How do you close your meetings and presentations? Hopefully not like these endings, which are common enough, but entirely ineffective. Closing your presentation can be challenging, especially if you have run out of time, taken a number of tough questions or failed to win approval for your ideas. But the close is so important for reinforcing your message that you shouldn’t just leave it to chance.
Take time to plan the next ending of your meeting or presentation, so no matter what happens, you can still end with finesse.
Be careful not to use the words “in closing” or “in conclusion” until you are really ready to end. Once people hear those words they are mentally ready to move on.
Don’t thank them for their time, but instead for their participation, feedback or comments. Even if the meeting was contentious, you can honestly thank them for being passionate about the subject matter.
Remind people what they have learned or accomplished by listening to you. Keep it positive and forward-focused, even if there were areas of disagreement.
If you want more questions, don’t ask, “are there any more questions?” Instead, ask “what questions do you have?” or “what other questions can I answer?”
A brisk “thank you” will create closure after a question and answer period that just won’t end. So will an offer to answer any remaining questions offline, or after the meeting. Give your contact information if appropriate.
Try to end after a positive question or on a positive note. Watch how comedians refuse to end after a joke that bombs; they will always try one more, hoping for an upbeat ending.
Always end with a reminder of your key message or a call to action. Since people tend to remember what they hear first and last, select and reinforce what you want people to remember by repeating or restating it at the end.
Bottom line: Don’t let your presentation or meeting just wind down; instead plan ahead so you can end on a strong note that leaves a positive, lasting impression.
A business case is a document that describes the reason why something has to be done. It will describe the usefulness of the project and the consequences if the project is not approved. Because it is a document that defines the project and its purpose, it can almost be compared and structured similarly to a Requirements Document which provides the desired details of a project and what its goals, resources, funding, and technology are. It shows what is needed to accomplish a task. The difference though, is that the business case will justify thevalue of a project. For example, it will show prove how a new product or application will benefit the intended audience. It details all the reasons for wanting a project to be done.
Why use a business case
We use a business case to show the worth and importance of a project. It will detail how the task will be accomplished. It will include items, i.e., a migration being involved, purchasing new equipment, or hiring consultants. Most importantly, it also specifies time and expenses, and the benefits and risks involved.
Once the document is completed, it is sent to all parties involved as well as to the client and respective project managers for verification and approval (if needed).
Creating your business case
The business case is usually written using a logical format and is written for those authorized to make a decision, so be logical when creating the business case. Structure it by presenting an introduction to the, e.g., product. – Let users know what the product is. Use simple terms to describe it and if there is a prototype, display it. If the document is of considerable length, indicate what sections should be read by which party.
A business case helps to define a possible solution to a problem, so include facts and details, such as the core requirements, i.e., Introduction, Research, Problems, Resolution, Recommendation, Strategy and Risks, Costs, Benefits, and Time. Also:
Break it up into logical sections that fit your case. Explain the logistics. For example, if it’s for new equipment, denote the equipment required and the reason why that particular equipment is required, e.g., providing more storage, easier use of software and maintenance for database access such as accessibility to files for specific tasks, i.e., system enhancements, documentation, testing, etc.
Include items such as dates for priorities, milestones, and deadlines.
For denoting security, list for example, the types of maintenance and issues that will be planned out and taken care of, such as protocols, archives, contingency plans, etc.
Also, denote resources required–e.g., who will be involved- Developers, DBAs, Testers, Lead Project Manager, Sub-Contractors, etc. This will ensure you have the right amount of personnel to perform the job as well as the right people.
As always, write for the intended audience to prove your case and to get it approved. If you have previously written business cases, please add to this content. Thank you.
Do you remember when the power supply to a much-anticipated Superbowl Game was interrupted? This was followed by a Tweet from Oreo, the ever-popular cookie manufacturer, with an image captioned, “You can still dunk in the dark”.
The post was re-tweeted more than ten thousand timesin an hour and proved to be a huge boost to the Oreo brand’s online reputation.
Social media trends are nearly impossible to predict because they are often based on real-time events. A company called Sickweather was able to pinpoint the geographic origin of illnesses based on public Tweets and Facebook updates of people in those areas, proving that there may be ways to monitor social media and gain insight into the possibilities the future holds.
Yet no tool can predict more generic social media trends that are truly spontaneous, like the one that was spurred by Oreo’s #dunkinthedark. So your best approach is to use a few of these social media tools to help you track current trends and really capitalize on them.
Current HOT Social Media Trends
While we’re talking about trends, here are the top three that seem to dominate the social media scene:
Relationships between customers and businesses are becoming more personal: Customers value businesses which maintain a personal relationship with them more than businesses that are only keen on promoting their products or services. In fact, a survey by Fractl and Buzzstream found that 45% of the respondents would unfollow a brand on social media if it posted too much promotional content.
More visual content is being generated and consumed: The popularity of video websites like YouTube and Vine has led to a huge increase in the production and consumption of short video content, which manages to deliver a message or start a conversation more effectively than regular textual content. The staggering growth of sites like Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest also reflects the increasing popularity of visual content as a medium of communication.
Businesses are using content curation for social media management: More and more people are considering the online presence of a company to determine its reliability and credibility. The content that businesses post to their social media accounts now reaches a much larger audience than ever before, prompting them to turn to content curation tools to ensure that they have a steady stream of good content.
Clearly, it would make a huge difference to your business’ bottom line if you are able to establish and maintain a strong presence on social media. There are many social media management tools which you can use to improve the impact that you make on your audience.
Here are five such tools which would aid your social media marketing efforts:
DrumUp.io – Discover And Collect Interesting, Meaningful Content
DrumUp.io is a content curation and scheduling application which helps you discover interesting content that you can share on social media. It supports Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts and allows you to manage all these accounts through a single dashboard eliminating the need for you to log into each of them separately. The content suggestions are based on the keywords you set for each account and can be changed at any time based on your preferences. The design of the app is minimalistic and clean. It allows you to queue suggested posts, as well as custom posts, and schedule them for sharing days, weeks, or even months in advance.
2. Easel.ly – Create Compelling, Original Infographics
The task of creating infographics is made much simpler with this tool, where you get ready templates over which you simply have to drag and drop your content. The images created are high quality ones and it makes presenting data visually extremely easy. The interface is very intuitive and requires almost no time to understand and master.
Even functions like layering (which is quite complicated in Photoshop) is much easier to perform on Easel.ly. There are also hundreds of pictures that you can browse while you are building your infographic. If you are not an experienced graphic designer you can use this tool to create great visual content.
And don’t forget to Pin your infographic!
3. Followerwonk – Analyze And Build Your Twitter Influence
Followerwonk gives you the ability to analyze your Twitter profile and get many useful insights. Once linked with your Twitter account it gives you a detailed report about who your followers are, the geographical region they belong to, their social authority, the total number of followers you have, the number of tweets, the number of new followers, unfollows and other such data. The analysis tells you which topics generate the most engagement, helps you identify influencers and also gives you a better understanding of your audience. It is an invaluable tool when you are trying to market your service or product.
IFTTT is probably one of the simplest automation services available. Simple tasks like receiving an email to remind yourself of a task or an upcoming event, saving important content to Dropbox, or cross-posting a Tweet on Instagram can all be automated on IFTTT. The tool simply uses the icons of these services for you to create automated processes, which the website calls “recipes”. Once you have created a recipe, you can change any of its parameters or even choose to turn it off. The tool also allows you to browse through public recipes of other people
5. Canva – Create Graphics With Drop And Drag Technology – EASY!
Another awesome tool to create visual content, Canva makes it easy for you to design original images for your Facebook, Instagram and other social media posts. The tool lets you choose from hundreds of thousands of existing high-definition photographs, posters, advertisements and other such content templates. Functions are very intuitive, making it easy to add text and layers to your images.
While it’s a good idea to establish your presence on multiple social media platforms, the content you share on them will have to be tailored to each specific platform. Using social media tools will make managing multiple accounts a stress-free task. Try out different tools to see which ones would be most useful to you. Do not hesitate to explore new applications, as they might provide exactly what you are looking for. The ultimate objective should be to make social media management less time-consuming, which in turn will let you invest more man-hours in the core functions of your business.
Have you tried any of these tools? Which are your favorites and why?
Author Bio:
Tejas Veeramani is a blogger at Godot Media, a popular content service firm, where he writes about content marketing and social media marketing. His other interests include music and gaming.
How did an $11,000 social media campaign return USD$2.5 million for a tiny town in Europe?
Tucked away in the peace and quiet of the Swiss Alps is a small hamlet called Obermutten. Being one of smallest towns in Europe with only 80 residents, it would have continued to remain in obscurity if it weren’t for a certain Facebook campaign. In attempt to attract more tourists the residents announced that they would print a picture of every person who liked their Facebook Page and pin it up on the town’s noticeboard. So, their investment of just $11,000 on a campaign that went extremely viral helped the town earn $2.5 million in return.
While such viral campaign ideas may be hard to come by, maintaining a steady presence on social media is, thankfully, much easier. No really, it is – if you use content curation tools.
How do content curation tools help?
It is important to share new and interesting content on a daily basis to keep your social media audience hooked to your brand. Original content not only helps you improve your rankings in keyword searches, but also lets you establish thought-leadership within your industry. However creating content is not an easy process as it takes a significant amount of time and effort.
Considering the volume of content that is continuously shared on social media, content curation will help you maintain a steady presence, without having to spend as much time and effort as you will have to in the case of content creation. It gives you the distinct advantage of being able to stay active, without having to spend hours on end creating one social media post after another. Businesses around the world have been quick to adopt content curation for the same reason.
Content curation tools let you achieve greater levels of efficiency in social media management by helping you discover, organize, curate, schedule and share interesting content for the purpose of social media marketing. Let us have look at some of these content curation tools that are creating waves in the social media world.
DrumUp uses advanced Natural Language Processing and machine learning algorithms to generate a fresh stream of content everyday, for a given set of keywords. It lets you manage multiple social accounts from a single dashboard, saving you the effort of having to log in to multiple accounts. The recommended content can be reviewed and scheduled for sharing on social media, days, weeks or even months in advance. It lets you add custom posts to queue of scheduled content and supports Image uploads as well.
Feedly gathers information and articles from various sites to collate them into one attractive GUI that serves as your homepage for all the information that is pertinent to you and your business. Feedly provides you with real time trending articles and blogposts, which you can then individually share on your social accounts. The RSS reader lets you choose your preferred sources for content, and you can add or delete items to your list of sources as per your requirement.
Bottlenose acts as a real-time search engine, bringing you the latest trending topics and data analytics for content on social media. With access to real time information, Bottlenose lets you share the trending content with your audience, thereby increasing your chances of being first one to break some news. All you have to do, is enter a search term for which it will return results based on relevance and social influence. The tool also lets you create alerts for topics that are of interest to you.
Realtime by Bitly or rt.ly is an interactive application that lets you conduct a real time search of every link available on Bitly and returns a list of the hottest trending topics. You can even add a filter to these topics to sort by social network, topic, and language. Realtime also lets users bookmark articles for future use.
Try these social media management tools out and see which one fits your purpose the best. Using these tools you can save a lot of useful time that you can in turn invest in your business’ core functions, the ones that cannot be outsourced.
About the Author
Jessica Davis closely follows the social media and content marketing space, and writes about it extensively. She represents Godot Media, a leading copywriting services firm. You may also enjoy these articles that Jessica previously contributed:
How does a technical writer and developer communicate how a product works to a user? How do they communicate functionality, to make their audience’s user experience easier? They plan it out by knowing their audience, knowing what is expected of the product through meetings and through training.
Knowing the audience
Create the product needed by the user.
What does your user need to know- what do they already know?
Does the developer know how much information a user knows and more importantly, what is needed by the user in order to develop applications that are suitable for them? For example, do menu options need to be displayed?
Does the technical writer need to write lengthy documents or just quick sheets?
Knowing what is expected
The answer to many questions is by having all parties share their knowledge through meetings. The technical writer, as mediator, interviews each party, and gets answers to questions, such as:
What will the product do and why?
Will the product be suitable for the user?
Will it be intuitive or data driven?
Will the technical writer have to write a long procedure?
Will this be on the web? Web-based applications are easier for users to access and use. Documentation will also be easier as help menus (with hyperlinks) can be created.
Will this be an end-user product? – If so, then documentation will be lengthier unless the product is easy to use and mostly error free. – Note: To avoid frustrating user errors, multiple options can be listed to avoid this problem.
Knowing what training is needed
The best product or application for a user as a whole should not be complicated.
If a product or an application is complicated or has a lot of options, then the technical writer can develop business cases with user stories to help with explanations. The writer can also create training sessions with demonstrations and/or create instruction videos that are not too complex. Images are always better than words. Words however should still be written to reinforce what was presented.
If an application is, for example, a data entry form, the user should be able to go through the mechanics without problems – in other words, it should instinctively lead the user to the next screen or item without any extra work nor thought from the user.
Key words are: ‘what is needed, shared, and not complicated’. To communicate functionality to the user, know what is needed, be aware of what they already know, and know how best to present it. Make sure that communication exists between all parties through meetings. Knowing how much to document will also depend on the results of these meetings. As always, when verbally communicating or writing, stick to the point; be concise and accurate.
If you have any suggestions or comments on how to communicate functionality to make a user’s experience more enjoyable and easier, please leave a comment. Thank you
Are you prepared to introduce yourself in a way that builds credibility and trust? If you are uneasy or uncomfortable introducing yourself, or do it poorly, your presentation, meeting or training session can get off to a bad start. Take time to plan and rehearse your openings.
Guidelines:
State your name clearly, maybe more than once.
If it is unusual, hard to pronounce or remember, provide a memory device or write it on a flipchart.
Briefly give your credentials, expertise or experience. You may wish to supply these in a handout so you can move through your introduction faster.
Mention why you are the person conducting the session. What special skills or experience do you bring? How do you feel about the content?
Mention the purpose of the training. Often people don’t know or don’t remember why they were asked to attend.
Stress the WIIFM*. How will participants benefit from participating? Why is this important to them?
Keep it simple and fairly brief. Once you are into the content you can tell more about your experiences.
It is OK to use a little humor but don’t force it.
Make it “all about them” not “all about you.”
Do something that engages or surprises them (like asking a question, or for a show of hands.)
*What’s in it for me, the listener or learner
More tips:
Make your openings brief and positive. This is not the place to begin rambling, to provide a long description of your background and expertise. They don’t want to hear an apology or a description of your travel woes, unless you are really funny in describing them. Start our crisp and upbeat, getting to the point pretty fast.
Talk about listeners and their concerns more than about yourself. If you speak about them and show them you have something to offer, they will be more impressed than they will just hearing your credentials. If someone else is introducing you, they can mention your credentials and accomplishments, then you won’t have to. It is smart to bring a short bio for whoever is introducing you to use.
Encourage audience interaction whenever appropriate. Keep it simple, a show of hands in a large audience, a few simple questions, carefully planned, for a smaller group. Plan these questions carefully and be ready for any kind of response–the audience may surprise you.
Never apologize in your opening. Don’t tell them it is too long, the content is technical or boring, that your slides are going to be too busy, or that you are not an expert. Put on your game face and tell them you are so happy to be there and looking forward to sharing information with them.
Rehearse your opening out loud until you know it cold. Make it short and snappy so it is easy for you to remember. Better yet, rehearse this with a trusted colleague or record your voice and listen back until you have really nailed it.
Work on making the people connection first. Skip all the detailed information, facts, figures, research and technical jargon. Tell a story. Talk about why your ideas matter. Give them an informal quiz or test. Make them think. Make them feel something. Show them you care and you are going to provide something of value. Now they are ready to hear what you have to say!
Remember that listeners form a first impression in just seconds. Make the most of your openings with thorough planning and rehearsal so you can start off on the right foot with your audience.
Are you looking for fresh, interesting ideas for your blog?
Well, if the U.S. government feels that certain topics are important enough to publish for US citizens, chances are that you’ll find something of value on those .gov sites as well.
A great source for valuable, targeted articles and content can be searched and used almost verbatim from: www.usa.gov. The federal government cannot copyright their content – it is public domain information and may be used by anyone for any purpose. But be careful – the content must be written by a government agency, and NOT in collaboration with a private or state source.
.GOV material is generally not copyrightable. HOWEVER, if the content came from a non-government source such as a collaborating organization, then that content is probably under the collaborating organization’s copyright.
Be careful to look for the copyright symbol. In its absence, look for information that states specifically that it is NOT copyrighted and may be used.
Many times, the .GOV source wants to be credited. Listing the domain Home page in our manual under “Resources” should be sufficient to satisfy this request. Note that this is a request and not a requirement.
State sites may or may not be copyrighted. Most state sites are copyrighted. Again, look for evidence of the copyright symbol or other such declarations related to copyright.
Examples of Great Information for Blog Posts That Come From .Gov Sources:
Go to: www.usa.gov – You can search for specific topics or keywords to find .gov content. Information is also categorized this way (copied directly from usa.gov website):
Find answers to the most popular Post Office questions.
Now, click around to find meaningful, helpful information that will benefit your followers.
Write your post, but don’t use duplicate content. If you do, Google will recognize it as duplicate and will not search it. Duplicate content has no chance of showing up in Google’s search results!
You can also turn these into a Tweet, Google+ post, Facebook update, etc.
Go ahead and give it a try! We’ll all learn some interesting and useful things in the process.
For More Legal Information About .Gov And Copyrights, Review These Resources
RESOURCES: Summary of Use of GOV Material and Copyright Implications
If you finished reading this post and you think it’s valuable, others will too.
So please take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.
.. _____ ..
About the Author:
Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals, both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:
Technical Writers describe error messages that appear within many documents and applications. They are useful, necessary, and required. Without these warning messages, readers\users would not know that, e.g., an incorrect key was pressed or that some information was missing to complete a task. Error messages describe what to do (or not), what information is required, or whom to contact to correct a situation.
Error messages exist within documents, such as:
Technical Specifications which developers use to program and present different types of error messages indicating where, when, how, and what.
Functional Specifications which describe expected error prompts and information required to complete tasks.
User Guides which warn users by defining errors (what to expect – where and when) if certain prohibited tasks are done and how to correct the problem.
Ready Reference sheets which list commands as well as what errors might occur, what they indicate, whom to notify, and how to correct certain problems.
Test Plans which help locate problem areas.
Bug lists (or List of Errors form) which contain anomalies from testing. e.g., while performing software testing to identify defects flaws and errors in application codes, the detailed steps that led to the errors are noted here. Without this completed form, developers would not be able to replicate the occurrence and hence correct it.
Feedback forms which include questions such as ‘Who is not satisfied with the document and Why’. Asking appropriate questions help to find problem areas, e.g., material was written for the wrong audience, contains incorrect or bad formats, or has errors.
To prevent errors within a document:
The front matter of certain documents should present a list of readers/checkers approving the document, thereby ensuring its completeness and accuracy. This will avoid problem areas, i.e., missing tasks within an application, missing reports, incorrect data, etc.
The material should be produced as a technically accurate document.
The contents of global documents should be examined and presented as a clear, concise, error free
The writer should be vigilant and, put themselves in the shoes of the reader, and maintain direct communication with stakeholders.
Error messages are also written for:
Developers to ensure that accurate data is located, gathered, and present a clear understanding of data repositories.
Disclaimers to avoid liability for errors or omissions.
Data analysts to investigate data discrepancies and to detect and resolve errors.
Benefit of Errors:
They help to teach, especially when using animation to display problems and resolutions.
They help to maintain and manage accurate data.
They help to provide editing and proofreading for grammatical errors.
The Technical Writer must ensure accuracy, completeness of technical documentation, and meet company standards, even when providing error messages. Technical Writers are also editors when ensuring documentation that is error free in content and in the usage of grammar, spelling, etc. This is especially important when producing material (i.e., marketing, training, global, or compliance documents) that reflect upon a company’s image.
Today, an active social media presence is indispensable in order to stay above the competition. Unfortunately, most people don’t have time to painstakingly go through piles and piles of content to discover something relevant for their audience. Fortunately, however, there are apps that can do this for you. By cutting down the time you invest in social media management, these apps let you concentrate on your business rather than on what to tweet next.
DrumUp is a FREE content discovery and scheduling app that’s gaining traction among social media managers. The app uses NLP and data mining algorithms to find stories of interest for your audience and queues them for sharing through Facebook and Twitter. You can edit the content before it is posted. Not only is it totally easy to use, but it also lets you manage multiple social accounts.
Postling acts as a centralized dashboard and lets you post content on multiple social media accounts. Targeted at small businesses, Postling lets you track your presence on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr – you name it. The app sends you an email every day detailing any social media activity, such as a new Facebook or Twitter comment. These are easy to skim through and let you decide what to respond to. The app also informs you about which of your posts are most effective. Pricing starts at $10 per month.
Feedly lets you subscribe to a variety of sites based on your interests. Depending on what collection you choose, posts from the sites selected will appear on your newsfeed. You can then share the posts you think are relevant to your business through Facebook and Twitter. It is simple, easy-to-use and has a minimalist interface. The basic package is FREE, and you can upgrade to Pro for a measly $3.75 per month
4) SumAll:
SumAll is an analytics app that assesses your various social media accounts and provides data and insights on them. The FREE version allows you to add unlimited accounts and sends you a daily and weekly update with all the stats and info. It gives you clear access to all the data in a single dashboard. The App supports a wide range of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Juggling various social media accounts is not only exhausting but eats into time that you can otherwise use more effectively. Everypost offers a solution to this problem by posting your updates across various social media platforms. It comes with a neat tool called a ‘Twitter text shortener’ which basically shortens your tweets and makes them suitable for Twitter. The Personal plan is FREE, and the Pro is $9.99 per month.
Deciding which Twitter-centric app to choose, considering the never-ending options, can be a daunting task. But if you are looking for something streamlined and organized, this is the app for you. Tweetdeck organizes friends, trending topics, searches and other activity into columns so that they are easy to manage. Like Everypost, Tweetdeck comes with a ‘TweetShrink’ and makes overly long updates Twitter-friendly. Tweetdeck is FREE!
HootSuite integrates up to three social media platforms, offers basic analytics and reports, lets your schedule posts and manage two RSS feeds on its FREE version. You can post updates to various platforms, track them and reply to comments all from one place. It is comprehensive and systematic in its organization and gives you the ability to monitor the visibility of your business. It also lets you delegate tasks to your social team, ensuring that you don’t overlook a potential customer. Hootsuite’s paid plans start at $9.99 per month.
The app lets you manage and schedule your Tweets right to the minute. It closely monitors Twitter’s tweet stream and emails you a digest of any replies you may have received, mentions and retweets. You can manage up to five Twitter accounts for FREE. It also has a ‘Tweet purge’ option that deletes all your previous tweets and lets you start with a clean slate.
The struggle for small businesses to stay relevant is slowly, but steadily becoming a non-issue. With apps that discover relevant content and help you schedule it, sometimes right to the minute, social media is longer something that only big companies can use to its maximum potential.
ABOUT Antara Krishnamurthy:
Antara is currently pursuing a degree in media and communication. She is passionate about digital social media marketing and writing blog posts. Connect with her on Facebook : www.facebook.com/antara.krishnamurthy
If you finished reading this post and you think it’s valuable, others will too.
So please take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.
Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals, both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:
Some meetings and training sessions seem to drag because you can’t get a good discussion going. Other times, people start talking and can’t seem to stop, or arguments and conflicts devour precious time. In order to facilitate effectively, you need to know both how to get a group started, and then how to manage the discussion.
Based on my experience as a seminar leader, these are my Top Ten Ways to manage interactivity:
Start with easy-to-answer questions. These questions should be closed ended and not sensitive in nature, so that your audience feels comfortable responding. As you continue to build trust, you can move into more sensitive issues, and ask more open-ended questions.
Call on the group at large, not an individual. Pose your question to everyone, then as you look around, select the person or persons you want to call on. Usually they are the ones who are making eye contact with you. This approach helps everyone stay engaged, and you are less likely to put someone on the spot.
Use the silence. Once you have asked a question, don’t jump in with your own answer. Count to ten, if you need to, before saying anything. Let the group have time to think and respond.
Ask participants to write down their ideas. Have paper or note cards handy. This is especially helpful with a quiet group, when time is short or when emotions are high.
Foster small-group discussions. With a quiet group, ask them to first have a discussion with the person sitting next to them or at tables, and then ask them to report on highlights of their discussions. Do this early in your meeting to set the expectation for engagement without having to state it outright.
Ask for a volunteer to write comments or answers on a flipchart. This will keep you from having to turn away from the group to write, allowing you to keep the group engaged, or to keep an eye on a talkative group.
Incorporate physical movement. Have individuals move into small groups, walk up to the front of the room to post their ideas, or stand beside a flipchart to deliver their findings to the large group. Use games and puzzles that get them physically engaged.
Manage side conversations. Make steady eye contact with those who tend to chat, stand closer to them, or use silence until the room becomes quiet. By using these “silent” techniques, you can usually maintain control without having to say anything.
Don’t shy away from conflict. Disagreement can be a sign of independent thinking, and can lead to better solutions in the long run. When conflict arises, try to disagree with the statement rather than with the person. If the emotional temperature gets too hot, you might suggest a short break before continuing.
Use courteous language. Words such as “please” and “thank you” and inclusive terms like “Let’s look at our next agenda item” or “Shall we check for consensus now?” foster a climate of respect and cooperation.
The next time you host a meeting or training session, try to increase engagement using these techniques or others you feel would be appropriate for the audience. Most likely everyone will benefit from a more engaging conversation.
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Some meetings and training sessions seem to drag because you can’t get a good discussion going. Other times, people start talking and can’t seem to stop, or arguments and conflicts devour precious time. In order to facilitate effectively, you need to know both how to get a group started, and then how to manage the discussion.