You're facilitating a lengthy workshop with remote participants. How can you keep them engaged?

LinkedIn asked me this question, but it seemed to me that I couldn't answer in 750 characters, so I treated the question as an article.

I've been organizing and running all kinds of online meetings for around twenty years, from face-to-face to 60 people: workshops, training sessions, lectures, webinars, conferences, focus-group discussions and interviews. Most of these meetings are not held in my mother tongue, French. I also teach online, face-to-face to 40 people.

The first key to a pleasant AND effective meeting is, of course, preparation.

It's not just a question of knowing your subject and being able to present it attractively using all the theatrical techniques and technology. To keep the audience's interest and concentration, you need to know them in detail and as individually as possible: name, surname, position and intellectual commitment (never political or religious!). This part of the preparation takes a great deal of effort, and you need to be very careful when using the information you find...

You also need to build up your own ‘points of support’ (fulcra) for your speech. To do this, you should address by name the people who can usefully speak on a particular point: allusions to the person's work, direct but non-aggressive questions, remarks to solicit thoughts and suggestions...

In fact, I treat the VIPs I work with in the same way as I approach my students (or is it the other way round?). I call on everyone in turn... with a preference for those who seem to be falling asleep or are bored, just as I do in a lecture theatre or classroom.

This way of doing things shows that I'm paying attention to the listeners and that they can't take refuge in anonymity if they've chosen to come (!) This requires working with a camera on both sides, so a good connection, and talking to all the participants in such a way that everyone has the feeling that I'm only talking to them. It also works without a camera, but you have to accept the idea that the person you're talking to has gone off to make a cup of tea, and you have to follow up immediately with a question to another participant.

The second key to a pleasant AND effective meeting is time management.

You need to keep up a steady pace to maintain the audience's curiosity, but you also need to allow for breaks and changes of pace. To do this - and there's no alternative - you need to time your presentations and activities and keep a constant eye on the timers. This makes it possible to extend certain productive exchanges and maintain schedules by shortening other moments, but you need to know in advance what you are prepared to sacrifice.

Is it tiring?

Yes, very tiring, but the participants retain what my team and I have been able to say. It's worth noting in passing that this requires compulsory rehearsal when you're working as a team.