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About Interactive Meetings and Audience Response Systems
- How To Make Your Meetings and Presentations Interactive by
Getting Feedback From The Audience Using Audience Response
Keypads.
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About Interactive Meetings and Audience Response Systems
- How To Make Your Meetings and Presentations Interactive by
Getting Feedback From The Audience Using Audience Response
Keypads.
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| What We Really Mean By Interactive Meetings: Interactive meetings are those that incorporate some number
of interactive presentations, even if it's just one. And, an interactive
presentation is one that utilizes an
Audience Response System through which
your audience provides feedback to you, the presenter. |
| What's an Audience Response System? If you've
seen the TV shows "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" or "America's Funniest
Home Videos" you have seen an audience response system. The
main
component is "keypads". Typically, each person receives one. |
| At various times during your presentation, you display an
interactive question the group. They vote, and a
computer generates a graph immediately. Today, the keypads are typically
wireless.
Also, there's a "base station" that gathers the votes and
sends them to a computer that is running software. This 'specialized'
software
calculates the results, and displays a graph. |
| Why You Should Make Every Presentation Interactive:
One of the most common reasons for using an interactive system is to
keep the audience alert. Hey. . . make them wake up and press a button
every once in a while! Beyond that though, it is incredibly
interesting to see the audience's opinion on-screen. And no one loves
to see it more than the audience themselves. |
| Depending upon your
presentation topic, you could quite easily ask a few
questions to determine the group's level of knowledge on
each subject that you plan to present. Then, if it
seems that they are more knowledgeable in an area than you
thought, spend less time there. If they're less
knowledgeable, spend more time. |
| If you need to know your audience's opinion, there's no better
tool. And certain types of presentations like: market research,
clinical rater testing, strategic planning, product knowledge testing, and
employee or customer surveys lend themselves especially well to this
technology. |
| Most important, if you have business issues to discuss with the
group, this technology allows you to view the graph and verbalize a follow
up question like: "can anyone tell me why 37%
of us feel we are performing poorly on this issue?" Then,
get some wireless microphones out there. Discussion
will abound, guaranteed. |
| Where To Start: Now that you've decided to make your meetings interactive,
you'll need a place to start. You can run out and buy hardware and
software, but the the better choice is to 'try before you buy'. |
| The way to do that is to
rent. Just as you can
contract with an audio visual company to provide projection, screens,
microphones, and so on, you can hire a company to provide an audience
response system. Best of all, they'll also provide a technician who
will setup and run the system on their computers. This leaves you free
to focus on content. |
| Since you've probably never done this before, let's touch
on the mechanics of it all. We'll assume that you plan to be on
stage with a notebook computer, and will be delivering a PowerPoint®
presentation. You should have your Audience Response technician set up
his gear on a table at the side (or rear) of the room, where he can work but
still see you. |
| Tell your audio visual person that both you and the
Audience Response technician will be delivering the presentation, and that you
need to be able to switch the projector between both presenters.
They'll provide a small 'A/B' box so that the Audience Response tech can
switch between putting your presentation and his, on screen. |
| The technician will of course test his equipment and
distribute keypads. He will need to know when to switch
between your slides, and his. So, provide him with hard copy of your
presentation. A quick rehearsal will ensure that things go smoothly. |
| Once things get underway, begin your presentation as you
normally would. Then, once you get to an interactive question, give
the tech a nod to confirm you are ready. He will switch the projector to his
computer, and bring up his slide which will then appear on the big screen. When you are ready to go back to
your presentation, signal him again and he will switch back to you.
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| With at least one
successful meeting under your belt, you are well on your
way. If you plan to do 8 or more interactive
meetings, it usually makes sense to purchase a system.
But, if you choose to continue
renting, you should
book as many meetings as possible on a single order. In this way, you will
receive quantity pricing on your keypads. |
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Tips on Purchasing an Audience Response
System -> |
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