8 Simple Rules for Not Sucking at Webinars

It's time for me to face the facts: Webinars are here to stay.  As someone who makes a living telling jokes to lawyers, this is a thought that I've been trying to keep at bay; much like my creditors.  After all, I didn't leave my prestigious corporate law job in order to sit around in my underwear telling outlandish stories to complete strangers over the telephone (although it is certainly one of the perks of the job).  Instead, I was drawn to the thrill of live presentations, complete with raucous laughter, thunderous applause and room service billed directly to the conference organizer.  Needless to say, all of these things are absent from a webinar.

Moreover, conducting an effective webinar is about as difficult as federal prosecutors conducting an effective prosecution of Roger Clemens.  However, in the case of webinar presenters, there is a reasonable excuse for our failures.  We're being asked to keep the undivided attention of our audience while they stare into a computer -- the same device through which they can access e-mail, breaking news stories and the complete expanse of human knowledge (and porn).  It's a herculean task.  However, where there is a will (and corporate network software to block access to adult sites), there's a way.

Here are my eight simple rules for not sucking at webinars:

1)  Be Visual -- If you don't give the attendee a compelling reason to keep the webinar window front and center, he will decide that he can simply listen to you while viewing other material, such as client e-mails, document revisions, or one of those videos demonstrating what happens when you put Mentos into Diet Coke.  For that reason, you must keep him looking at your webinar by displaying intriguing (and maybe even relevant) visual images.  And these images should be in constant flux.  In fact, don't be afraid to flicker them across the screen with such speed that it induces seizures.  Given the mind-numbing boredom of their last webinar, they'll thank you for the "fun."

2)  Be Illiterate -- The quickest way to lose your audience is to read to them from your PowerPoint slides.  After all, unless you're giving a seminar on say, debt collection techniques, your attorneys will already know how to read.  Rather than listen to you drone on for an hour, they will decide to do something more productive during the webinar (e.g., answer e-mails, correspond on social media, stare blankly into space) and come back to your slides at a later date (i.e., never).

3)  Be Schizophrenic -- It simply isn't possible to pay attention to a monotone, disembodied voice being mumbled through a poor-quality computer speaker.  Therefore, it is important to vary your pitch, volume and speed in such a drastic way that the attendees become concerned that you suffer from multiple personality disorder or some other mental illness (a warranted concern given that you voluntarily chose to give a webinar).

4)  Be Indecisive -- It's not only helpful to change the mechanics of your delivery but, whenever possible, the format of the delivery.  If you can break up your monologue with audio and video clips, you stand a much better chance of garnering the attendee's attention (and maybe even the attention of a very litigious copyright holder).  Either way, at least, you won't be ignored.

5)  Be Identified -- One of the most frustrating things about listening to a panel discussion over the Internet is not being able to determine which panelist is currently boring you to death.  "Wait a minute!  Didn't he just make the opposite point five minutes ago?  And who is this speaking now?  Was he the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"  It will take just a few mouse clicks for the attendee to learn that Ben Stein played that famous part.  In just a few more mouse clicks, she will be watching scenes from every Matthew Broderick film of the last 30 years.  Of course, given Broderick's filmography, she will come racing back to the "excitement" of the panel discussion, but you won't always be so lucky.

6)  Be Self-Sufficient -- Unlike a live seminar where you can depend upon the Q&A session (or an "accidental" fire alarm) to get you through the last 10 minutes of the program, you'll generally have to present for the full length of the webinar.  Online audiences are notoriously "shy" in this regard.  Therefore, unless you've been dying to find your "inner Ben Stein" ("Bueller?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?"), prepare enough material to last the full hour.

7)  Be a Nag -- It's possible to follow every one of my rules (or even rules written by an intelligent person) and still lose an attendee's attention.  The distractions of the computer are sometimes simply too great.  As a result, you should feel free to frequently remind the attendees that there is actually a webinar still in progress.  For instance, I'll usually transition to each new topic by saying something like, "Very shortly, we're going to move to our next commandment of legal ethics but I want to give those of you playing Farmville on Facebook a moment to finish planting your crops.   And, by the way, if any of you would be willing to help me harvest my alfalfa crop, I'd be most grateful."

8)  Be Experimental -- Remember, taking incredible risks isn't just for tightrope walkers, JP Morgan credit derivative traders, and people dating on the Internet.  It's also for those of us who are earnestly trying to give our CLE attendees something more than just an hour of credits (and regrets about becoming a lawyer in the first place).  In that vain, we should feel free to try (and fail) at introducing trivia contests, interactive polls and provocative videos to our webinar programming.  As a great man just made up for this blog post, "Oh, what a boring webinar they receive, if to PowerPoint we cleave."