Jahna in Australia asked…”This presentation is PPT slide – any suggestions for combining live visuals?  Does this assist connection and involvement?”

Jahna, I see from the time stamp of this question that you asked this prior to me doing a live desktop demonstration.

Here, however, are a couple tips for doing live desktop sharing using web conferencing:

Spare your audience any steps that aren’t critical

For example, if you log in using a user name and password, it might be worth sparing your audience the time it takes for you to demonstrate the login process. If it doesn’t add value, skip it. Instead, be logged in already and get to the point.

Have your key points outlined

A risk when doing a live demo is going into detail that doesn’t support your key points. Instead, know what your big impact points are…and realize that all other details are the supporting evidence for show how you save time, help them make money, help them be more productive, or whatever you key message(s) are.

Start with your best point first

I did this instinctively in the past, but I like the business case Peter Cohen makes in Great Demo! (great book, BTW!).

Get (and keep!) their attention by solving their biggest problem first. This might mean you’re not demonstrating every feature or demo’ing them “in order.” But you will start with the highest impact ideas, which optimize your ability to keep your virtual audience engaged.

Hope this helps! Peace~