More and more organizations also are turning to Webconferencing as a way to give key presentations, hold critical meetings or train employees without the need for participants to travel. The technology enables geographically dispersed groups to share PowerPoint slides, review documents like contracts, budgets or quarterly reports, and to interact via text chat or audio all from the comfort of their own cubicles.

Presenters new to webconferencing usually are able to master its technical aspects after a few sessions. Once they learn how to use interactive features like annotation, audience polling and audience Q&A, it's simply a matter of opening a Web browser and launching the presentation. No need to worry about things like ports, platforms, firewalls or the like. A bigger challenge is adjusting to speaking to a webcam rather than a sea of faces, since you can't use body language cues to get feedback from the audience.

WebEx, a Cisco company based in Santa Clara, California, pioneered webconferencing software and is a dominant player in the market. We talked to Laura Vizzusi, WebEx's international marketing manager, and David Goad, a WebEx market segment manager who also is a member of Toastmasters, for some tips on how to deliver effective and engaging webconferences:

• Don't pooh-pooh prep time. A belief that it's much easier to prepare for an online presentation than the face-to-face variety will usually come back to bite you, Vizzusi says. While it's true you can deliver a webconference sitting at your kitchen table in your bunny slippers, if you haven't done the proper audience research, reviewed your PowerPoint slides, and planned (and practiced) some interactive events, you're likely to send your viewers off to snoozeland. Vizzusi suggests performing a dry run a week before the event going through your slides, practicing using interactive tools such as document annotation and audience polling and then reviewing again the day before your presentation.

• Put your "phone voice" on the shelf. One common misstep is when speakers use their workaday phone voice rather than their speaker's voice when using the audio feature of webconferencing. Since your audience can't see you, the quality, pacing and pitch of your voice takes on even greater importance in online meetings, presentations or training sessions. Vizzusi recommends that web presenters stand up while they speak and use a headset, rather than a separate microphone, to help add energy to their voices. "Standing up while you are speaking allows you to project better and use the dynamic range of your voice,"�she says. "It's akin to the difference between being in radio and TV. Radio announcers have almost an exaggerated range and have to project more, because their voice is all they have to communicate. It's the same with webconferencing."?/p>

Goad also advises against using a speakerphone, a mistake new Web presenters sometimes make. "A speakerphone creates distance, makes you sound farther away and less engaged in the session,"?Goad says, adding that it can make your voice fade in and out if you move your head around. "A simple mistake like that can ruin an otherwise great presentation."?/p>

He also suggests having one or two other people present with you, if possible, for the purpose of adding variety in voices that an audience hears. That might simply mean having a session moderator jump in on occasion, he says. 

• Give your visual aids more scrutiny. Because the only thing a Webconferencing audience has to focus on is a computer screen, you'll want to move through your PowerPoint slides or other content at a slightly faster pace than you would in other settings. Vizzusi suggests using animations or other transitions as a way to keep antsy audience members from jumping ahead of you.

And because PowerPoint plays an even larger role in these online presentations, it's more important to have visually appealing slides that are relevant to the audience's needs. She suggests four to six bullet points per slide, and clean, simple fonts with few colors. To keep audience interest, consider experimenting with other images, such as photographs. Vizzusi believes presenting your slides in full-screen mode, rather than as partial screen, also helps keep viewers more attuned. 

• Use interactive tools to keep audiences engaged. One of the biggest challenges of webconferencing is keeping audiences engaged and interested while narrated images parade by on their computer screen. WebEx offers tools like audience polling, Q&A and interactive chat to keep people involved. These diverse tools allow presenters to:

• Take audiences directly to a Web site or conduct live demonstrations of a software application. "Instead of the presenter just showing a screen shot of a Web site, they can take the audience right to it and navigate around it, allowing them to actually demo what is being talked about in the session,"?Vizzusi says.


• Use polling tools to gauge how well the audience is grasping material, to qualify sales prospects or simply to keep viewers engaged. WebEx suggests polling three to five times per session, throwing in a few humorous polls along with the serious ones. The polling feature automatically tallies results and presents on-screen summaries for viewers.


• Use annotation tools that enable Web facilitators to use an on-screen pointer, highlight text, jot notes or make other amendments to on-screen documents.


• Employ interactive chat tools to allow participants to communicate in online breakout rooms or private chat sessions, much like they would in a typical company or industry conference. "It's a great tool for breaking people out in small groups to brainstorm ideas or create solutions and then have them come back to report their findings to the entire group,"?Vizzusi says.

Another benefit of Webconferencing is the ease of recording your sessions. While you'd need to cart around a tripod and video camera to record an in-person speech, with Webconferencing you simply flip a network-based button and it records the entire presentation. "It also makes it easier to go back in and review your performance, which is a great way to continuously improve your technique as a presenter,"?says Goad. 

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