Crystal & Steve Discussion (17 January 2025):
Crystal Document - "Crafting Stellar Webinars: Tips & Tricks:"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U4VEQ_JphWel1_zEuOKuL57g4KwzxgtF/view?usp=sharing
Video Transcript:
[Steve Hargadon]
So this is not a formal recording, but this is you and me talking about best practices for webinars. And the goal here is to be able to, well, prompted your thinking because you created an outline, but then also to sort of talk through the practices that you've seen, which may not all be the same ones that you use for effective webinars. Your style of doing a webinar is very different than Steve Albrecht's is different than Reid Hepler's style is different than my style, but you seem to do a very good job, a very effective job at being intentional about your style and about the organizing of it and how you connect with the audience and how you look at the outcome of what the webinar will produce, what will be the takeaway for the people who attend. So this is going to seem like a funny place to start, but you do a good job of having some kind of a music or something in the background before the webinar starts. And I've never done that.
So what tool do you use and how do you, what have you done different ones or how do you manage that?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, well, first I want to speak to what you were talking about, about being intentional, because I think that, I think that'll speak to all the things we talk about today, because like the reason I'm excited to talk about this today is I've had the gift of time to really sit with, research, experiment, and all of those things because of my career path thus far. So, you know, some of the jobs I've had, I didn't necessarily have enough work to do. And so if training was part of my job, then I could research the best practices all day long.
Or I've gotten, you know, one-on-one coaching from people that have done that for 20 years, because that's part of the package of being able to present with this other company. And so, so I'm excited to share what I've learned there, and it may not all be relevant to anyone that watches this later, but I hope, hopefully some of it will be. Okay.
[Steve Hargadon]
So I like- Can I interrupt you there for a second? Because sometimes I think we don't improve on something, not because we don't have a desire to, but it kind of scares us. It's like, if I open the door to thinking about, am I doing a good job with my webinars?
Then I actually have to sort of go to a place of vulnerability. Okay. Am I going to look at myself candidly?
And am I going to be able to take the time that I want or need to actually improve? And it's cognitively or emotionally a little bit easier just to kind of pretend, well, I can just keep doing what I'm doing. It's not terribly broken.
I may not be making as many intentional decisions as I would like, but if I open that door, am I going to feel overwhelmed? And am I not going to be able to succeed? Like, it can scare me that I might not be able to become that good a presenter.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, those are, I mean, presenting is a vulnerable job. And so, and then we're always subject to feedback we get from others as well. In fact, you know, I do like to invite it so that I do have to sit with that and get that content.
And what I would say, so I do a couple of things. So continuous improvement is built into my psyche. I can't, I can't exist without it.
And so, so one thing I do is right after each webinar that I do, I spend, I don't know, five minutes, and I think about what I would do differently next time. And I put that in the notes section of the first slide of that webinar so that if I ever teach it again, or if I want to go back to it and say what worked or what was tricky, then I can find it right there. And then another thing I do is I always try a small experiment in every training that I do.
And it's sometimes really small. But I always try something. And in my mind, that's an experiment.
So if it doesn't go well, okay, whatever. We tried that. But if it goes well, then it's something I can add to my toolkit.
And so, recently, I did a customer service webinar for a library close to me, and I started out with storytelling. And that was a huge risk for me, because even though I've been a librarian a long time, like I, like storytelling from scratch verbally without like pictures and stuff, like that's not in my, that's not in my toolkit. And so I was really nervous to do it.
But I feel like it went okay, I would do it again. And then spend a little bit more time sort of practicing that or scripting out what I would say, but not, not sounding like a robot. So, you know, some things don't work well, but some things do.
And so yeah, that place of vulnerability is tough. And the other thing I was going to say is, when I do receive feedback, that's, that's not positive, and I do, my, I know that my reaction is defensiveness, like, and so I just go ahead and let that happen. Like not, not to the person that gives it to me if we're having a conversation.
But later, I let myself just do that full out, like, well, you don't understand, it's all of the, you know, it's because of this, and I had a good reason for doing it, you know, I go through the whole thing. And then I let it marinate. And it usually only takes a couple of days until I'm able to see the germ of the truth that was in that feedback.
And then I use that to let it propel me to even, even more. And so part of it is knowing that my own, my own cycle of receiving negative feedback is, is, you know, it's gross in the middle, but I always appreciate it later. And so that helps too.
[Steve Hargadon]
So that's sort of a metacognitive strategy. So you're saying, okay, I kind of recognize it myself, I'm going to feel bad if I, because sometimes it's hard to, we don't ask for feedback, because it's like, I'm not sure I can handle negative responses. And what you're saying is, okay, I'm making a metacognitive decision that I will go through this process.
I'm not going to love it. But the end result is better for me. It's part of my continuous improvement mindset that I want to get better.
I'll ultimately feel better about it. And so I'm going to do it. The other thing I mentioned that I think is really hard is time.
Right? So if I'm feeling rushed, and rushed on a lot of projects, and I don't set aside a large enough block of time or blocks of time, it's hard for me to get into this headspace of being thoughtful, objective, willing to be vulnerable.
[Crystal Trice]
Right?
[Steve Hargadon]
And it often, it's not even necessarily the amount of time, but it's getting into the right frame. So if I give myself, if I have a task that's going to take me an hour, and I block three hours, sometimes, knowing that I have three hours, I get it done in an hour, but I'm in a much better headspace.
[Crystal Trice]
Right?
[Steve Hargadon]
And then I'm like, I'm winning. But if it's like, going to take an hour and maybe an hour and a half, and I budget an hour and a half, I'm so stressed about the process.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
I have a hard time relaxing into being actually productive.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, that's a good tip.
[Steve Hargadon]
How do you think about time before in preparation? Do you block time? How do you manage that?
[Crystal Trice]
I would really like to be that person, but I'm not. And so I have to, I guess the phrase is strike when the iron's hot. And so I definitely need a spark of creativity, of juice, of life that kind of gets me started.
And once I have that, I can kind of plug through the rest of the process. But if I don't have that, it's really hard for me to work. And so I would say I do a lot of procrastination until that happens.
And so I would much rather be more methodical in my workflow, but it's not just about presentations. I'm that way for everything. And so part of it is learning to take more walks because that actually will be the time often that I get those flows, or do other activities that lend themselves to that productive spark that I need to get going.
But if I know that I'm doing a one-hour webinar, for example, unless it's something I've taught before, if it's from scratch, brand new content, then in my head I'm thinking to myself, that's probably going to be 15 hours of prep. It may not end up being that long. And some of that time might be happening when I'm driving to the grocery store.
But I do think to myself like, okay, that's a lift for me.
[Steve Hargadon]
So you're an intentional procrastinator.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
Right. And you're waiting for some bolt of inspiration, some click moment, some thought that will then guide you into the creative process. So you take walks in order to put yourself in a space where you could receive that.
I mean, the old sort of oft told story is the moment of inspiration in the shower.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
And the way I've heard it described is it's because you're doing these sort of routine things that your body is going through automatic motions. And so it gives you a time to have your brain kind of think. That happens for me too.
I've also learned that my brain is not good enough that if I don't record in some way the different moments of clarity, that trying to reproduce them later is really hard. So I make a voice note or I write it down and then collect them because that's otherwise I'm stressing that I'm not going to remember everything that I thought of.
[Crystal Trice]
Right. Yeah. And if I'm driving, it's really stressful because you can't really do any of those things effectively when you're driving.
And so, yeah, so I always have sticky notes and like a journal with me. And yeah. And then we'll use my phone if I have to.
And just to make sure that I capture these high level thoughts. And then it kind of like it flows from there for me. It's not the rest of it is it's work, but it's not it's it's simple work.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah. So that's really super interesting and super helpful. Okay.
So you talked about writing down the things that you think of after the presentation. I know that for me, even while I'm presenting, I'll notice something where I think, oh, I should have worded that differently. And I've also learned that I actually have to figure out a way to take a note during the presentation because by the time I get to the end of an hour or two hours, that's gone.
[Crystal Trice]
Right.
[Steve Hargadon]
And I can go back and look at the slides and try and trigger that memory. But I have to I have to make some kind of a note at the moment. I love the idea that you then put those at the start, the first page of the presentation, because then later when you go back, you're probably going to copy that presentation to do another version of it.
They're there right there.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
You know, you're looking for another document or somewhere else. You kept notes.
[Crystal Trice]
Or even if I'm like, well, what did I do that other time? Okay. Yeah.
And I so we'll probably talk about later that I tried to intersperse time for the participants to reflect or to write something or to put something in chat. I use those little bits of time to write down the things that I think of like that. And so especially if it's a two minute reflection time, that's a great time for me to reflect.
So they're doing their thing. I'm doing my thing. Okay.
How's it going so far? I wonder. I don't know.
I kind of rushed that part. I forgot to say this other thing. I just write it down.
And that way I make sure to put that in the notes at the beginning. The other thing I wanted to say about feedback too, I wrote myself a little note so we could go back to it, is what the research is showing is that inviting feedback helps us be more receptive to it. So even though I know I'm defensive about feedback, if I invite it in, I won't have quite the strong response than if it just side, you know, it blindsides me.
[Steve Hargadon]
So let's use that as kind of an entry point into this first part of your document, which for whoever's listening to this, I'm assuming we will also give you the document, whether we're at some point we're doing a thing on how to hold webinars or the like. But if for some reason you don't have the document, my email address is steve at learning revolution.com and email me and we'll make sure you get it. Okay.
So part of the entry point here is that there's this temptation to wear a mask or to appear more expert or to model after somebody else's way of presenting. And so there is this sort of mental thing I have to do to remind myself, okay, I am who I am. Yeah.
I have the level of knowledge that I do. I don't have to try and pretend to be more knowledgeable than I am. I'll be most helpful to people by being me and by expressing myself honestly.
And if I haven't thought enough about a topic or I'm not expert enough, then that's another thing I need to be thinking about in terms of why am I doing this? But if I am doing this because people want to hear from me and I have value in, in who I am and what I say, but I want to come in with a little, as little of a mask as possible.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
This is me. This is who I am. This is, I don't have to be the expert in everything.
If you ask a question, I don't know. I can say, I don't know. So your first point is know and be myself.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. I think a lot of people have this, um, like idea of what a webinar presenter looks and sounds like. I don't know what it's based on, but it seems like they're trying to copy that and nobody wants that.
They want to have a conversation with a human. And it's already this flat screen with, you know, how many slides have we seen in our life already? You know, like it's already this artificial land environment.
And so if you're not yourself, then people have nothing to connect to. And it doesn't matter who yourself is. Like we all want to connect with someone who's being authentic and who they really are and are comfortable in their skin.
And so, you know, we don't have to be like, I always wanted to be more bubbly and more warm and personable. And, you know, I can work on that to some degree, but I'm never going to be that person. I can't copy that.
It comes across as fake and everyone knows it. Or sometimes I want to be that really, um, detail oriented, like a person that, you know, expert that knows all the things and everyone should listen to me because I know all the things and I'll never be able to pull that off either. And, and I enjoy listening to presenters that are either of those extremes, as long as they're being themselves.
Um, what starts to feel odd is when someone is, is not being themself and they're just sort of putting on this show, like you said, wearing a mask of who they think that people want them to be instead of who they really are. And so, yeah, so I, I definitely, um, spent time even at, that's one of the things I reflect on afterwards, like, was I being myself or was I trying to be this other person?
[Steve Hargadon]
We're kind of wired to look for other people's responses. Are they smiling? Are they like, and so in a response, a webinar can be a clapping hand or a lack of a clapping hand, or it can be nothing.
Um, but we are, are, I feel like our brains are geared toward trying to see if we're getting approval. And so it's almost like, okay, if I start to feel that feeling, you know, what do I do? How do I prepare myself to go in with the most possible capacity to be authentic?
And you have some tips about that.
[Crystal Trice]
Oh, that's a, that's a hard one. And I, I, uh, I think when I transitioned to doing almost all online, it was a big shift for me because I did all in person before that. And you do get to see people's faces for good or for bad, and you get to see their body language and you get to, you know, if you do an activity, you see what, if they're responding or not.
And, you know, many times in webinars, you don't even see their, their face on camera. And so, uh, you know, so yeah, so I, um, so I think I've made it, um, I tried to think about it like it's a podcast of one person that I'm listening to and it's just me and them and I'm listening to it. And I try to talk to one person.
Now, not, obviously not everyone in the room is going to be the same, but as I'm thinking about, you know, even if there's, you know, 300 people in the virtual room, I'm not talking to 300 people or some average of them. I'm talking to one specific person. Um, and so I try to think and really humanize that relationship.
I don't picture them or anything like that, but I do think like, okay, we're having a conversation. I mean, yes, I'm doing all the talking, but we're having a conversation and you're getting me just like as if we were at the coffee shop together. It's the same me that you're getting in both of those situations.
Um, so I try to do that. It is hard. I also do a lot of inner activity and a lot is really like, there's only so many things you can do in a webinar format.
But one of the things I do is start with music or a video or something to kind of like warm up the room. So they're not coming into silence and waiting for the teacher to write on the chalkboard is what it always feels like to me. Um, but they're coming into like, oh, like there's a little, there's a little music.
Maybe it'll be, maybe it'll be fun. Like, and maybe their expectations are raised just a tiny bit, but yeah, it just helps them feel like, oh, okay. Like we're, we're in an experience together.
It's not just someone talking at me. So that's why I do that.
[Steve Hargadon]
Let's get to the technical of the music in just a second. I'm glad you brought us back there, but you, in your, in your document, you talk about beforehand, walk some stairs or do some squats to bleed off adrenaline, stand for the first section, be aware of the after presenting slump. So it feels like you, again, you're sort of metacognitive here.
I'm, I'm aware that I can start to get to feel nervous. I'm, I know that I, I want to start off well. So, um, doing something physical beforehand helps you.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. And that's, that was based on research too. So, um, I used to feel nervous before.
I don't, I don't really deal with that specifically. Although sometimes if I feel like I'm not quite ready, I will still feel nervous, but anything I can do to bleed that off. So if I just go downstairs and come back up the stairs, or if I get a chance for a walk first, that really gives me a chance to slow down, um, and kind of bleed off that extra, um, jitteriness, um, that comes by feeling nervous.
I also reframe it as I'm not nervous. I'm excited. And that's actually the honest truth.
I'm not lying to myself, but there's such a more positive, um, outcome about being excited than to be nervous. And so I try to, you know, use that word. Um, and then, you know, as far as standing for the next section, for the first section, that can happen if my energy is low that day for some reason, or I don't know if other presenters have this, but for me, I like all the prep.
The actual presenting is not my favorite aspect of it. And so, um, I've actually tried to reframe that too recently. I read something that said, um, think of that or whatever it was, it wasn't in that context, but think of it as a victory lap.
Like you've already done all the work. Now you're doing the victory lap. You can enjoy it.
So I'm trying to reframe even that part. But so for me, sometimes my energy going in isn't as high as I want it to be. And so I'll stand during that part and then sit later if, if it's too long of a webinar for me to stand the whole time.
Um, or, uh, the other thing that was hard for me when I first started presenting more was, um, this sort of after presenting slump I get, and maybe not everybody gets this. Um, I am an introvert, so it could have to do with that, but like, um, maybe about two hours after I present, I just like get really depressed and like, it was all terrible. And why does anyone ever want to listen?
Like it's really dark thoughts. And so now I know that's going to happen. And so I can just sort of ride that out, get a snack, take a walk, take a nap, whatever it is that I need for a little self-care.
And I just remind myself, like, this is just like these dark things trying to come in. I can, I can get through it. Like I'm not going to feel this way tomorrow morning when I wake up.
And so, yeah. And other people, I don't like have it, but I have talked to other presenters that have that as well.
[Steve Hargadon]
When I was in college, I was on the crew team and you are in a very short race that is very energy intensive and exhausting. And this was probably early sports psychology. Before the race, we would go into a darkened boathouse and we would actually visualize the whole race.
The coach would talk through it and say, you're at 250 meters, you're at 500 meters. And I don't remember the details, but my own visualizing practices since would indicate to me that the value might be in visualizing the best possible, or not even the best possible, but just a positive. So yeah, I'm feeling strong, I'm stroking, we're pulling the doors, we're all swinging together.
And so I have discovered in my own life that if I take some time and close my eyes and visualize the positive version, that it's kind of my brain's way of practicing the outlook of staying in that zone of, oh, okay, I'm going to enjoy this. It's the victory lap, it's whatever it is. And I get a chance to do that.
Is that part of it? Is any part of that something you do?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, I do do positive visualization. It just depends on what we're doing. And I would say I do that more for in-person and especially if I'm facilitating a workshop where they're actually like, there's some communication problems that we're working on or whatever, and I know it could be, there could be tension, right?
Then instead of taking that on and owning that like myself, I like to positively visualize, okay, if this were to happen, you know, if someone were to say in chat, you know, they hated this, they heard all that before, and you don't know what you're talking about, you know, so some kind of worst case scenario, then how would I positively respond to that? And so maybe it's a mix of negative and positive visualization, but I sort of like to think through those worst things because they probably won't happen anyway. And then how, if I were at my best self at that moment, how would I handle that situation?
And I used to do it a lot for people that would sit in the back and talk to each other because that happens a lot in in-person training. And so, you know, okay, well how would I handle that? You know, and then just visualize myself in that moment doing all the things that I know to do, but when it happens and I'm so irritated in the moment, you know, then I forget to do that.
So I would say yes, and I like the idea of it for sure, and I should do it more for like the after effect. Maybe that would help.
[Steve Hargadon]
Interesting. Okay, so I don't want to skip this know and be myself section yet. But what technology do you use to play music in advance?
Do you look for something that has no license issues? Do you look for music of a certain type? You're going to do a screen share, I'm assuming in Zoom, where you share the sound.
And so you must make sure that the volume is at a level that's okay. Are there other technical issues that we should be aware of?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, so I use, it's litlive.com, lit live. It's an online radio. And so I often will even tell participants about it because then they could use it in their own work in various ways.
And it has different, all kinds of music. For a long time, they had some wellness type music, which was great for thinking times. Now they only have one in there.
Or I mean, it could have changed by now. But they have decades music. So a lot of times I like to play 80s or 70s music as we're getting started, because they're more crowd pleaser type music.
Or, and it's random, you don't know what it's going to be. It's a radio. It does tell you what the song is as you're ready to hit play.
So you get a clue, but it could go to one the next time that's not one that is appropriate or whatever. And then for that one, I just put the volume as low, low, low, low as it can go, because that's enough for background music. And it just, yeah, so it's my go to.
I've experimented with all kinds of things, even uploading my own music to the PowerPoints or I use Google Slides. But in that case, then you're trying to use copyright free music and all of those things. And so I feel like the Lit Live hits that in between of like, it's okay to share, and especially if you're sharing the product with the participants.
But I'm not having to pay a music license or worry about that stuff.
[Steve Hargadon]
Good. And how long do you do it before the session? 10 minutes?
[Crystal Trice]
So I like to warm up a session about 10 minutes before, if possible, because everyone has technical issues. And so that gives them time to get that sorted out. Oh, yes, I can hear that there's something going on.
And I've got my screen set up as I want to and all of those things. Sometimes when it's a small group, I'll do five minutes and I usually regret it. But I do like the 10 minutes before and I play it before.
If it's set up where I get to talk to people, which I do in other situations than Library 2.0, then I actually have them come off camera and interact with me. And it's not for them. It's for me.
Because it helps me re-center myself into like, okay, I'm just me. They're just them. Like, I'm not just giving this awesome presentation and sharing the knowledge, you know, we're just here together.
And so, yeah, so I like to have a little warm up question or something like that. So if I don't have any, I prefer things that are related to the content. Always.
Sometimes I haven't thought of it ahead of time, or there's just nothing that makes sense without them getting the content first. And so then I'll just say, what's something you enjoy about this month? And they'll share about, you know, their kids or, you know, going hiking or whatever.
And it just helps us just all be in the same space together. So I like to do that too, while the music is going on.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah, people do enjoy participating before. I think it gets them in a little bit. It feels a little less intimidating.
They get to share. So I will often use the, where are you in the world? And what's the weather like?
Just because it gives them a chance to contribute and start talking. And so you're in Buenos Aires or you're in Cincinnati or wherever it is. I do like the idea of having the questions be related to the topic, or maybe even a little deeper.
I appreciate that. Okay. So don't copy someone else.
Be authentic, play to your own strengths. Remain aware of your weaknesses. You have some personal logistics here.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
Make sure you have tissues, cough drops, checking the time zone.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. Yeah. It's just stuff that's caught me before.
And so once I have something that's caught me before that I've like, oh, I didn't have a tissue and my nose was running and there wasn't one anywhere. And here I am stuck in front of the camera or cough drops. One day I couldn't stop coughing and I didn't have any cough drops.
And the time zone thing is so confusing for everyone joining because usually we're on all different time zones. And so I usually will double or triple check and I'll even change the time zone on my computer if it's a longer time zone so that I'm on the same one as the advertising. Yeah.
Or the majority of the people or whatever. So I do all that. Yeah.
We talked about.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah. You do have positive visualization in here. You practice the first five minutes out loud.
[Crystal Trice]
I do that every time. Not right before, but maybe the day before or a few hours before. And five minutes, I'm not setting a timer, but I just practice the first and I say it out loud in my same voice as I would if I were presenting and I'm I'm standing if I'm going to stand for that.
And it just helps me be confident to do the whole thing. And so, yeah, I don't I don't script out or practice everything, but that first five minutes is crucial for me. And then I like to the other thing that makes me really confident going in is building in adaptability.
So timing is so hard in a presentation. Things don't take as much time as you think they will or things take longer than you think they will. And if you've never taught it before, you don't know.
And so I put little notes in the slide notes as I go like, OK, if I if it's about this time, then, you know, don't tell this part or stop and ask a question in chat or if I have extra time, you know, so I just build in that flexibility and that just I don't always use it, but it helps me feel confident that I'm not going to run over time or finish way early.
[Steve Hargadon]
So do you have a an outline that's separate from the slides that you follow where you would put that note, you know, check with participants or do you use the notes in the slide software?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, I've done both. I think whatever works fine for whatever technology you're using. But I like it in the slide notes and I just put it in brackets or something because when I I I have two screens and so I have the screen that I'm looking at the participants and I have the my slide notes on and I have the chat right beside at the chat stream.
And then on this other side, I have my slides. And so so I always have the slide notes where I could see them and my slide notes usually aren't super verbose. Sometimes they are.
It's a mix, but that way I could put those little notes in there like, oh, you know, if you're running ahead, do this or that.
[Steve Hargadon]
So I don't know how to do that in Zoom, meaning if I'm looking at the slide notes and the chat and the participants, are you seeing the slide notes within the Zoom program or do you have a separate window on top?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah, so it's the presenter view and then I I scooch over the notes. So it's like right here under the camera because that's what I look at the most is the notes. And then right beside everyone has to figure out what works for them.
This is what works for me. Right beside it, I have the chat so I can see that as it comes in. Usually, sometimes I choose to ignore it until later because I need to pay attention to the content.
And then the participants are over here and most of the time they turn on the camera anyway. And so I try not to use that as a or you'll see just this.
[Steve Hargadon]
So it's like Steve Albrecht, who gives us a lot of webinars for us. His slides are text heavy.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
So if his slides were over to another screen, that might be hard for him because I think he depends on the text heavy slides. So he would probably not do that. But you don't have a lot of text heavy slides.
That's not your style.
[Crystal Trice]
And there are times where I don't feel like putting the notes in and I feel like the slide is going to be enough of a memory jog for what I want to say. And I'll just look over here and talk. I don't think anyone notices or if they do, they don't, you know, I'm not staring into the camera the whole time.
[Steve Hargadon]
They're largely seeing your slide. Yeah. And then I'm tiny.
You're small. So, you know, you couldn't dance around and not have them not notice, but they're probably not going to be feeling weird about the fact that you look over at something.
[Crystal Trice]
Right. Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
Okay. And then you double check everything. You click through the slides, you update Zoom, you check the cell view, screen placement, lighting, and then you make sure you have the link to get in.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. And those are all gotchas to things that have happened before where I'm like, oh, I'm starting in two minutes and I don't have the link to get in. And so those are things I try to do ahead of time.
And because I sit right in front of a window, the lighting really varies for me throughout the day. I like the natural light that comes in front of the window and I like being able to see out of the window. It helps me think.
But that means I have to be creative with lighting. I have, I don't know, five lights in here that I can turn off or on to help balance it out. But I also don't worry about, like, I'm not a YouTube presenter.
Like, I don't worry about it hugely, but I want them to be able to see me and not look all dark like I'm, you know, I don't know, in a closet. So, yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
So let's talk about content.
[Crystal Trice]
Okay.
[Steve Hargadon]
And would you want to, I'll just let you sort of go through the list here.
[Crystal Trice]
Okay. I think the main thing that people do who present infrequently or are new to presenting is they put too much content. And so when I'm preparing content, I'm not thinking about what I want to share.
I'm thinking about what the participants want and need from me. And it's often a lot less than the full total of everything I could give them. And that's because as a listener, you can only, you can only get so much.
And they're, you know, most likely they're going to have one takeaway from your webinar anyway. And you don't know what it's going to be. You can't really predict what it's going to be.
And so I always prioritize the content that's helpful to the audience, not necessarily what I want to share. Now, sometimes I do sneak in what I want to share anyway, because it excites me. So, like, I also have to monitor my own engagement as well.
But yeah, so I try to prioritize what's most helpful to them. And that means other stuff just doesn't happen. And then I also think people talk too much in webinars.
And, you know, if we use TED Talks as a model, that works. There are 20 minutes at the most, and many are less. And it's all very organized and thoughtful.
And, you know, it's not the only way to present information. And I don't try to model myself after a TED Talk. I try to be who I am in the moment.
But it is interesting to think about how concise they are. I mean, it's someone that's spent their life working on a particular thing. But when they give a TED Talk, they have, what, three points?
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah, TED Talks are such an interesting thing, because they're so non-interactive. And they are really basically a very rehearsed dump of information. And so people like me who like the unconference format or the dialogue give and take, it's not a very involved experience.
I could listen to it in the car. But if I'm sitting at my desk.
[Crystal Trice]
Oh, I get really bored on it. Yeah, I'm sitting watching it. Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
And you build interactivity in.
[Crystal Trice]
I do.
[Steve Hargadon]
Wait, I had a question about what the participants take away. Do you actually map that out? Do you write down or identify in any way in advance when you're preparing?
This is what people are going to want to know after my webinar.
[Crystal Trice]
Sometimes for the marketing material.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah. OK, that makes sense. We put in the learning outcomes.
Yeah. But you just you think in your mind what they're going to want or do you actually write it out?
[Crystal Trice]
I would say I think more in my mind what I want. And I make sure that whatever we put in the marketing information is covered at some level in the webinar. So I actually usually put that into my first slide, at least to start out with, you know, three bullet points or four.
I try not to have too many more. It's a webinar. And so, yeah, so I usually put that at the beginning.
But what I think more about is that they're going to take away something that I can't even expect. It's not even those things. Maybe they take away that they're not alone, that other people have the same situation that they have.
Or maybe they take away that like, oh, I could like start taking notes physically and not just writing everything on the computer. Whatever. You don't know.
Like it's not even related to your content. And then they take away something that's valuable to them. And so I do like asking them at the end what their takeaway was.
And that will kind of help me gauge the next time I teach what to focus on more. And then if it's a longer, some of the webinars I work on with other folks are like all day. They're six hours.
I mean, plus breaks. But they're six hours long. In those cases, sometimes I do write down what they want to get out of the day, what they report, what they want to get out of the day.
And then we come back and reflect on it at the end of the day. And so, yeah, it just depends on so many factors. But yeah, as I'm preparing, I'm thinking more broad strokes.
But knowing that anything I pepper in could be their magic takeaway.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah. I like it when you do that. You know, what's one thing you really learned today or something you want to share that was impactful for you?
I don't know that I've ever thought of this before, but encouraging them to write down what they're hoping to learn and to then be able to ask a question if it doesn't come up feels like a good way of helping them be proactive.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
And participating.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. And I will often do that. I would say that's my default.
And then sometimes I have them reflect on something different because it's more related to the content.
[Steve Hargadon]
So you talk about chunking material with time for reflection. You definitely take moments where you say, we're going to take a couple of minutes now and let you work on something. And I remember when I first went to some webinars that did that, and I felt like, you're cheating.
I picked up an hour webinar and now there's this five minute break for me to be right. And I'm like, what if I'm watching the recording? But I've come to appreciate it.
I didn't mean personally we're cheating. I just meant when I was watching a webinar. There's this one guy, I go to his marketing webinars, and a good half to two thirds the time is actually he's given you an assignment and then you're working on it.
And that was hard for me at the beginning.
[Crystal Trice]
It is. Yeah. As a participant, it's hard on me too.
But I would say it's something that started out as a small experiment. And then I realized how valuable it was on so many levels. So first of all, I'm not very good at listening to someone just lather on for an hour, right?
There has to be a pause. And some people are good at pausing naturally when they talk. And that gives you enough time to kind of catch up and reflect.
But I feel like intentional pauses gives everyone the same time to really reflect on what it is. It's all about the reflection. And so I do give them an assignment, but it's all about the time to reflect.
But the other thing it does is give me a moment to re-up my energy. And so I didn't do it for that reason, but it's a great side benefit that I need it so that I'm ready to hit the next section stronger. And I feel like that's better than just the same all the way through, right?
Same intonation. I'm sure you've been to those webinars. Same intonation, same, you know, and then they never stop talking or hardly take a breath, and then it's over.
And so, yeah, I feel like that gives a little more interactivity such that you can get with a screen.
[Steve Hargadon]
Wasn't there some old marketing campaign for a soda that was the pause that refreshes?
[Crystal Trice]
I've been thinking about that a lot recently, actually. I don't know why. I think it's because I can't figure out what company it is or what was more about it.
But yeah, I've been thinking about the refreshing pause.
[Steve Hargadon]
I'm sure it was a soda. I'm going to go to perplexity. And while you're talking, I'm going to look it up.
Okay. So chunking material, design simple slides with little animation, readable text. Don't script everything and read it.
So this is interesting because I tend to have moments where I really want to have something written so I can say it just right. But you avoid that as much as possible.
[Crystal Trice]
No. I said don't script everything and read it. So there are parts I script because sometimes I've said it before and it came out really great.
And I want to just capture that so that I can do that again. Or sometimes it's a part that I'm a little murky on. And so I just feel like if I I script it out, it'll be better.
The other two times that I always script it out are if I'm giving instructions on an activity. I script that out. Otherwise, I will tell people how to do it five times.
I can't stop talking. So I have to script it out. So I do it concisely.
And then the other time is transitions. I'm a big believer in transitions between content or between points or between thoughts or whatever. I feel like that's and I think you can transition from one thing to anything else.
You don't it doesn't have to be even super logical, but you have to make the transition for people. And so I will script out my transitions. Now you're going to be listening for it.
[Steve Hargadon]
No, that's so helpful.
[Crystal Trice]
Because most people are just like, and on to the next thing, like, you know, and it doesn't it for a listener. They just need that little like just help into the next thing.
[Steve Hargadon]
So the pause that refreshes was a highly successful advertising campaign launched by Coca-Cola.
[Crystal Trice]
I figured it was good.
[Steve Hargadon]
1929.
[Crystal Trice]
Wow. They brought it back.
[Steve Hargadon]
Well, it was created during a time of significant economic and social upheaval. The campaign positioned Coca-Cola not just as a beverage, but as a symbol of emotional relief and refreshment amid challenging times. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest advertising slogans of the 20th century.
[Crystal Trice]
Wow. And see, that's exactly what the reason I pause in the webinars is to provide people that refreshing moment, hopefully reflective.
[Steve Hargadon]
And you.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
It's the pause that refreshes both ways.
[Crystal Trice]
It refreshes me and it's all about me anyway.
[Steve Hargadon]
Okay. So how much do you use AI to prepare?
[Crystal Trice]
It really depends. I prefer to start with my own internally. I call it juice.
So I start with my own juice, whatever it is like. Sometimes I and I do it all different ways. Depends.
Sometimes I write some things down on a you know, yellow piece of paper. Sometimes I jot things down in a notebook. Sometimes I start with a Google Doc.
Sometimes I just start fresh with blank slides. And I at least want the high level. Now I've tried storyboarding.
I know a lot of presenters do that where they really like, you know, they'll put, you know, how many ever slides I think they're going to have. And they really storyboard out the whole thing. And that just doesn't resonate with me.
So I think a lot of what presenters that do this a lot need to do is figure out what works for you. Because I think it's a great method. It just doesn't resonate for me.
I can't do that level of I by then I would have already made the slides. So I get frustrated with the time it takes to do all that stuff. What did you ask me?
I lost track.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah, I got thinking about something else. Let me backtrack here.
[Crystal Trice]
AI. How much do I use that? So then sometimes I use AI to come up with a clever like theme or like arc that I can do.
Or if I have an idea for a theme, and then how I could tie it in cleverly, not too much, because actually that's one of my weaknesses is I can over rely on the theme. But you know, it's tied in cleverly through the content that I'm planning. And I will often use it to help me fine tune a script like the few times I do script it out.
I'll just type it. And then I'll just, you know, ask it to make it clearer or warmer or whatever it is I'm looking for. And I almost always just use it verbatim when I get back.
That's really helpful for that. But I don't use it for chunking material. Maybe someone else can will have success with that.
But I it doesn't do it. For me. I've tried it multiple times.
And it just it. It doesn't chunk it the way that it would make sense to me.
[Steve Hargadon]
You've made me realize that I don't spend much time thinking about what's the user's experience with my webinar, or my boot camp. I'm thinking about how do I communicate this material that I have?
[Crystal Trice]
Yes.
[Steve Hargadon]
And I'm trying to organize it and communicate and I'm thinking about it. It's almost the difference between the really in depth history book and the Malcolm Gladwell version. Like clearly, Malcolm Gladwell tells a story to bring you into the material that he's thinking about your journey into is not just an encyclopedic braindump, right?
He's thinking about your experience. I wonder if it would be it would be interesting for me to try this as an experiment, but would be to ask one of the large language models, someone coming to my webinar on this topic. What will they hope to gain from it?
And then just to read through that and say, okay, am I am I doing that?
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. Yeah, I would like to. I would like to try that, too.
I think that'd be interesting, because I spend an inordinate I would say more time than making the slides, more time than figuring out the content, I think, through the participants side of things. As far as percentage, percentage of time.
[Steve Hargadon]
That's so interesting, because that that does require kind of reshaping your expectations of how you're going to spend your time. And and I don't do that, which is probably why you're a much better presenter. Because I don't really do that.
And so that's kind of your gift. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
[Crystal Trice]
And I think it comes from education, too, because I learned, you know, while I was trained in education, and then I was a school librarian for six years. And what I learned is classroom management is all the details that you do. It's not necessarily what you do in the moment when there's an infraction of behavior.
It's all it's everything. It's the aisles that kids can walk through. It's how they get their materials.
It's everything. Right. And so that attention to the whole environment, I think, has played out in how I develop an online webinar as well.
[Steve Hargadon]
Interesting. We've covered most everything that's in the thinking about the participants. You didn't mention minimize housekeeping, but that's a really good piece of advice.
And I have been reasonably criticized for that, because I kind of want to let people know, here's what we're going to do today. Here's what's coming up next week. And one of my recent boot camps, which was the three-week version, I really wanted to make sure they knew where they were.
And I think the people watching the recording were like, this is too much housekeeping. This is too much information. So that's a good piece of advice for me.
[Crystal Trice]
I also try not to start with housekeeping. Now, it's different for someone to introduce you or say, like, you know, this is where you are, that kind of stuff. But like, as far as my housekeeping, like, we'll take a break partway through, whatever, whatever the housekeeping is.
I try to do that after some either interactivity or some wow information or something. So they're getting content right away. And then, by the way, here you are today.
You'll get the slides. Don't worry about it. And, you know, whatever else.
Yeah.
[Steve Hargadon]
Okay. So looking at continuous improvement here to kind of wrap up.
[Crystal Trice]
Yep.
[Steve Hargadon]
We talked about the notes on the first slide. If you were to teach it again, what you might change, ask a colleague to observe me and share what I did well, what was tricky, and what I might consider changing. Or watch myself on a recording.
Hard to do?
[Crystal Trice]
Yes. I've done both. Both are hard to do because of that vulnerability.
But it is such a, I mean, you know, you have to know going in that it's going to happen. And it's such a good learning experience. And it really can take your webinars to the next level.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah. And I'm, what I'm saying that I understand this sense of being a little bit afraid to open the door to these kinds of improvement activities because of the work that would be involved. I'm really talking about me, meaning I haven't, I haven't done this myself.
I don't, and I am a little afraid of doing it because how much work am I going to have to do? How am I going to be good at it? Do I have to figure it out?
But it does, I did like the suggestion of watch others present and take notes of things you want to try.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. And I do that every time I watch anyone. So, and you know, I, I watch bits and pieces of all kinds of things all the time.
And I'm like, Ooh, I want to try that. I like the way they said that or whatever. And it, it just, it's, it's a way of continuous improvement without putting myself on the spot.
[Steve Hargadon]
I meant to ask you about managing chat. Yeah. You said that there are times when you just know I have to get focused and I'm going to kind of ignore it.
There are other times, some speakers will stop what they're talking about and respond to someone's chat message. I don't love that. I'd rather them finish the thought and then get to the chat response or wait until the end of the section.
And then the difficulty is that that chat can fly by. And so unless you have someone else helping you, which we often do, which is have somebody gather the chat. One way to do it in zoom, that's a little bit easier is if you're not using the Q and a function with the audience, or even if you are, people will put a question in the chat and then you can transfer it to the Q and a copy and paste into the Q and a because the Q and a doesn't go away.
So it's going to be the questions. And so we've done that before, but it's hard as a presenter.
[Crystal Trice]
It's hard to do all the things.
[Steve Hargadon]
I do think having a partner makes a big difference.
[Crystal Trice]
It does. It's hard to do without it. When I teach all day, I do it without it.
And then I, what I do is I just either, you know, so what I watch for in the chat, you know, a lot of it just sort of flows by and it's no big deal. It's just either a side conversation that's semi-related or like, oh, that's a good point or something like that. So, but if I see that it's a clarifying question of what I'm talking about, I will try to loop it in.
But I try to do it in a place that's more natural. Like, and as I saw in chat, there was a question about this and blah, blah, blah. And so I try to do that.
Or if I'm by myself or feel like I've lost questions, then I always have a dedicated Q and a. Actually, that's not true. Sometimes I don't have a dedicated Q and a, but I try to always have a dedicated Q and a.
There's a few topics that it's just, it doesn't make any sense to have it, but anyway, or they've had long enough all day to ask questions. So in that dedicated time, I'll say, or were there questions in chat that I didn't get to?
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah, I like that. Sometimes I'll say in advance, I'm likely to miss your question if you put it in chat. So if it doesn't get answered, when we go to Q and a, remember to post it.
There's something else that I noticed presenters do that I actually don't like. They will say, please don't use the chat for any conversations that are not related to the topic.
[Crystal Trice]
Oh, I never said that.
[Steve Hargadon]
No. And they're very serious about it. And I was in one session last week where somebody said, we're going to turn the chat off at certain times so that you don't get distracted with other conversations in the chat.
Now I get the intention, but it feels a little bit like micromanaging your audience. There are moments when a chat can get off the rails.
[Crystal Trice]
There can be an argument.
[Steve Hargadon]
There can be someone who's saying something abrasive, which is another reason to have a partner, which is I've been in large, large library 2.0 events where somebody says something racist or they say something because some student has gotten on and has decided to take that moment. But so there are moments when you really want someone who can constrain the chat. But most of the time I feel like, don't tell me how to be an audience.
If somebody says, oh, there's this great book about something, I may tune the speaker out for a minute to ask, what book is that? Because that's the thing I'm really here for.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. Yeah. And the learning could happen in any of those places.
And so if you think about it from the participant's view, being told not to use the one tool I have, that's not a good experience. So yeah, I actually usually encourage them to use the chat prolifically because I'm pretty good now, I guess it just comes with time and doing this, of filtering out what's important for me as the presenter. And then what's important to them, they can decide.
[Steve Hargadon]
I'm going to give a little tip here. Who knows how long this, the value of this webinar, this recording we're doing will make a difference. But I was in a session yesterday where we had a guest speaker for Library 2.0 and there was a very small audience, which just sometimes happens. And it can be unrelated to the number of signups. But I realized that when I do a reaction, like a clapping hand or a heart or a thumbs up, there's no indication of who does that. So at a couple of moments, I did that.
I'm the organizer of the event, but I did it for the presenter and it made her smile was so big. And it was like, there are moments when it just helps to communicate, hey, you're doing a good job. And the little visual emoticon, whatever it is, is a way to do that.
So that seems like kind of a funny suggestion, but if you're a partner in a webinar, that's a way of giving some sort of kudos or appreciation for the person presenting and saying, hey, you don't know this is coming from me, but you just said something really nice. And I'm super glad that you said it.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. Yeah. I think I actually sometimes will see, I sometimes will tell people smiling and nodding really helps the presenter.
Like it has to be in the content that makes sense for it to say. But every time I say that, someone mentions it later, maybe in their one takeaway. It's wild, but people don't know.
Like I'm not saying people like we were just talking about, don't tell me how to be an audience, but people don't know how important that is to the presenter, how you can actually draw better things out if they feel like you're with them.
[Steve Hargadon]
It's kind of a human thing. It made such a difference to me. If you'll smile at me and let me know when I've said something valuable, because I get nervous and I'm a little bit insecure.
And so, tell me when I've done a good job.
[Crystal Trice]
Maybe that'll be a small experiment. I can give you an eight out of 10 webinar today. No problem.
But if you want it to be 10 out of 10, here's what you could do.
[Steve Hargadon]
Give me the heart emoji. I've never seen that heart emoji show up on the, like up on my image there. Did you do a heart back to me or was it the heart that I had done?
[Crystal Trice]
No, it was a heart you did.
[Steve Hargadon]
Because it was huge in the small image up top of me. I wonder if it's an indicator that it was me who sent it. Let's try it.
[Crystal Trice]
Yes, but I think if we're in a webinar style, you might not be able to tell who does it.
[Steve Hargadon]
Yeah, because it was a webinar, so it probably wasn't apparent, but she lit up as soon as I did it. And I was like, she was saying really good things. And I was like, I want her to know that.
I didn't want to interrupt. But I realized, oh, that was actually, I'm going to use that in the future.
[Crystal Trice]
Yeah. Another company that I do work with, they always tell people about the reactions, but people don't use them very often. And I always think it would be a fun way to keep yourself a little engaged, but they just don't.
I don't know, but I do like them.
[Steve Hargadon]
I want to give you a 10 out of 10 webinar. And so if you use the reactions button, I promise I'll do a better job. I will.
[Crystal Trice]
Or you could say nice things in chat, or you could come up, if you have the cameras viewing, you could smile and nod into the camera. That'll work too.
[Steve Hargadon]
There's a tip jar. I'm going to pass the plate around now.
[Crystal Trice]
Yep.
[Steve Hargadon]
Okay. So thank you for doing this. I think this has been super helpful.
I'm going to take this recording and transcribe it. And then I'm going to send it to you. And if you feel like there's anything that's worth changing in the notes or adding that you said that was super brilliant that you want to add into the notes, feel free and let me know.
But then we'll now have this really nice resource.
[Crystal Trice]
Nice. Excellent.
[Steve Hargadon]
I appreciate it.
[Crystal Trice]
All right. Thank you, Steve.
[Steve Hargadon]
Thank you.
