Public Speaking Tips

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We creatives have unique challenges for public speaking. We must continually present and pitch our work as part of the production process. In addition, freelance and small business creatives need to increase visibility to promote our work, which means grabbing thought leadership opportunities to speak on stages and present at conferences and events.  I don’t know about you, but for me, public speaking is a skill I’ve had to develop over many years. I’m lucky enough to have some musical theater in my background (jazz hands!), but that’s not entirely like keynoting in a room filled with hundreds of strangers. Or presenting a creative concept to a group of clients. And these days I’m also teaching video courses on LinkedIn Learning, hosting livestreamed webinars, and “presenting” to camera on Zoom almost every day. So if you are like me and your focus is on your creative work, and if you happen to be an introvert, all of this public speaking can be a challenge. So I’ve pulled together a few tips that I hope can be helpful.

A Few Speaking Best Practices
This might seem obvious, but wear something that gives you confidence. Stand (or sit) up straight. Speak with conviction–not too loud, but not too softly. If presenting online, invest in a good microphone. (See my blog post on web audio for suggestions.) Smile! Try to enjoy yourself, even if public speaking isn’t your thing. Because the audience can sense when you are miserable, and that can affect how they hear–or don’t–what you have to say. Try not to be thrown off by questions. If someone really throws you a curveball, be willing to say “I can’t answer that right now but I’ll be happy to email you after this event.”

Pitching Creative Concepts
When presenting to clients or prospective clients, I try to be sure to spend plenty of time listening. That can be hard, since I’m usually very excited about the ideas my team and I are presenting. But don’t fill every pause. Let your audience absorb your ideas and visual concepts at their own pace. Let them ask questions. Don’t get defensive (this one is SO hard). Take copious notes instead and offer to revert back with additional ideas if needed. One thing I like to do when pitching creative is to ask these two questions: “What about this idea is really exciting to you?” and also “What about this idea makes you nervous?” That last question can put people at ease that you are willing to problem-solve when getting to a shared decision about the creative direction for this project.

Presenting at Conferences, Webinars and Live Events
I’ve made literally hundreds of presentations at live and virtual events, and I can say there are just two really big takeaways to remember. First, know your audience. It’s not enough to know your subject. You want to understand where the audience is coming from, what they are likely to want to learn, and what level of detail might be best reserved for additional materials they can find from you later. The second tip is give examples. Theoretical information is fine, but real world examples always make an impression on an audience. If you can back those up with behind-the-scenes video or photos, even better.

Being Interviewed: Strategies for Panels and Podcasts
As someone who interviews people for a living for video productions, I always do my homework. I need to learn about the person and their interests as well as the stories they are likely to tell. However, being on the flip side, interviewers don’t always take their time to do background research. So you need to come prepared with several different stories and examples, and have a good sense of the audience for this panel or podcast. If you’re on a panel, hopefully your host has already had a preliminary call with you and the other panelists to map out who will talk about what. If not, take it upon yourself to do this, or at least cover the possible topics in an email. You don’t want someone to steal your thunder, nor do you want to do the same. So it’s best to have some sense of the flow in advance.

I hope these tips are helpful, and that you get a chance to do more public speaking, and better yet, to enjoy it!

Amy DeLouise is a video producer, trainer, author and speaker. You can find out where she’s speaking next here: https://www.amydelouise.com/speaking/

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Mastering the Pivot: Career Transitions for Creatives

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Photo by Sophie Keen for Unsplash

Navigating career transitions is always a challenge, especially in an evolving business climate. But it’s possible to put your best brand forward in a way that allows you to pivot to a new area of work as a creative professional. In this blog post, I’ll cover four key areas for ensuring you have the ability to pivot quickly and effectively.

  1. Define Core Values for Your Brand

As Jendi Coursey discussed in her guest blog post here last month, customers are embracing values as a focal point in decision-making. Businesses and individuals who offer a values-first focus are more likely to get repeat business. And, I’d suggest, when you embrace a mission connected to values, you are able to develop a different pricing structure, because you are building a long-term relationship with that client or customer, not just a quick deal. When pivoting to a new market vertical, or to an entirely new business model (aka, virtual workflow, etc.), you are better positioned to move fast if that mission focus is still driving your decision-making. So, for example, in my business we pivoted from creating content for live events to helping our clients produce virtual experiences. While the end product was different, our core values of quality, a focus on authentic storytelling, and audience impact were still at the heart of our work.

  1. Conduct a Personal SWOT Analysis

Now is a great time to do a personal SWOT assessment—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. If you need more information on how to get started, check out this article from SCORE—the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a volunteer organization that allows experienced retired executives mentor younger business owners. You can use this SCORE Checklist to help you narrow down the questions to get at your SWOT analysis. The benefit of conducting a periodic SWOT is to help you define your brand, create marketing tools that position your business or service appropriately, or help you define a new business angle, product or service.

  1. Develop Big Hairy Audacious Goals

One of my favorite takeaways from the book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” by James Collins and Jerry Porras is the “BHAG”—which stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Every entrepreneur needs these goals to ensure we are looking past the day-to-day to some significant long-term objectives. And even if you work on staff inside a company, it’s worth targeting your BHAG to be sure you have a life-changing target that can drive your professional development plan. I keep my BHAGs on a white board over my desk, which also contains all my company’s ongoing projects and proposals. By having my BHAG there–both business and personal–I’m mindful of not losing sight of my long-term goals and strategies in the flurry of daily work.

  1. Tips for Transition Marketing

As the market transitions from virtual to hybrid and then to frankly who knows what, it’s important to be mindful of how your portfolio, your social media, and your resume position you for what’s next. Be sure your social channels are aligned with where you want to go. (So often I see headshots with sexy poses or pictures of beloved animals, which don’t really help me know who this person is professionally.) If you are job-hunting as a gig worker, be sure to highlight your soft skills when posting on platforms like LinkedIn. These include your ability to work with a team, your ability to use new tools or software to get the job done efficiently; and your willingness to manage your own time to deliver quality outcomes. Software and hardware tools and certifications are great, but these change constantly. It’s your work ethic and ability to be function as part of a team that makes you hire-able again and again.

The future of work post-Covid is still evolving. The best we can do is be ready for it.

Amy DeLouise is an entrepreneur, digital storyteller, and trainer. Check out her panel of creatives who pivoted their careers during the Post|Production Online conference April 10-13.

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Extend the Lifespan of Your Virtual Event

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Photo by Unsplash

If you’ve been creating content for virtual meetings and events this year, then you know that you need to maximize the impact and longevity of your content, even after the meeting. In this blog post, I’ll talk about how to plan engaging content that helps you maximize impact, amp up your next virtual or live event, and ensures audiences engage with your brand even after your event is over.

  1. Ensure Video Content Fits into a (Virtual) Event Story Arc

So many times we create content for the wrong reasons. Maybe “Cherie needs to be in the video” because she’s an important stakeholder in the organization. Or a particular sponsor needs to be featured. But how do you connect these stories to the story you are telling in your event? Each event needs its own story arc, a narrative that you want attendees to come away with once the video cameras are off. So as you build your virtual content, ask these questions:

How do the various videos we want to share fit into our overall story?

Is there a way we can make them fit better?

Can we break longer videos up into smaller portions –“snackables” — to tell our story on social before and after our event?

It’s important to map that out, and find appropriate places for different narratives that feed into your larger story.  If something doesn’t fit, you might need to find an alternative. For example, often sponsors have multiple videos they’ve created about their products or services. Perhaps one fits better than others with your target attendees. Sometimes I’ve even been able to get sponsors to create a more customized version just for us. This way, attendees don’t feel like that content doesn’t fit with our bigger story. And anyone viewing your event afterwards online will also find a cohesive message.

  1. Engage Audiences as Communities Post-Event

Sometimes you need to deliver different content to different communities in different ways. That means planning ahead to create multiple versions of some videos you want to feature at your event. For example, you might share a 1-minute version of a member story for an association event, but then post-event, share the full 4-minute video. And post-event, what opportunities are you offering participants to engage with one another to share the impact and continue important conversations? Perhaps you create an event alumni Facebook group. Or invite attendees to join a monthly Zoom chat which you can kick off with a new impact story, to jumpstart the conversation. Or perhaps you want to engage your community post-event in some important policy action through an email campaign that contains links to several different content strands. Audience members are people, and your event is just one touch point to build a sense of shared purpose and continued connection.

  1. File Formats Best Practices for Video

If you are producing a hybrid or virtual event, you’ll likely have a number of different content elements to bring into your delivery platform, then share again afterwards. Most platforms are still only streaming at fairly low bandwidth depending on your subscription level, so don’t overwhelm the system by trying to play back 4K video. You could end up with audio out of sync and heavy digital drag.  If you have high resolution assets, make lower resolution compressions and test them in advance on your platform. Typically, 1080p mp4 files compressed for Vimeo or YouTube spec will play back just fine.

If you have speakers who will be sharing videos, be sure they play back these sources natively from their presentation computer (and whoever is hosting that session should also have a backup copy on their desktop.)  And don’t wait until your event to find out how they will look. Have speakers who want to share videos practice sharing in a test session. I recently attended a virtual concert where the speaker tried to play back a performance from her YouTube channel, which caused a lot of unnecessary lag and choppiness. She could have shared the source file with no problems directly from her desktop. And be sure any video content you want to play back through your event platform—such as sponsor videos, intro videos, or highlights—are also tested through the platform. You can always share higher resolution versions through your website, YouTube channel or Vimeo channel post-event.

 

Amy DeLouise is a producer/writer/director specializing in branded content for virtual and live events.

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5G Brings New Flexibility to Content Production

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Storytelling and technology continue to be intricately entwined. From the very start, the ability to capture images was dependent on evolving tech. Those in the storytelling biz have always been understood that creating great content is a multi-layered, complex process that requires a combination of creativity, artistry and technology. The latest technology to transform content production is 5G.

What is 5G?

5G is the now rapidly emerging next generation mobile network. What makes 5G networks unique the powerful combination of low latency, high network bandwidth and ubiquitous connectivity. Data can be uploaded at speeds up to 10 Gigabits per second and downloaded at peak speeds of 20Gbps. This is 10 times faster than today’s mobile networks. It is the ability to download a 3GB video in 35 seconds. Over today’s 4G networks, that same 3GB file would take 40 minutes to download.

Why is 5G important for production? In short, it removes limitations.

5G and Live Events

When it comes to live events, 5G reduces costs while increasing efficiency and flexibility of remote production. While many stadiums have fixed locations providing the fiber connections needed for TV cameras, broadcasters have had to invest time and money to lay down miles of fiber to connect cameras to OB truck. 5G gives camera crews the freedom to roam wherever they need to get the best shot – and upload high quality 4K in real-time. Sports broadcasters around the world have been testing 5G since 2018. This summer’s Tokyo Olympic Games are expected to display the broadest set of commercial uses yet.

Scripted Content in 5G

So, it’s easy to understand the benefits of 5G for live events but what about scripted content? How can 5G transform Hollywood storytelling? 5G changes the game even before the cast is assembled and shooting begins. Location scouting is now simplified by 5G enabled drone cameras capturing shots and enabling teams to quickly review options. The sky, pun intended, is now the limit as it becomes more cost effective to send crews to check the viability and desirability of locations.

Once filming starts, the pace of production can now be accelerated. One of the biggest sources of delay has been transmitting large high-quality video files (aka “dailies”) for review While the adoption of digital has accelerated this process, 5G can provide even greater improvements. 5G’s fast speeds allows filmmakers to transfer massive video files to editors very quickly without the restriction of access to wireline connections.

In the same manner, collaboration between editors in multiple locations and time zones becomes more productive and reliable. Video files can be shared, edited, re-shared and reviewed. 5G also improves the viability of cloud-based workflows thanks to its low latency requirements. Imagine files being uploaded to the cloud while still shooting. Workflows will be accelerated; networking costs will be reduced. Even more importantly, 5G can truly democratize post-production – allowing the best specialist talent to participate in projects without concern for location.

The Future of 5G

The future promises even greater creativity and audience immersion. Thanks to 5G’s ultra-low latency and massive data capacity, storytellers can unleash their AR, VR, 3D Holographic enabled imaginations. South Korea, a longtime leader in adopting advanced mobile network technologies, released this 3D holographic + 5G network enabled dragon in 2019! Live events, visual interactions, and storytelling as we know it will change forever.

We can only imagine how content production will evolve as 5G is deployed globally. 5G enabled smartphones and 5G enabled professional cameras are available today with 1.2 billion connections projected by 2025. Get ready for a new wave of creativity!

Peggy Dau is an independent consultant working with media tech companies to help them connect the dots between technology, market trends and business strategies. Peggy is also a co-founder of Women in Streaming Media, a not-for-profit organization which exists to increase diversity, and provide greater visibility, to women working in any role within the streaming media technology sector.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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