How Product Leaders Can Nail Their Presentations Post-COVID-19

The new art of keeping both virtual and in-person attendees engaged.

Tanguy Leborgne
Product Coalition
Published in
5 min readApr 8, 2021

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Adobe Stock / By Login

Last week was great! I enjoyed sharing real-life experience in a new presentation with a cohort of students at the University of California Santa Cruz. The topic was a favorite of mine: “Customer-Centric Product Development”. I had already interacted with classes in that specific program before, but it was the first time we’d move the session 100% online.

The engagement was substantial, and about 35% of students signed up for one of my related programs. Most importantly, this session made me think about how much has changed with presentations and meetings since the pandemic started. We can expect further evolution and more complexity once the world settles into a hybrid model. Mixing in-person and remote attendees will likely become the new norm for modern meetings or presentations.

And, let’s face it: it’s tough to handle both at once. You’re often tempted to focus on the energy in the room at the risk of neglecting the online participants. Or you keep talking to a camera, looking weird for the people sitting in the same room.

So, how to navigate the intricacies of hybrid presentations? How do you keep everyone engaged while getting your points across? I know these questions are top of mind for product leaders and marketers who need to communicate their messages effectively. Here are a few approaches I’ve started to experiment with and how they fare:

Break the ice with a little help from technology

Slido Screenshot from the author

I’ve now used this approach multiple times, and it gave me excellent results. I start the session by immediately offering a deceivingly simple way for everyone to participate.

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I’m a senior executive with deep general management expertise. I’m passionate about business, product, and marketing optimization. tanguy@theproductsherpa.com