Neil Staker Workshop
Neil is a facilitator who has ran many face-to-face workshops. One of his workshops is a highly-engaging best-seller. He came to me with a desire to run a virtual pilot with this content. The participants would be part of his friends company’s employees.
Neil booked the pilot and received 20 registered test participants. We held an hour long rehearsal meeting the day before the live event. We discussed three things during this meeting.
Configuring his screen. Neil had ran virtual events solo in the past. On thing he struggled with was driving slide deck, “seeing” participants, watching chat, and looking into the camera all at the same time. I walked him through how to configure his screen for facilitating, including sharing screen options, PowerPoint settings, and engagement panel setup. Having this configured properly enabled him to feel more comfortable facilitating.
Planned activities. During this meeting, Neil walked me through his slide deck. During each slide he had indicated what activities were expected of the group. Nine breakout activities were planned for this event each of which I had to gather details for- group sizes, time spent in BO, etc.
Neils facilitation style/goals. One thing I made sure to address throughout this meeting was Neil’s preferences on the flow of the event, how he wants me to engage with him and others, and what goals he for the training. Knowing these things helped me understand how I can best help him.
On the day of the live event, Neil and I joined the room 30 minutes before start time. I had Neil test his audio, webcam, screen share and videos. After helping him configure his screen for optimal facilitation, we opened the room for participants to join about 10 minutes before start time. Once participants started joining, I welcomed them in by name, asked them to start their webcams and open their chat panels.
Once we decided to start, I gave a simple introduction to the group. Virtual Producer introduction can run anywhere from 1-5 minutes depending on the facilitator preferences. Since this group was highly technical, Neil requested I keep my introduction short and do not share my housekeeping slide deck, which helps orientate the class to the virtual platform further. Here is short snippet from my highly simplified introduction:
Neils first breakout was fairly soon in the training. This first breakout was groups of 4-5 for 5 minutes. While Neil was doing his initial setup of content, I prepared the breakout groups and started recording attendance. Here is a snippet from our first breakout initiation.
Throughout the session, Neil had multiple chat/verbal discussions. I was able to engage the group through the chat by reiterating questions asked or key points being taught.