Some people hate public speaking and freeze up as soon as they pick up the microphone. For me, the equivalent has always been running a webinar. I can see now that the tools I rely on to present well are only useful in person – adjusting my pace or delivery (or even the flavour of my jokes) based on seeing and connecting with the people I’m speaking to, lifting the energy by addressing a question to a delegate I know well or pausing to tell a story when I can see that half the room is nodding off.
However, necessity truly is the mother of invention. Heffron has never run so many webinars or new styles of online events as we have in the last few months. I have been amazed (and impressed) at how quickly both our staff and clients have adapted to engaging and learning online rather than face to face. And I’ve also been pleasantly surprised that it does seem to get easier!
We have looked closely at our own team to see what learning experiences are missed when most people are working from home and adapted our services to suit. I wonder if we would ever have had the confidence to try these things had change not been forced upon us. And of course, spending so much time with the family has been wonderful and incredibly frustrating in roughly equal measure.
Those who have attended my training sessions in the past will know that my children are usually my best source of material for lightening up an otherwise heavy technical presentation.
I think I will now have enough to last for the next few years!