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The Backchannel: How Audiences Are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever
Armed with laptops and smartphones, audiences today are no longer sitting quietly taking notes during live presentations. Instead, they’re carving out a new space in the room called the backchannel, where people are online searching for resources, checking your facts, and connecting with others inside the room and out.
When audiences are happy, the backchannel vastly extends the reach of ideas and creates a new sense of community and connectedness. But when they are unhappy, the intersection of frustrated audiences with unaware presenters can often create dramatic and public breakdowns of communication—and even mob mentality.
In this book, communications consultant Cliff Atkinson shows that if these new kinds of audience participation are embraced and the conversations properly handled, the outcome can be a new, more effective form of communicating. Whether you’re a host, presenter, or an audience member, Cliff will help you understand how this convergence of social forces is upending the presentation norm and how you can effectively manage the change.
When audiences are happy, the backchannel vastly extends the reach of ideas and creates a new sense of community and connectedness. But when they are unhappy, the intersection of frustrated audiences with unaware presenters can often create dramatic and public breakdowns of communication—and even mob mentality.
In this book, communications consultant Cliff Atkinson shows that if these new kinds of audience participation are embraced and the conversations properly handled, the outcome can be a new, more effective form of communicating. Whether you’re a host, presenter, or an audience member, Cliff will help you understand how this convergence of social forces is upending the presentation norm and how you can effectively manage the change.
- GenresTechnologySocial Media
222 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 24, 2013
Effective public speaking is a challenge for many executives. They must prepare interesting content, overcome stage fright and deliver a speech that will hold the audience's attention. As if that wasn't difficult enough, they are increasingly likely to find themselves looking out at a sea of faces illuminated by the glow of laptops and PDAs. Social media is invading the auditorium, and rather than tuning out while a speech is delivered, people are turning on laptops and cell phones to send out text messages, broadcasting to the world their opinions of a presentation.
In his new book Cliff Atkinson explains how these new forms of online communication are shifting the rules of engagement between audiences and presenters. Instead of sitting politely until it's time for Q & A, people are going online during the address to swap comments and opinions via an electronic backchannel.
At the very least, Atkinson claims, speakers and their communications support staff need to be aware that there is likely to be a backchannel in the room and learn how to monitor it or be left out of the conversation. Beyond this basic awareness, he encourages communicators to take the initiative and employ social media as an integral part of any executive's presentation.
Practical advice
Atkinson's book covers a lot of ground, from how to open a Twitter account to advice on expanding the conversation with the audience. He details how social media can transform a presentation from a one-off information dump into a longer-term relationship--one that starts before you step onto the podium. His advice includes:
* Breaking a speech into "Twitter-sized chunks" to make it easier for people to post 140-character sound bites. One measure of success then becomes how many of these summary statements are posted and reposted online.
* Using Twitter as a vehicle to extend your ideas to people outside the room, giving them a "virtual stage pass" to the event.
* Creating instant polls using tools, such as Twtpoll and Poll Everywhere, to involve the audience.
* Publishing a Presentation Home Page using wiki software. For example, I was inspired by Atkinson's book to create [...]/ listing my past and future talks. A Presentation Home Page is a convenient archive for reference material; blog postings; a Twitter feed; bio and contact information and more. This shifts the burden from overly busy PowerPoint slides as the sole way to communicate information. Also, by implementing a page like this prior to an event you initiate a backchannel that involves the audience, letting you gather comments and suggestions before you deliver the talk. After the event, the page becomes a repository for evaluation responses, blog postings, reference material and a transcript.
Atkinson acknowledges there are both risks and rewards involved in the backchannel. It enables people to connect online and become part of a shared community, but at the risk of leaving out those who are unaware of what is happening. It gives the speaker a way to reach a wider audience, but at the risk of distracting the smooth delivery of material. It provides an archive for comments and opinions, but a series of 140-character notes can lack context. And there's the very real risk that the comments people make on Twitter might lack civility and shock presenters with their sometimes brutal honesty.
Though this approach is not for everyone, Atkinson describes a potent way in which social media allows a (frightening?) new level of transparency that speakers can use to transform a one-way stream of communication into a dialogue with the audience--before, during and after the speech.
The Backchannel might not bring welcome news to presenters who are wedded to the old school ways of controlling audience response and involvement, but is clearly shows how you can magnify the impact of a speech using social media.
In his new book Cliff Atkinson explains how these new forms of online communication are shifting the rules of engagement between audiences and presenters. Instead of sitting politely until it's time for Q & A, people are going online during the address to swap comments and opinions via an electronic backchannel.
At the very least, Atkinson claims, speakers and their communications support staff need to be aware that there is likely to be a backchannel in the room and learn how to monitor it or be left out of the conversation. Beyond this basic awareness, he encourages communicators to take the initiative and employ social media as an integral part of any executive's presentation.
Practical advice
Atkinson's book covers a lot of ground, from how to open a Twitter account to advice on expanding the conversation with the audience. He details how social media can transform a presentation from a one-off information dump into a longer-term relationship--one that starts before you step onto the podium. His advice includes:
* Breaking a speech into "Twitter-sized chunks" to make it easier for people to post 140-character sound bites. One measure of success then becomes how many of these summary statements are posted and reposted online.
* Using Twitter as a vehicle to extend your ideas to people outside the room, giving them a "virtual stage pass" to the event.
* Creating instant polls using tools, such as Twtpoll and Poll Everywhere, to involve the audience.
* Publishing a Presentation Home Page using wiki software. For example, I was inspired by Atkinson's book to create [...]/ listing my past and future talks. A Presentation Home Page is a convenient archive for reference material; blog postings; a Twitter feed; bio and contact information and more. This shifts the burden from overly busy PowerPoint slides as the sole way to communicate information. Also, by implementing a page like this prior to an event you initiate a backchannel that involves the audience, letting you gather comments and suggestions before you deliver the talk. After the event, the page becomes a repository for evaluation responses, blog postings, reference material and a transcript.
Atkinson acknowledges there are both risks and rewards involved in the backchannel. It enables people to connect online and become part of a shared community, but at the risk of leaving out those who are unaware of what is happening. It gives the speaker a way to reach a wider audience, but at the risk of distracting the smooth delivery of material. It provides an archive for comments and opinions, but a series of 140-character notes can lack context. And there's the very real risk that the comments people make on Twitter might lack civility and shock presenters with their sometimes brutal honesty.
Though this approach is not for everyone, Atkinson describes a potent way in which social media allows a (frightening?) new level of transparency that speakers can use to transform a one-way stream of communication into a dialogue with the audience--before, during and after the speech.
The Backchannel might not bring welcome news to presenters who are wedded to the old school ways of controlling audience response and involvement, but is clearly shows how you can magnify the impact of a speech using social media.
January 28, 2010
Presenters -- especially those speaking to a crowd with their phones and laptops out -- need to be prepared for backchannel talking. In other words, people will use Twitter and other online sites to share their thoughts about your presentation.
May 19, 2012
Cliff Atkinson's "The Backchannel" is a guide every bit as appealing and potentially influential in the world of backchannel learning as his "Beyond Bullet Points" remains for onsite-online presentations. The book entices us into the subject immediately through a chapter carrying the title "Why Are You Calling Me a #@*% on Twitter?" and helps us see how a tweeter with a large following (nearly 15,000 people as I’m writing this) and a well-known presenter clashed quite publicly when the presenter saw the tweeter' note with her derogatory remark about him. If you already sense that Atkinson' mastery of storytelling and training is a wonderful talent to see in action, you'e well on the way to understanding that his book has something for each of us regardless of whether we’re new to the backchannel or already fairly comfortable in that rapidly-lowing stream of words and thoughts and resources. He shows us how to join a backchannel. Entertainingly reviews the rewards and risks of backchannel engagement with copious amounts of screenshots to lead us down that path. Offers presentation tips to make us more effective in our use of Twitter and its backchannels. And leads us through the process of effectively dealing with those dreaded-yet-inevitable moments when a backchannel becomes dangerous. By the time we finish racing through this book and absorbing what we can, we're far more comfortable with and appreciative of all that backchannels offer, and much more aware of how to be effective and civil members of the Twitterverse and its various interconnected streams.
January 15, 2010
must have for SM brains...great obvious insight. timely. Kenji, get on it...must read pre-ORshow-- or I can do a download for you
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews