CHAPTER 2

Basic Differences between Virtual Presentations and Face-to-Face Presentations

Virtual presentations and face-to-face presentations share several commonalities: an audience; a purpose; a time limit; a location; a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an ending; an expected or anticipated outcome; a plan; visuals; preparation; rehearsal; delivery; and follow-up. However, to say that they require the same skills set is not entirely true. We will examine the components of a presentation in this chapter and identify areas where the virtual presentation requires modifications to what we typically do in a traditional setting.

Purpose

Every presentation has a purpose, no matter the platform on which it is delivered. Depending on how you are involved in the presentation, you may know the audience before you know the purpose, though. For example, you may be invited to give a presentation as part of a conference, a class, or a webinar and the invitation would tell you who—or what group—would comprise the audience. However, you still need to identify the purpose for your presentation. The purpose is the guide for all that follows in your presentation.

The purpose sets the stage for your presentation, but you also need to determine what you want it to accomplish. What do you want your audience or participants to do, to remember, or to understand at the conclusion of your presentation? A process without a goal is akin to a story with no ending.

If you are delivering instruction for a class, your goal must be tied to objectives for the lesson. A training webinar needs to have a focus on the anticipated outcome of the training—what you expect the trainees to know and/or to be able to do at the end of the training. Rarely, if ever, is a meeting called that does not have a specific purpose. Moreover, meetings use agendas to ensure their purpose is accomplished as the agenda is the guiding document for what is to be covered in a meeting.

You can easily see that all events, both virtual and traditional, have a purpose at their core. However, virtual events require an emphasis on their purpose in all promotional materials. Webinars, in particular, stand to gain a far-reaching audience if their titles accurately portray their purpose.

The next segment of this chapter discusses the expected outcomes and their importance in the planning process. Expected outcomes align with the purpose of any presentation, webinar, or meeting and are used to guide the creation and facilitation of any event.

Expected Outcome

Both traditional face-to-face and virtual events have an expected outcome or outcomes. You may want your participants to do something (e.g., change a process or procedure, upgrade a product, try a new service), to acquire some skill or knowledge (and perhaps desire to continue learning more on the same topic), or to start a conversation about or an understanding of an idea or concept.

Whatever your expected outcome or outcomes, you must plan your presentation with that ultimate result in mind.

The next area of preparation for any presentation, webinar, or meeting is that of the audience. Regardless of the venue or platform, knowing your audience is of paramount importance, especially if you wish to achieve your projected outcome or outcomes.

Audience

In instances where you are invited to deliver a presentation for a class, a convention or conference, or a group, you will know who the audience is based on the location—students, members of an organization or association attending a convention or conference, or a group of people connected by religion, gender, ethnicity, or some other variable that makes them a member of that group. Knowing your prospective audience, however, does not mean you should not conduct an analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the demographics of the audience members.

For webinars, you have the advantage of securing audience information as part of the registration process. Webinars have a purpose, use promotional materials to market them to individuals who would benefit from the training or knowledge development, and deploy a registration process to collect participant information. How you design the registration form depends on the type of information you are seeking to learn about those individuals who sign up for your webinar. General demographic questions will provide some details to help you sketch an average audience member profile. Using that profile, you can craft your webinar materials to ensure that your presentation meets your audience’s needs based on their educational level, socioeconomic background, prior experience, and any other variable you identify via your registration form.

Electronic/virtual meetings typically involve parties who know or are known to each other. Companies use virtual meetings to serve many purposes, such as keeping employees in satellite offices connected to home offices, assisting team members with project collaboration, and providing a mechanism via which site managers can deliver periodic reports and updates on projects to the CEO or board of directors. In all of these instances, individuals involved in these virtual meetings know their audience. Therefore, audience analysis is not required to the extent needed for other virtual events.

In planning your virtual event, however, you do have certain requirements that must be taken into consideration once your purpose and your audience have been identified. The most important requirement is time.

Requirements

The need to establish an appropriate time and location for your virtual events cannot be underestimated.

Location

As you read this statement, you may be furrowing your brow over the mention of a location for a virtual event. Location can have numerous definitions and not simply refer to a physical space, piece of land or property, office, or any other tangible location. Location can also mean the platform you choose for delivering your virtual presentation, e-meeting, webinar, or any other virtual event (e.g., Zoom, GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect). Location can also reference where you—the facilitator, presenter, meeting coordinator—are seated when accessing the selected platform for your virtual event (e.g., home, office, café or coffee shop). In addition, location can include the channel you use to access the virtual event (e.g., the mobile app, the desktop app, or the laptop app) and whether you connect via Internet service provider, Wi-Fi, or cell service provider.

You must plan for participants using a variety of locations to access your virtual event. While you, as the facilitator, have control over the location you select to create and deliver your virtual event, having some understanding of how your participants might be connecting to your virtual event can play a role in what artifacts you use or include for your presentation, webinar, or meeting. For example, when participants connect via an open or free Wi-Fi connection, those individuals may have difficulty viewing video clips or web searches in your virtual session due to the bandwidth requirements for those items. However, some of the location issues may not be relevant because of the delivery approach you choose for your virtual event, whether it is synchronous or asynchronous.

Delivery

Based on your purpose and audience, you will also need to determine if your presentation should be delivered in real time or recorded for later viewing. Synchronous delivery means you give your presentation to participants at a set time on a specific date; your presentation is “live” and “in person.” Participants can interact with the presenter or facilitator via the virtual platform—chat, polling, Q&A—during a synchronous virtual event. Moreover, if you are invited to deliver a presentation at a convention or conference, you will likely be doing so synchronously.

Asynchronous delivery means that the presenter recorded his or her presentation or webinar and that recording is then made available to any participant who registered for the event. Participants may view the recording at any time or place. The downside to an asynchronous virtual event is that participants do not have any opportunities for interaction with the presenter or facilitator. On the positive side, however, people who register for webinars or virtual presentations occasionally find themselves unable to attend the synchronous sessions, so recordings of those virtual events are helpful. Those participants can review the content even without the benefit of any interaction.

When determining the delivery setup for your virtual event, you must consider the impact of attendees’ ability to participate or not participate in your virtual event. If you are conducting a training webinar, you would likely need participants’ input. If you are delivering a presentation on a topic that does not lend itself to Q&A or you do not desire to entertain questions from participants, you can record your presentation and deliver it asynchronously.

When using an asynchronous approach to your virtual event, you do not have to concern yourself with the time element—for example, day of the week, time of day. However, synchronous events require a schedule. Selecting the appropriate day, date, and time can be problematic. Let’s consider the time element next.

Time

Time is another requirement for planning and delivering virtual events. You may assume I am referring to the amount of time you allot for a presentation, meeting, or webinar, and that is one of the time requirements to which I am referring. However, time also means the time of day you set as the starting point for a synchronous virtual event of any type.

As many multinational companies struggle with new employee onboarding or synchronous training sessions of any type or with scheduling e-meetings for various employee groups, they must consider the time factor. How can you schedule a synchronous e-meeting involving employees in offices that span the globe and cross numerous time and date lines? The military often faces this challenge because of troop deployment among its various bases. Rather than determine whether to use central, eastern, mountain, or other time zone references, headquarters staff use Zulu Time (also known as Universal Time [UT] or Universal Time Coordinated [UTC]) when establishing synchronous e-meetings.

As shown in Table 2.1, Zulu Time or UTC is based on Greenwich Mean Time. UTC has no time zones and no Daylight Saving Time. Time is expressed in 24-hour increments. For example, 1:00 a.m. is expressed in UTC as zero one hundred (0100). Also, meeting dates are UTC-­dependent. Therefore, if you want to schedule an e-meeting on a specific date, you would need to know the UTC for your participants so that you use the correct date for everyone involved. Plane and ship navigation use UTC as do utility radio services, shortwave listeners, and ham radio operators. The following table shows various time zones in comparison to UTC.

Table 2.1 Time zone comparison to UTC

GMT	DST	Military	Phonetic	Civilian Time Zones
+0:00	+0:00	Z	Zulu	UT or UTC—Universal (Coordinated)
+0:00	+1:00			GMT—Greenwich Mean WET—Western European
−1:00	+0:00	A	Alpha	WAT—West Africa
−2:00	−1:00	B	Bravo	AT—Azores
−3:00	−2:00	C	Charlie
−4:00	−3:00	D	Delta	AST—Atlantic Standard
−5:00	−4:00	E	Echo	EST—Eastern Standard
−6:00	−5:00	F	Foxtrot	CST—Central Standard
−7:00	−6:00	G	Golf	MST—Mountain Standard
−8:00	−7:00	H	Hotel	PST—Pacific Standard
−9:00	−8:00	J	Juliet	YST—Yukon Standard
−10:00	−9:00	K	Kilo	AHST—Alaska-Hawaii Standard CAT—Central Alaska HST—Hawaii Standard EAST—East Australian Standard
−11:00	−10:00	L	Lima	NT—Nome
−12:00	−11:00	M	Mike	IDLW—International Date Line West
+1:00	+2:00	N	November	CET—Central European FWT—French Winter MET—Middle European MEWT—Middle European Winter SWT—Swedish Winter
+2:00	+3:00	O	Oscar	EET—Eastern European, Russia Zone 1
+3:00	+4:00	P	Papa	BT—Baghdad, Russia Zone 2
+4:00	+5:00	Q	Quebec	ZP4—Russia Zone 3
+5:00	+6:00	R	Romeo	ZP5—Chesapeake Bay
+6:00	+7:00	S	Sierra	ZP6—Chesapeake Bay
+7:00	+8:00	T	Tango	WAST—West Australian Standard
+8:00	+9:00	U	Uniform	CCT—China Coast, Russia Zone 7
+9:00	+10:00	V	Victor	JST—Japan Standard, Russia Zone 8
+10:00	+11:00	W	Whiskey	GST—Guam Standard, Russia Zone 9
+11:00	+12:00	X	X-ray
+12:00	+13:00	Y	Yankee	IDLE—International Date Line East NZST—New Zealand Standard NZT—New Zealand

Source: What does ZULU Time mean? https://www.navysite.de/what/zulu.htm.

For most virtual events, however, you will schedule dates and times and issue invitations to attend your webinars or virtual presentations. When you are invited to deliver a virtual presentation for a convention/conference or other virtual event, you will be given a date and time for your session. In addition, if you are employed in the human resources area of your organization, you will be able to schedule virtual training sessions for new employee onboarding or product updates for sales and services at the discretion of your supervisor or you, depending on your level of responsibility.

Now that we have discussed the importance of location, delivery, and time in the development of virtual events, we must look at the role you play in that process.

Roles

Individuals can play different roles in the creation and facilitation of virtual events. Webinars, for example, typically have two or three individuals who handle responsibilities ranging from facilitating to handling the technology to monitoring the participants’ input in the chat or discussion area of the platform. If you have ever participated in a webinar, you would have been greeted by a representative of the company or organization who welcomed you to the webinar. That person introduced the presenter or facilitator and the individual managing the platform/technology for the webinar. The representative was the one who monitored the chat area for questions and then at specific periods posed those questions to the facilitator/presenter. The technology person simply remained in the background during the webinar and monitored the platform to ensure that everything ran smoothly.

These roles are very important in the virtual event process. A ­facilitator/presenter cannot adequately manage the platform, monitor the chat area for questions, and deliver his or her presentation, particularly if numerous participants are attending the webinar. Even if you are delivering a virtual presentation to a convention or conference audience, you still need others to assist in that process. You need someone at the convention or conference to ensure that the room setup is proper (e.g., screen, projection unit, laptop) and that the connection is working.

Often, convention centers have on-site technology companies whose coordinators provide the setup for these types of sessions. However, the convention or conference group must assign their own person to facilitate the session: to introduce the speaker, to handle the question-and-answer period during or after the presentation, and to conclude the session. In addition, if the organization has a subscription to an online meeting platform (e.g., the National Business Education Association has subscription to Adobe Connect), then the organization must have a technology person whose jobs include the creation of the URL for the virtual presentation and the monitoring of the delivery via that platform.

E-meetings may require fewer roles in their development and delivery. If the e-meeting will involve a smaller number of people, you can most likely handle the entirety of the e-meeting yourself—provided you are familiar with the platform the company uses for e-meetings and/or your company’s requirements for delivering e-meetings. In some cases, organizations have an information technology department that is charged with monitoring e-meetings for technology issues. In others, managers may be able to engage in e-meetings at their discretion without the need for or interference by others.

While face-to-face presentations and meetings require individuals to assume varying roles, those roles differ from those in the virtual environment mainly because of the process itself.

Presentations at conventions and conferences may require the assistance of technology companies for the room setup, though the presentation itself is handled solely by the individual delivering it. While some associations may have a coordinator or discussant whose job is to introduce the speaker and to handle session evaluations at the conclusion, still other groups expect the speaker to introduce himself or herself and to handle question and answer in whatever manner he or she deems best or most appropriate.

The individual who calls for a meeting in the face-to-face environment is the one who prepares the agenda and leads the meeting. The meeting facilitator has no need for a technology person to be on standby for assistance but may employ the use of a secretary to take the minutes of the meeting for review and dissemination, something that also occurs in an e-meeting.

The next section of this chapter focuses on technology and how it differs between the face-to-face and virtual environments. We have addressed some of the peripheral issues involving technology previously in this section. However, we will be looking at technology more from the perspective of choices and uses in the virtual environment in the following section.

Technology

Face-to-face and virtual presentations or events require some use of technology. In the traditional setting, presenters use some type of visual aid that usually involves a laptop, tablet, projection unit, screen, and a program (e.g., PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi). Occasionally, presenters may access a video clip or an Internet website to display during a presentation because of its importance to the message or goal of the presentation. In those cases, presenters will use a Wi-Fi or Internet connection and speakers for sound. For traditional or on-site meetings, technology may play an ancillary role depending on the purpose of the meeting. In cases where graphics, charts, tables, or some other data analysis are required, however, technology will be integrated into the meeting plan and venue.

For virtual events, though, technology plays a major role in the creation and delivery process. We could spend a great deal of time and space discussing the available platforms, programs, and apps designed for use in delivering these virtual events. However, as we know, technology advances so rapidly that what we might discuss in this section today could well be outdated by the time this book is published—or perhaps even by the end of the next week, month, or year. Therefore, we will look at technology in its generic form with the commonalities found in most platforms, programs, and applications designed to handle the creation and delivery of virtual presentations, webinars, and meetings.

Virtual Platform Tools

Many platforms and programs offer similar options that allow facilitators to:

• •Share their desktop with participants (including programs and documents)
• •Display Internet sites
• •Upload and share files with participants
• •Conduct polls and ask yes or no questions via specific tools designed for these purposes
• •Show video clips
• •Enable participants to engage in public and private chats and to post questions for the presenter to answer at some designated point during the session
• •Allow participants to use their webcams for specific purposes (e.g., introductions)
• •Mute participants’ microphones when needed (to stop feedback or to manage input if number of participants is large)

Specific platforms even offer participants an opportunity to collaborate via meeting rooms.

Facilitators of virtual events must determine how best to use technology tools as part of their presentation, webinar, or meeting. The choice of tools should follow the purpose of the virtual event.

You do not wish to overwhelm your participants with too many tools or choices if they are unnecessary to achieving your goal.

The following list of tools is not all encompassing but includes those most likely to be available on virtual event platforms.

1. A)Audio
2. B)PowerPoint and document sharing
3. C)Application and desktop sharing
4. D)Whiteboards
5. E)Chat
6. F)Polling
7. G)Annotation tools
8. H)Recording
9. I)Webcams and video

Regardless of availability, however, you must choose your tools with participants in mind as well. While the use of a video clip may seem a good idea when planning your virtual event, participants who are using public Wi-Fi or their cell service provider or who have slow or spotty Internet connection speeds may be unable to access the video or to view it in real time. Videos require a great deal of bandwidth and can be problematic no matter how good the intentions of the facilitator are as to the purpose for including it.

Virtual presentations and webinars fare much better when the facilitator or presenter includes polls and question-and-answer opportunities within the actual presentation or webinar.

Participants tend to engage in other activities while watching a presentation or participating in a webinar, particularly if their attention wanders due to the lecture style of the presenter or facilitator. You want to periodically ask questions that can be answered using one of the platform tools (e.g., the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon, the raised hand icon) and to allow time for questions posed by the participants in the chat area of the platform.

One of the missing pieces of virtual events comes from the absence of nonverbal feedback from your audience. In face-to-face presentations, you can see your audience members’ faces and determine if your information is making sense or if you need to change up your process and to ask questions or seek input from the group. In a virtual environment, you do not have that feedback on which to draw, so you must simply build in those polling and Q&A opportunities to ensure that participants’ attention spans are not exceeded by your presentation.

One of the most important caveats regarding technology tools for virtual events has to do with familiarity with the platform. If you are going to use a specific application or program, you should know how to use it properly, including all the tools the platform has available. Nothing is more troubling for participants than to see that the presenter or facilitator is inexperienced in using the platform. You need to be able to create the meeting, presentation, or webinar location and to share that URL with participants in an invitation to attend. You also must know what steps the participants will need to take to be able to access the meeting, presentation, or webinar.

Some programs require participants to download a program to access the virtual meeting or event via the URL provided. Even though Adobe Flash has largely been replaced with HTML5 for video viewing, at least one virtual meeting or webinar program still requires it. Therefore, if you choose to use that program, you will need to advise your participants that they must use a device on which Adobe Flash can operate and that they must have it downloaded and running on their computer or laptop prior to attempting to access the meeting or webinar URL. Having this information available for your participants is vital to the success of your virtual events.

Also, you want to encourage your participants to access the program you will be using and to deploy the setup wizard for audio and video components. Having participants handle these duties prior to the day of or time of the virtual event ensures that the event will begin on time without any interruptions or questions regarding access. We usually call these housekeeping concerns because they help facilitators and presenters clean up any potential problem spots before the actual virtual event begins.

Additional discussion regarding practice and rehearsal appears later in this chapter where you will be reminded of the need to be proficient with your use of any program or application you use in the virtual environment. As previously discussed, if you are fortunate enough to have a technology support person assigned to your webinars or presentations, you have some breathing room regarding unforeseen technology incidents that may arise. However, the presence of a technology support person does not negate your responsibility as the presenter or facilitator to know how to properly use the platform, program, or application.

Now that we have looked at the technology side of presentations, we next contemplate the plan. The plan for your presentation, webinar, or meeting (both virtual and traditional) is your roadmap to expected outcomes or what you expect of your audience or participants.

Plan

For both virtual and traditional presentations, you must have a plan established to get you from point A to point B—from beginning to end. In the preceding section, I mentioned that the plan is something akin to a roadmap that guides you to your expected outcomes. Virtual presentations, webinars, and meetings require a more detailed plan because of the technology involved. Webinars also need extensive planning if you are offering them via invitation and requiring interested parties to register for them. The invitation and registration steps mean you need a marketing plan as well to ensure your webinar is promoted across proper channels and targets the people who would be most interested in your topic.

When planning your traditional presentation content, you typically create an outline of the information you wish to share, determine how you wish to begin your presentation (e.g., ask a question, give a quote, provide statistics), decide on the three to four major points you wish you cover in your presentation, and determine what type of visual aids you wish to use to complement your presentation. Your plan centers around the time allotted to you for your presentation and the results of the audience analysis you conducted to better understand what your participants want to learn. Your goal is to create a presentation that meets the needs of your audience and to craft ancillary materials (e.g., visuals, handouts) that complement your information.

Virtual presentations require the same steps but also add the technology choice (e.g., platform, venue) and the processes required to get your presentation materials into the proper form for delivery via your chosen platform, program, or application. For example, if you plan to use a PowerPoint slideshow during your virtual event, you want to get that file uploaded to your platform before the event is set to begin. If you plan to use your PowerPoint file as a handout for participants, you want to put it in the proper form and have it set to “push out” to participants either at the start of or the day before the virtual event. You would do the same with any handouts you desire to share.

The sharing of information requires you to be prepared well in advance of the virtual presentation or webinar. Unlike traditional settings, you cannot wait until the last minute to add something to your ­presentation—whether it be adding text to a PowerPoint slide or adding slides to a PowerPoint slideshow—you do not have the luxury of delaying in a virtual environment. You can see why the plan for your virtual event is paramount in its importance.

From planning to preparing, you are working to ensure that your participants have the experience they desire and that you achieve the outcome you planned for from the beginning. As with any presentation, preparation is key to success.

Preparation

Presentations of any type require preparation. If you are invited to deliver a virtual presentation for a convention or conference, you are considered the expert. You want to establish credibility as that expert. Therefore, you cannot “wing it” and hope that everything works out. Outlining your topic, drafting speech notes, creating ancillary materials—all of those are part of your preparation. If you were delivering a traditional presentation, you would want to familiarize yourself with the room layout, where the podium (what type of podium) is located, how the sound system works, if you need a microphone, among other important factors. The virtual environment requires similar preparation. You need to identify the type of virtual platform being used, familiarize yourself with the tools available via that platform and the platform’s operation, and familiarize yourself with the audio and video systems (e.g., do you need to use a headset and microphone), among others.

As part of your preparation procedures, you will also create any visuals you plan to use (e.g., PowerPoint slideshow). You may wish to use websites to display important information or video clips to participants. If so, you must identify those and secure the proper URLs for them. Perhaps you want to share your desktop—a specific application such as Microsoft Word—to demonstrate a procedure or process. If so, you need to prepare for that as well.

In the end, your credibility as a presenter is impacted by your ability to seamlessly deliver your virtual presentation. If you have technical issues or if something in your visuals does not work properly, your credibility falters. How can you ensure that everything flows smoothly? Practice, practice, practice.

Practice/Rehearsal

As mentioned previously, your credibility as a speaker can be impacted by many factors. Knowing your information is the first concern. You are an expert, so you want to demonstrate your expertise. Do not read to your participants. Talk to them using a conversational tone. Develop effective visuals following the proper rules for design of PowerPoint slides. Ensure that you have the correct links for any websites or programs you wish to display during your virtual event. Know your platform. What tools do you have at your disposal? Which ones do you plan to use? Do you plan to take questions from participants? If so, when?

Once you have answered these questions (usually as part of your plan and preparation), you are ready to begin rehearsing the delivery of your presentation. Yes, even virtual presentations require practice. If you do not know what platform is being used for your virtual event, check with the planners of the conference or convention to obtain the answer to that question. Ask for early access for practice sessions. If your organization has a subscription to the platform, schedule practice times. The goal is to practice using the platform that will be in use for the virtual event. The more familiar you are with the platform, the better. However, familiarity with the tools you will be using for the virtual event does not negate the need for rehearsal of what you plan to say. As always, practice allows us to identify our strengths and our weaknesses and gives us ample opportunity to improve.

Delivering the Virtual Event

You have followed the required steps in the virtual event process and are now ready to deliver the presentation or webinar or to facilitate the e-meeting. Have faith in your abilities, your knowledge and skills, and know that butterflies are always a sign that you want to do the best job possible for the participants. You want to give them what they signed up for—and more. Be confident in your preparation. Sign on to the virtual event platform a few minutes early and speak with those early participants who like to explore the virtual platform (see Appendix 1, Virtual Event Checklist). Taking those few minutes to familiarize yourself with some of the people who are attending your virtual event allows you to get comfortable, to warm up. If you were delivering your presentation in person, you would do the same thing. You would speak to people as they arrived; you would introduce yourself and ask them what brought them to the session. If you do this in the virtual environment, you will find that by the time the actual event begins, you are calm and those butterflies are settled in.

Once you complete your virtual event, you have a few activities that you want to handle. The next section discusses the need for follow-up at the conclusion of a virtual event and how best to handle those responsibilities. A presenter’s job does not end just because the virtual presentation is complete. You still have a few things you should do to ensure participants had the experience you planned for them.

Follow-Up

Virtual presentations just like some traditional ones require a follow-up or evaluation. Most conventions and conferences ask attendees to complete session evaluations to help presenters learn how well their presentation was received. In the virtual environment, those evaluations take on a higher level of importance. Participants in virtual events need to be asked to evaluate the session as soon as possible after the session ends. The best opportunity occurs right before the presenter closes the event. At that point, participants can be asked to click on a link and complete a session evaluation. You generally have a higher level of participation with that type of request than you would with sending a thank you for attending e-mail with a link to an evaluation form embedded therein.

In addition, presenters and facilitators of virtual events—especially webinars—may wish to follow up with participants via e-mail. The participants who attended the session will appreciate the thank you, and participants who registered but were unable to attend will also appreciate a we missed you-type e-mail message with a link to the webinar or virtual presentation recording.

The power of “thank you” should never be underestimated, especially in the world of virtual events. People remember the kindness and generosity of the presenter and are more likely to return to that individual for additional training or knowledge acquisition needs. Those registered participants who were unable to attend the virtual session will also remember the presenter who took the time to say they were missed and who provided a link to a recording of the event. Follow-up is vital to success for virtual events, and you should embrace that responsibility.

Now that we have explored some of the basic differences between traditional and virtual presentations, we must move forward with establishing some basic guidelines for delivering and facilitating virtual events. Chapter 3 looks at the nonverbal communication components that play an important role in becoming a successful virtual presenter.