The key difference between a live presentation and an online presentation is the challenge of holding attention.  An audience member sitting in his underwear scarfing a bagel, holding a baby in his lap, and flipping through emails on a Blackberry is a hard guy to connect with.

If the same guy were sitting in a room with his colleagues and bosses, he would be more focused, making an effort to impress his colleagues and bosses with his seriousness of purpose.

How to grab and keep him?  Here are some webinar tips to capture and keep attention:

• Base your presentation content on a case study your listener can see in his mind.
• Or, focus the content of the presentation on a relevant business problem.
• Spend less time per visual to keep the scenery changing.
• Write sentence headlines on slides to get the BIG IDEA across.
• Keep visuals real simple, preferably graphical.
• Require interaction.  Give quizzes using multiple choice questions.  Then give the correct answers, and show how many listeners got it right.
• Do this often to increase retention of presentation content.
• Move through the agenda reminding them where they are on the journey.
• Use a conversational style.  Or have two presenters in conversation.
• Rehearse a lot.
• Time your rehearsals.
• Have some one in the room with you to look at and talk to so you feel and sound more natural.

Like drugs, technology has side-effects.  Online presentations isolate listeners, where their attention can wander.  The peer pressure and expected behaviors of an actual live gathering of people tends to make people more focused.

You can reduce the risk of losing them, and talking to the void, by using some of the presentation techniques mentioned above.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I am on the island of Serifos in the blue, blue Aegean.  My wife Sharon is engrossed in her month-long seminar, and I am left to my own devices.  I have slowed down considerably – reading, swimming, and sleeping is all I do.  Eating too.

But now comes the national strike, a two-day gesture of defiance and outrage over the Greek financial crisis.  In both the public and private sectors, nothing will get done today or tomorrow, except shouting outside Parliament.  No ships will arrive or depart from the harbor.  No planes will fly overhead.  No trains will move between Athens and Piraeus on the mainland.  The Greek-speaking world will come to a halt.  Silence will take over from the noise of scooters and trucks.  Stillness will settle over us.

There is no peace in the silence and the stillness.  Anger and anxiety abound.  But I like to think my own effort to come to rest is radiating from me.  That my micro stillness has become the macro.  That the world around me is taking a breath, and that out of that experience will come new strength.  For the Greeks, it will be the strength to fight through the difficulties ahead, and mine will be the strength to go back to work.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I’m in Athens exploring the origins of public speaking.  I’ve always been fascinated by rhetoric, and I’ve finally pulled the trigger and launched myself back into the 5th century BC.

Because Athens was a democracy, they needed leaders who were capable of speaking to large crowds and convincing them to take action together.  It was a government that functioned by winning the assent of the governed, just like ours.  And public speaking was the primary tool of governing.

They had no radio, TV, advertising, whistle stops, bus tours, microphones, websites, email, or direct mail.  Just words in public places, strong voices, and passion for their city and their culture.

The Athenians believed that there were three keys to being a persuasive speaker.  The first they called ethos – the ethical appeal of the speaker.  We get our word ethical from the Greek.  If you are not perceived as trustworthy, you could not be persuasive.  David Brooks, the columnist for the New York Times, has said that Lincoln may be the only U.S. President who could qualify for beatification from the Catholic Church.  That’s ethical!

The second key to effective speaking, according to the Athenians, is pathos – the emotional appeal of the argument.  We get our word empathy from this Greek word.  The Greeks believed that people make decisions using both reason and emotion, and that any speech that does not connect emotionally with listeners will fail to move them.  Martin Luther King is a good example of someone in our own history who appealed emotionally to our national desire to live up to our own stated values.

Finally, logos – the logical appeal of the speech.  You have to be seen as an expert to be persuasive, smart, well-informed, and clear minded.  Of course you can be an expert without being trustworthy, and you can be trustworthy without being an expert.

For instance, Gary Hart, the former Senator from Colorado who self-destructed during his presidential campaign, is an example of someone who was seen as incredibly smart but lacking in the ability to connect with people emotionally.  Same with Governor Dukakis, who also ran for president.  Both of them were logos oriented individuals, meaning that they believed that just because they could prove something to be true, others would accept it.

The study of rhetoric, or persuasive speaking, indicates that logos arguments only go so far.  Without trust in the speaker, and with no emotional reason to believe, people are not likely to be persuaded.

Three very large ideas in one short blog, but they have huge practical (and tactical) implications for any speaker.

Here I am in the land of Pericles, Demosthenes, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – to name a few of the Greek superstars who thought long and hard about how to speak, govern and live.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.