Look here, look there, look everywhere

In 2020 we all pivoted, hard and fast, to virtual. It was tough, but we learned to communicate and connect via the small screen. In 2022, we’re doing something that might be even harder. We’re in hybrid mode.

Many of my clients are planning their first events that will be simultaneously in person and online. Yay! We are creating the new normal. But not yay. It’s so hard to do this well. Let’s NOT do what Alfred Hitchcock says. Let’s not make our audiences suffer.

Are you preparing for your first hybrid All Hands? You may be speaking to 200 people at the office, but there may be 350 people watching your presentation in other offices or their homes or as they walk their dogs. When you put up your slides the people in the room will see the slides and your whole body. The people watching on screens will see the slides with you in a box the size of a postage stamp on the side.

You’re essentially giving two presentations at once. This is hard for anybody. The first step: realize that hybrid is hard. Second step: build a deliberate strategy to connect with both your in-person and remote audiences.

For example, you need to make eye contact with and gesture to the people in the room. You also need to look into the camera (cameras, maybe!) to reach the people watching in their homes or other offices.

You can’t rely on gestures to convey a point, because your remote audience may barely see them. You need to use your voice. You can deploy pauses and changes in tone for emphasis. Your voice will tell people who only see you as a one-inch stick figure that you care about what you’re saying.

You need to acknowledge your audience. Think of Stephen Colbert waving to the people in the top balcony at the start of every show. At the beginning of your presentation, welcome everyone who’s joining remotely and everyone in the room.

I worked with a CEO recently who did a great job of connecting with his remote audience even while presenting to a hundred people in person. He’d choose whole sentences to say to the camera, then repeat them to the room. Or vice versa. He never forgot he was talking to two audiences and he emphasized key points for both of them.

Another exec brilliantly used his voice as a tool. He paused, he emphasized words. His voice was so human that it drew us in, even via Zoom.

Connecting with two audiences at once is within your reach if you’re focused and prepared. Please make the effort, because don’t we have enough suffering in the world already?