SpeakerNet News Teleseminars
Is Twitter a Presenter’s Nightmare
or a Dream Come True?
Guest Expert:
Cliff Atkinson
(About Cliff)
How to order the recording:
View a sample (PDF)
The Program:
Armed with laptops and smartphones, audiences are no longer sitting quietly while speakers are talking — instead, they’re using Twitter and other tools to create a backchannel where they chat with one another, make comments about your presentation, and broadcast their thoughts to people all over the world.
If audiences are happy, the backchannel can spread your ideas far and wide, create buzz about your ideas, and keep a conversation going long after you leave the podium. But if audiences are unhappy, the backchannel can criticize your ideas and delivery, disrupt your talk, and even derail your presentation completely. So is the backchannel yet another thing to fear when you give your next presentation? Or a great opportunity to really know what your audience is thinking?
Cliff Atkinson, author of The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever, shares his research and ideas for making the backchannel work for you.
You will learn:
- How audiences are changing the power dynamic of presentations
- Why you need a Twitter account and how to use it
- How to make your presentation Twitter-friendly
- How to avoid backchannel disasters
- How to extend your message further than previously possible
- How to use Twitter feedback to adjust or fine-tune your ideas
More about our guest expert:
Cliff Atkinson designed the presentations that helped persuade a jury to award a $253 million verdict to the plaintiff in the nation’s first Vioxx trial in 2005, which Fortune magazine called “frighteningly powerful.” His bestselling book Beyond Bullet Points (Microsoft Press, 2007) was named a Best Book of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com, and it expands on a communications approach he has taught at many of the country’s top law firms, government agencies, business schools, and corporations, including Sony, Toyota, Nestle, Nokia, Nationwide, Deloitte, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel, Microsoft and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal. Cliff’s latest book explores the growing impact of social media on presentations in The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever (New Riders, 2009).
SpeakerNet News is produced by Rebecca Morgan and Ken Braly. It is not affiliated with the National Speakers Association. Send comments or suggestions