You’ve been to keynote presentations, hands-on workshops, collaborative strategy sessions, and new-hire trainings.  And for the sake of this post, I’m assuming you’ve delivered some of them.

As a speaker, how you work the room depends on your audience, your objective, how many attendees are in front of you…and how the room is configured.  Ideally you’ve been part of choosing how the tables and chairs are arranged.

Web and audio conferencing tools often allow you to choose different “seating arrangements” too.

Like the in-person session, you will be more collaborative and flexible with a smaller audience, and you’ll need more structure with a larger audience.  As you grow in your virtual presentation skills, you will discover that which tools you use, and how you use them changes too.

A great place to start is by thinking through how you would present and interact if the audience was in the same room with you.  Will you ask for a show of hands? Would meeting members take turns at a whiteboard?  Would there be a panel of speakers, or a moderator, or…?

THEN choose the best configuration of tools for your virtual meeting.  Some solutions allow you to pick and choose what you turn on and off.  Others offer a “meeting” option versus a “seminar” option.

And it’s worth noting…if you can’t choose the right tools for the job, do you have the right solution?

Optimize your impact.  Choose the right virtual seating arrangement.