does help people kind of keep going. We've got a pretty chatty group today, so I really like to see that. But I think that that can be something. Just as you're designing your presentation you think about, hmm, I wonder what other people are doing around this topic. Maybe we can have them share. And then as we've already talked about some today using polls, we did a poll already. So some software will let you do that. And that can be a good way to kind of get interactivity. And it also can kind of force people to come back to the webinar screen to take a poll. So some people have to do those like every 20 minutes. Also using webcams. I know one of the trainings that I do, I have to use a webcam so everybody can see me. But I do think it's really valuable, especially if you have a smaller group or a team setting where you can see each other. That can be something good to do. Anything else you'd add to that Kyla? I think just the fact that polls seem kind of like a low technology alternative, but I think that they can be used really effectively. Polls can be used effectively. Chat can be used effectively. Just use whatever tools that you have at your disposal. You can feel like you're having a really, really interactive time even if it's pretty, pretty low key. So storytelling I think is so important when it comes to doing webinars because as human beings we really love to listen to a story. So any time that you can incorporate that into your presentation I think is really important. Daniel Pink's The Whole New Mind. That book is a really great one to read more about that. And one thing that's kind of interesting when I started doing webinars is that I felt like I needed to learn from the radio people. So listening to NPR, listening to this American life, it really is interesting that it's the audio. It's all about the audio. So that might be helpful to you too. Just listen to how the radio people do it because that's a lot of what they do. And definitely as this quote says, more compelling when you just talk like yourself. So again just trying to keep it a conversation. But just remembering that stories for people are so much easier to listen to. And we tend to forget bulleted lists and that kind of thing. But stories are how we remember. If you tell somebody a story they're much more apt to remember that story than they are to remember a bulleted list. So maybe you'll remember that story I told you about my daughter learning to use chopsticks and how that's a good example of why you should let people do it and that they can do more than you might think that they can. But you might not have remembered it if I had just given you a bulleted list. So we should talk a little bit about, as we mentioned before, some of the things that can go wrong in webinars and how you can deal with that. So I think that definitely as this quote says, there are some things you learn best in calm and some in storm. And I think that there are some things that really just trying it and doing it is how you're going to learn it. Kind of immersion by fire that I definitely have learned to stay calm. I remember when I was first doing webinars I had someone that I did them with who was very, very calm and just never seemed to get ruffled. And I was like, wow, I'm so glad I'm with this person because she does not get upset about any of this. And so I really learned from her how to do that. But I think just the more you do it, the more you'll learn. And I think this — there we go. And I think the idea of group dynamics is one of the big challenges when it comes to holding webinars. I think somebody mentioned using Adobe Connect and doing breakout rooms. And that is one way to kind of have that effect. But in some platforms that's just not possible. And you can still try to make it feel like you're in a group by doing something like we're doing where Sarah is trying to copy everybody's chats and put it in there so everybody knows what the others are saying because you do want people to feel like they are in a classroom of some sort. And it's just not a siloed lecture that nobody else is getting because it can feel isolating in that way. And this is just coming into some of the general best practices. And again, and I said this before, but I will say it again, is that doing a practice test at least one before the webinar is always, always essential because especially if your presenter has never — you've done a webinar before if they've never presented it at a webinar — you'll want to make sure that they're comfortable with the platform, that you're having no audio issues. And you'll also want to make sure that on the day of the webinar you log on about 20 minutes before and do some more testing because the day of things can go wrong that were perfectly fine during your practice session maybe two days beforehand. So that is something to think about. Also something to think about is always have a co-producer. So always have somebody else on the back end kind of either running the chat or helping to troubleshoot things that are going wrong. It's definitely, definitely, definitely really, really important to have at least two people on. Right now just in the room with me, I have three people on the back end and of course Stephanie is also presenting with me. So that is definitely something to always do. And again, if you ever experience technical difficulties during a webinar, have a plan. Know who to reach out to. Know how to do that. Just email everybody if for some reason the entire webinar crashes. Have a plan of how to do that. I think one thing that's really good that I always do is to print out my PowerPoint because I have had some presentations where maybe I lost internet or something went wrong with my computer, but if you have somebody else on in another location, I was able to actually go ahead with a presentation even though I didn't have internet access just using my phone and my PowerPoint slides that I had already printed out. Definitely, definitely. And if something goes on and I love this, no one will get hurt, it will be okay. It really will. It's not the end of the world if something happens and you have to maybe postpone it for a couple of minutes or even a couple of days. People are more understanding than you think. And there are possible things that could go wrong. Either the trainer doesn't show up or I've had a trainer show up maybe two minutes beforehand and it gets really, really stressful. If a participant can't get connected, try to troubleshoot it with them. And the internet could go down. I was doing a webinar with somebody from Senegal and she was worried that her electricity would go out because her generator went out about once a day. If that happens, have some content that you could just throw in there if she dropped out. It's always good to plan ahead, but just don't panic. And this is a little bit about troubleshooting. I think I'll send this out as a separate handout. Kind of I think a good thing to think through. What can you do to help troubleshoot and kind of plan that out a little bit? Definitely, definitely. So I like this slide. My Christmas slide. So if you can read this, it says the poor cat. So they bring a tree in the house and put all these shiny dangling things on it and then freak out if I go near it. This is why I drink. And this one, just when I saw it, I thought, yeah, that's really what it's like for participants as well. So thinking again about that environment, what it's like for them, what things sound like to them, that they don't need to know about some of the things that are going on in the background. But then thinking, you know, if you put something out there for them to play with, then they're going to want to play with it. So that's also something that's good to think about. I know we had one software one time that if you let everybody see the chat, they could also stop the meeting as part of that. So that actually happened to us sometimes. Somebody accidentally stopped the meeting. So I'm making sure that you're aware of that kind of thing. I think it's good too. And so really quick, we're going to go through, and really quick, just for about three minutes before we're new, we're going to talk a little bit about some webinar software. We're using right now, we're using ReadyTalk. It is available on the TechSoup stock page, and I put a bit.ly on there for that. It's really great in that it can be really stable because you can actually upload the slide deck into the platform beforehand. And you can have toll-free lines which actually in the long run helps out the participants because it saves them a little bit of money so they don't have to necessarily call in an on-long distance line. And it has an admin fee on TechSoup at $45 in case anybody's wondering. We also through TechSoup offer a go-to webinar and that's another Citrix online tool. Actually at a certain level, it can hold up to 1,000 users at one time. So today we're limited to 300. And so that's actually a great deal more. So that's actually something to think about. There's another bit.ly for its TechSoup stock page, and it does, like ReadyTalk, have the same chat and polling option. And this is actually a new holding from TechSoup which is go-to training. And go-to training actually allows you to share documents during the same session. So we would have been able to put up a document that you could then download during the session which is really, really helpful. It does only allow up to 25 users. So that is something to consider. And it is that again I did include a bit.ly link for that. And these are per year, right? The admin fees people are asking? I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. I can give back to you if that's wrong information but I believe so. And then with Better World Audio Conversing, I thought I would just mention it because it just is, if you wanted to use a different audio conferencing tool with your webinar platform, sometimes you can do that. And we do offer a Better World through the stock page. And then this is just a little bit about the different tools that are out there that we don't necessarily offer. And I don't know Stephanie if you want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I think we just wanted to make sure that people are aware that there are other platforms out there. And we've talked a little bit about some of these as we've gone through. But I think the important part is to just when you're choosing a tool is to think about is it right for your organization. Almost all of them have a trial so you can definitely test it out. And these are the ones that Kyla mentioned and are through TechSoup, our product donations for nonprofits, and public libraries. So definitely better prices than if you were just go through them directly. So we're going to go ahead and wrap up today. But just remembering a couple of things at the end, definitely we think practice is the best instructor. So as you're going through and learning, definitely good to even just practice within your organization before you do something where you're involving outside participants. Just kind of do some practice sessions for sure. And then also thinking about remembering that it's really about the people and not the technology. So if things do go wrong just kind of remembering that. What you're really trying to do is to teach people and to help people learn through this mechanism probably. So making sure that you remember that part. Kyla, I think it's going to close up with a little bit about TechSoup. Kyla Sure. And just before I do, I just wanted to let everybody know we have been trying to answer some questions while they're coming in. If there were questions that we didn't get to, I will be trying to go through the list of the questions that we didn't get to and get back to you individually. And I'll probably forward some of those to Stephanie so you will be able to get those questions answered. And then just a little bit about TechSoup. Of course, I'm at TechSoup. And like a lot of you, we are a nonprofit and we do try to get technology resources and donations out to libraries and nonprofits around the world. And up here is just kind of our mission statement, if you will. And it's really just the fact that we want everybody to have the technology that they really need because sometimes they do need that to fulfill their mission. And that is our mission, to get that technology to everybody that needs it. And like I said, we do offer some technology resources. And in order to access those, you can go to the TechSoup.org website. Some of these are going to be Learning Center articles. We do have a great blog. And of course, we do have two great newsletters that if you go to the TechSoup.org website, you can subscribe to those newsletters. That's by the Cup and New Product Alert. And I did want to put this up here in case, and I think somebody mentioned this, so I thought it might be a good idea to mention this now, is that for my slide decks, I always use Creative Commons. And so I always choose photos that people just want me to say who created them, so an attribution license. And so this is all the attributions that I use for my photos. And so it's something to just keep in mind. And of course, today's webinar has been used in the webinar platform ReadyTalk that we did talk a little bit about. And if you have any more questions about ReadyTalk, you can go ahead and email me and I'll put my email and Stephanie's email in the chat box really quick so you can make sure that you know that you can contact us at any time. Thank you all for participating today. Thank you, Stephanie, for co-presenting with me. And thank you, Anka. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you, Elliot, for helping on the back end. Wonderful. Thank you, everyone. And thank you so much for sharing in the chat and for attending with us today. All right. I hope everybody has a great day. Thank you. Please stand by.