Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday in celebration of our independence.

Question:
How do you celebrate Independence Day?
Posted by Byron Van Arsdale

Author – 16 Secrets to a Great Conference Call

ConferenceCallTraining.com

Josh Baer wrote a great blog post titled “We need Twitter and IRC integration for PowerPoint” on June 15, 2008. Having only briefly met Josh during the Austin Social Media Club meeting that he graciously hosts at Datran Media each month, he’s one sharp guy!

At events where the tech savvy come together, you can be assured of seeing the bleeding edge when it comes to presentations utilizing the latest technologies. Imagine this: a room full of people who can comment, via Twitter or text message, on your presentation AND have those comments shown real time on the overhead screen for everyone to see! The collective scream I just heard was deafening.

If “control” is how you keep your presentation on track, this is very bad news. Participants will not longer sit quietly while you control the discussion. Josh’s post confirms the sweeping changes that have been going on for the past 10 years. Participants want to be an active player in the process.

You have two choices: keep using control or start building your skill set by learning how to collaborate with participants in your presentation. A model makes the process easier to learn and implement.

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale

Author – Executive Conference Call Leadership
ConferenceCallTraining.com

You’ll be seeing the phrases “distance communication” and “distance leadership” more frequently in my blog posts and the primary subject of my upcoming book (4Q 2008).

Distance Communication: any type of presentation or training you deliver to an audience that is at a distance. This includes conference calls, videoconferencing, webinars, teleclasses, and teleseminars.

Distance Leadership: the ability to lead groups of people at a distance using any of the Distance Communication modes. Leadership ability is determined primarily by developing soft skills that include auditory communication, collaboration, management, team building, listening, asking questions, EQ, confrontation, and acknowledgement.

With over 17 years of presentation and distance communication training, I was surprised to discover the following relationship: the people I trained in distance leadership using my model report greater confidence and skill when leading face-to-face presentations yet face-to-face presenters universally dislike distance communication because they can’t see the audience. Confidence in face-to-face presentations does not translate into confidence with distance leadership yet the reverse is true.

I’ll continue to use “conference calls”, “teleclasses”, “webinars”, “videoconferencing”, and “teleseminars” as is appropriate yet most of the time I’ll just refer to them as distance communication modes.

Question:
How can we make these definitions more robust?

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale

Author – 6 Principles of Learner Driven Teleclasses
ConferenceCallTraining.com

On Sunday evening, June 22, I posted my first question on LinkedIn. The question was posted here in my previous post: What icebreakers have you experienced on a conference call, webinar, teleclass, or teleseminar? I wanted to see what creative and innovative things people where doing.

By Monday morning, there were three solid answers! Imagine the potential each of us has to quickly discover information, strategies, tips, etc. that we don’t know, haven’t thought of or can’t remember. People love to help others and the web makes sharing useful information easy.

When leading any type of distance communication meeting – conference call, webinar, teleclass, teleseminar, or even videoconference, you have people across the web that will stop what they are doing, day or night (I know this personally!) to give you their best.

This is great news for anyone who hesitates to take action because crucial information is missing. The best thing about “information overload” is that you can quickly and easily find what you need. Social networks like LinkedIn give you access to a broad range of experts and specialists.

Important note: when you ask questions on LinkedIn – be very careful to ask questions that are important to you and have a specific purpose in mind like asking for help. DO NOT ask questions that are sly attempts to market your services or just to get your name out there. I first started answering questions to help me get a feel for the etiquette on asking questions. That said; go for it and ask for the help you need!

Special thanks to my LinkedIn contributors: Marissa Faith Folk, Mary Cippera, and Tom Field.

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale

Author – Executive Conference Call Leadership
ConferenceCallTraining.com

Question:
What ice breakers have you experienced on a conference call, webinar, teleclass, or teleseminar?

Please share both what worked well and what didn’t work well. Indicate the type of distance communication mode (conference call, etc.) you were using and add any useful specifics to help others understand what made it work/not work.

Interested in having your idea or story included in my upcoming book? If so, make sure I have your contact information to properly give you credit! You can send an email to: Byron at ConferenceCallTraining.com.

Please keep adding your stories and ideas no matter when you read this post. Thanks!

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author – Executive Conference Call Leadership
ConferenceCallTraining.com