Guest Blogger: Martin D’Souza
As you may already know, ODTUG offers a wide variety of free Webinars. Paid members can download recorded copies of the Webinars via the Members Only section of odtug.com. Besides offering great training to everyone, these Webinars present the opportunity to give a presentation to a large global audience.
ODTUG is always looking for people to give Webinars to help share their knowledge with others in the community. I think a lot of people may get intimidated when they first think about giving a Webinar as they may not know what’s involved. Here are the simple steps for what it takes to do a Webinar presentation:
The Idea
The most important thing that you’ll need is a topic. Pretty simple eh? Well for some this can be very intimidating. Common questions that go through people’s minds are: Has someone else already given a talk on this? Will others find it interesting? Isn’t this just common knowledge?While you may find a given subject trivial, others may find it new and exciting. Sure, there’s a possibility that someone else in the past has given a talk on a given subject, but have they given it recently? Always take into consideration that not everyone has seen what you’ve seen.
Planning
Before setting up the Webinar I think it’s important to take a few minutes to plan out what you’re going to talk about. I usually start with the following template:
- Title:
- Intro:
- Point 1:
- Point 2:
- Point 3:
- Conclusion:
I fill in each section with some simple bullet point notes and sub notes. You’d be surprised how quickly this fills up. The main goal of this exercise is to ensure that you’ll have enough content to talk about. Eventually you’ll find that you actually need to remove things from this list! Regardless, these points will provide the outline for you when you’re preparing your presentation.
As an example, if I were to give a talk about this blog article my template would start as follows:
- Title: Behind the Scenes of a Webinar
- Intro:
- Quick intro about Webinars and ODTUG
- Point 1:
- Come up with an idea
*It doesn’t always need to be new or cutting edge
- Point 2:
- Plan things out a high level
- Ensure you have enough content
- Point 3:
- How to actually schedule a Webinar with ODTUG and present!
Scheduling & Prepwork
Now that you have an idea and sketched out an outline, it’s time to schedule your Webinar with ODTUG. E-mail Lauren Prezby at Lauren@odtug.com with your idea. Lauren will take care of the rest including marketing, scheduling, and setting up all the Webinar presentation tools. If you’re giving your first online presentation, Lauren will set up a practice presentation so you can familiarize yourself with the tools.
All that you need to do now is convert your ideas into a full presentation. Take ample time to prepare and practice your presentation. Good presentations don’t happen by accident.
The Presentation
Each person has their own style and technique to giving presentations. I don’t have too many tips on this other then to have fun and be yourself.
I hope that this article encourages you to think about giving a Webinar and sign up to do one soon! I look forward to seeing it.
