What do you do if your public speaking style needs to adapt for the future of hybrid events?

Make sure you don't ignore one of the two audiences! If you're presenting online, aim to cater to both the online and in-person audience. And if you're presenting in person, take time to look into the camera and talk to those who are listening in online.

To adapt your public speaking style for the future of hybrid events, embrace technology as a pivotal tool. For example, incorporate interactive elements like live polls or virtual Q&A sessions to engage both in-person and remote audiences simultaneously. Additionally, leverage augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) experiences to create immersive presentations that transcend physical limitations. By integrating innovative technological solutions, speakers can elevate audience participation and create memorable experiences in hybrid event settings, ensuring their message resonates effectively in diverse environments.

Embrace tech with open arms. Tech is the future and you have to accept it whether you like it or not. So how will tech affect your public speaking styles and endeavours? Well in many ways to be more precise. Now you can rant and protest as much as you want but you will be using tech more often. These virtual meetings, webinars, and interactions are the future. So embrace it and try to use it for your advantage. Master it to perfection and your public speaking success will continue perpetually.

Use the tech to your advantage. Then expect things to wrong. Prepare so that you have a plan A, B, C…. If/when something in the tech goes wrong, you are still confident and can focus on your audience. Practice so that you are engaging and memorable to your whole audience. Technology allows us to present to many people around the world but in that moment we want them to feel like we are speaking just to them. Do not focus on your slides. You want the audience to be focused on you and listening. Be deliberate with your eye contact even if you can’t see your listeners. Let the tech help you make a personal connection.

It is no longer okay to not know how the technology of virtual/remote/hybrid presenting works if you are going to be using it. There is no other situation where a professional would not understand how his tools work before performing his job. If you are going to present in a hybrid environment, you mist know the tech, practice with the tech you are going to use, have a person "in the room" who can support you, and a way to communicate with that person through a back channel. Nothing will undermine your own confidence and the perception of your expertise like technical failures during a presentation. But "premeditatio malorum" anyway! Imagine all the things that could go wrong, so if they do, you are not surprised by them.

“Ok let’s get started the tech is not working” I was in the UK 1/2 the audience was in the room in India The other 1/2 was joining remote My slides weren’t displaying properly One of my mantras is: The audience are the most important people during a presentation No one wants to swap their time & attention to watch me try to fix a tech issue So I ditched the slides & started to present And the cherry on the cake of tech errors …? I couldn’t see anyone in the room at the event or joining remotely I was talking to myself - I knew the room was getting my feed But I got nothing The takeaway? My connection with people is the presentation Slides are not the presentation And Hybrid is not going away Embrace every opportunity

During online events, things can easily turn boring. Those slides and that voice. I can become monotonous and robotic for many people. How to solve it??? Engagement. You are the master and you have to propel people to engage. Ask them to react with emojis. Ask them to drop messages in the chat box. Encourage them to raise hands. Share the mic with them. Don't hesitate to call out names to build more trust and inclusion. People engagement is very crucial in online events. Your public speaking skills will be at test as generating and maintaining engagement can be hard sometimes. You have to be dynamic and adaptable to people's choices and preferences.

Having assistants (or assistance) both in the online "room" and the physical room can help you effectively engage both audiences. Techniques like polling with tools that allow both audiences to easily cast their votes can help (like PollEverywhere), and taking questions from the remote audience and the in person audience. When engaging the in-person audience, it is critical to either have them speak into a mic so that the remote audience can hear them, or have someone repeat the question, or type that question into chat as well.

Depending on the tech if there are several cameras I plan one as a close up shot that I reserve for the online audience, it makes it more intimate and the live audience reverses the role where they become the viewers just as the virtual audience takes when they are at their screens.

If you're presenting hybrid, make sure your links are both in QR code version and spelled out! This makes it easier for those watching live or from home, and more accessible to folks not using a phone or who haven't used a QR code before.

Visual aids can be an excellent way to attract attention. Slides, videos, and infographics are an excellent way to generate that interest and compel people to engage with your act. Visual aids can fill gaps and holes that your delivery creates. Things which aren't understood through speech could be easily grasped through these visual aids. These visual aids provide support to your act and they are often complimentary. You got to have one! Choose your visual aids wisely and remember that many things can become a visual aid. You can always experiment and choose something different. You don't always have to stick with PPTs and videos. Try to adapt as per your audience.

One of the key elements of vocal variety in addition to pace, volume and pitch is proper use of the pause. A confident speaker uses the power of the pause. It adds emphasis to what you just said. Remember: Relish the silence!

Vocal variety is very crucial in a hybrid model. People will be putting high focus on your voice. Even your face visible on camera might not make a very big and significant impact but your voice can do wonders. Add emotions to it and sustain it throughout your delivery. Show excitement, amaze, sorrow, and enthusiasm as per your message and content. Try to be empathetic and try to connect with every listener. Imagine as if you are talking to everyone personally.

When speaking from the privacy of your own office to a remote audience, and especially a hybrid audience, it is critical to dial up the energy and delivery your presentation with plenty of variety in the pace, pitch, volume and tone of your voice. This is not something you can just "wing" in the moment unless you are already a seasoned presenter. You want to build a "muscle memory" for how to deliver. If you are working from prepared remarks, take a page out of "TED Talks" by Chris Anderson and mark-up your script with bold, italics, super and sub script, all caps, and different font sizes so it is more like a musical score than a block of text. These style changes will remind you to treat different parts of the text differently.

Your audience will detect incongruence between your body language (and your prosody) and the words you are saying. When delivering remote, you are probably only going to have your upper body to work with. You should absolutely stand up for your presentation, make eye contact with the camera as much as possible, try to reduce extraneous or excessive motion which will be amplified when your image is contained within the confines of a box on a screen. You should keep your hands closer to your body than you would in person. When you hands come between you and the camera, they will look cartoonishly large. Be sure to practice in front of a camera, and review the video. A tool like Yoodli.ai can be great resource for this kind of practice.

??? Leveraging Inclusive Tools for Public Speaking Success ?? Drawing from extensive experience speaking at renowned venues like Harvard and orchestrating large-scale events in digital, hybrid, and in-person formats, I understand the vital role of adaptability in effective communication. Beyond the necessity of speaking slower, incorporating closed captioning, translations, and other accessibility features not only enhances audience engagement but also ensures that your message resonates with diverse demographics. By actively embracing these tools, speakers can foster inclusivity, broaden their reach, and make a meaningful impact across various platforms and audiences, thus setting a new standard for future public speaking engagements.