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Want to keep audience members engaged in your presentation and ensure their understanding?
Compel them to answer questions and voice their true opinions? Make them lighten up? Maybe even laugh a little?
The solution could be as simple as pushing a button - or more precisely, asking them to push a button. Presenters are using audienceresponse keypad systems to make conferences, forums and meetingroom presentations more relevant by interacting with the audience. Presentations shows you how to make the technology work for you.
How many times have you walked out of a meeting only to wonder whether everyone "bought" what you were saying? Were they nodding in agreement or hoping it would hasten the end of your talk? Now, imagine walking into a presentation knowing that the people in the room won't hold anything back. Rather than staring in dumbfounded silence, they'll tell you exactly what they want you to talk about. Instead of rolling their eyes when your back is turned, they'll lay all their doubts and disagreements on the table. And if you're boring them stiff, they'll say so.
In the real world, such honesty is muzzled by common courtesy and the fear of embarrassment or reprisal. But there is a way to help your audience break through the shell of decorum - and all it takes is the tap of a finger. Organizations across the country are using interactive keypad systems to set meeting agendas and ask for feedback on critical or sensitive issues. By giving audience members a chance to voice opinions anonymously, they're uncovering hidden areas of agreement and disagreement. And not least importantly, they're finding that interactivity can make presentations more engaging and more fun.
React to feedback while it's still fresh
One such organization is CompuCom Systems of Dallas. The computer-systems integration firm recently purchased an audience-response system after company employees attended a keypad-enhanced meeting hosted by Novell. "It's fun to use, and it gives the presenter a lot of help," says Ken Rose, CompuCom's marketing vice president.
Rose explains that the company's Quick Tally keypad system is used mainly during large internal management meetings.
"We'll have a series of questions that we want to get the managers'' feedback on, and we'll have them rank things," he says....