156. Heather Wilde: Speaking in the Virtual World

Heather Wilde is CTO of ROCeteer, and is also known as the Unicorn Whisperer because of her special focus on entrepreneurs. She is a personal and professional growth expert, executive coach, author, and speaker. As a founding employee of Evernote, she oversaw the company’s growth from thousands to 100 million customers. Among Wilde’s other awards, she was commended by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for her work as a 2016 High Tech Women Mentor in increasing STEM education.

What is the hardest thing when speaking in virtual events?

Not getting feedback from the audience. As a speaker, Heather always does call and response, and that is harder to do with a virtual audience. To mitigate this, Heather recommends:

* Don’t sit down, walk around as in a real stage.

* Use polling to get instant response, with tools such as Poll Everywhere.

Her top piece of advice for speaking in the virtual world

Improvise. Don’t be afraid to play. People are bored of seating so they will interact with you if you make them play.

Other actions to do and skills to learn for speaking in the virtual world are:

* Don’t be afraid of being in front of the camera.

* People will judge from your background. People want to see the real world  behind you. Arrange your background to show your personality.

* Wear professional.

* Just start speaking.

Virtual conferences

Conference organizers are arranging virtual trade shows with virtual booths where attendees can see a demo with the latest technologies, and even sign contracts. Virtual reality booths go a step farther.

Organizers have to make sure the speakers have everything they need: lights, sound, all the right tech to shine in the virtual stage.

Speakers now can speak anywhere in the world, even to places where organizers never had the budget to fly you out. All in all, there are new opportunities to speak.

Related: Storytelling in the Tech Industry

Favorite quotation

“The goal is not to be better than the other man, but your previous self.” —Dalai Lama

Recommended book

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

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