Are people noticing this? It seems that face-to-face and online presenting are becoming more similar. Some aspects:

• Wireless access is becoming more common in places where presentations occur. If you are a conference organizer and you don"t arrange for wireless, be prepared for some negative comments. See Better Conferences.
• A larger percentage of the audience these days brings a laptop to presentations and it seems that the factor of Laptop Distraction is quieting down.
• If your audience is already on a laptop and connected wirelessly, then you can use techniques such as Twitter Conference Ideas with twitter as a back-channel or twitter to post links to the audience. You can get the audience to provide thoughts and suggestions just like chat online. In fact, this is on of my favorite things about online presentations (see Examples of eLearning 2.0 for how great the audience input can be). But now you can somewhat do this at Face-to-Face presentations.
• It used to be that your online audience was distracted. Now your face-to-face audience may seem distracted as well. I had a recent presentation at a large corporation. 75% of the audience had a laptop. Some percentage of that audience was taking notes and chatting on Yammer. Some percentage was reading email. Hard to tell which was which.

The last bullet is probably the biggest change here. I"m used to presenting in-person where the audience is highly engaged, taking notes, etc. It was a bit different for me to see an audience looking at their laptops that much.

I"ve talked about this in Online Conferences and In-Person Conferences and made the comment that:

In-person conferences have an advantage of getting more attention from the attendees.

That"s still probably true as there"s a higher commitment level, but the gap is narrowing. Clive as points to this in Multitasking is now every presenter’s problem.

What struck me is how the gap is narrowing between face-to-face and online events. You could usually rely on a fully attentive audience face-to-face while bemoaning the ease with which multitasking occurs online. The reality is that the same phenomenon is now occurring in each setting.

What"s interesting here is that it used to be that you could count on your in-person audience to be singletasking (is that a word?) and paying attention. Now, they are going to be multitasking just like your online audience. I"ve always said that one of the wonderful things about face-to-face presentations is that you can see your audience and get immediate reaction based on their faces. But what about when they are looking at their laptop? If anything it"s worse than online. When you present online and the chat channel is active but on-topic, you feel you are doing good. When you are in-person and everyone is looking at their laptop, it doesn"t feel good. Hmmm…

One last thought … I recently presented to a group of professional speakers about the use of social media. There was quite a bit of discussion around Face-to-Face vs. Online Conferences. I"m still of the opinion that Face to Face Still Matters. However, because of the dramatically different characteristics of Online Conferences and In-Person Conferences and because of the narrowing gap between face-to-face and online presentations – we will see a shift towards more online conferences such as LearnTrends 2009.

Update: Since this comment block is too small for such big questions, I"ve decided to make this the Big Question on ASTD for October 2009. You can find the question here:

New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods

Feel free to comment here as well, but I"m hoping we will attract a few longer entries there.

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Interesting post by Dan Pontefract where he provides definitions of some different "2.0" definitions and the HR & Organisational impacts. It"s worth taking a look at some of these:

• Enterprise 2.0

  • Definition (via Andrew McAfee):
    • the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers
  • HR & Org Implication:
    • Enterprise 2.0 is the use of Web 2.0 concepts in an organization; thus, failure to drive its introduction may result in redundant platforms/processes & confused employees
• Learning 2.0
  • Definition:
    • the shift from a predominantly formal instructor-led/eLearning model to one that encompasses formal, informal and social learning methodologies
  • HR & Org Implication:
    • organizational culture can evolve via a strong learning ecosystem; to continue with antiquated ‘spray and pray’ formal only training models is akin to GM’s 2011 automobile lineup being full of SUV’s
• Work 2.0
  • Definition:
    • the shift from a 9-5 workday to a flexible workweek inclusive of work location (ie. home, shared workspace, coffee shops, etc.)
  • HR & Org Implication:
    • the performance of an individual should be measured not on when they are in the office or present in their cubicle; rather, on the end result and its merits for the organization itself (whenever the deliverables are accomplished)

While people may not like the "2.0" terms, I believe there"s merit to using them if only to indicate the substantial impact that these things will have on organizations and particularly on Learning and Development.

The theme of LearnTrends 2009 is a term I call Convergence. It"s really about the fact that learning and development leaders have an opportunity to embrace 2.0. This means:

• providing solutions beyond traditional training / courses
• working closely with other parts of the organization including Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, Corporate Library, OD, IT and, of course, the business
• getting smart about a whole lot of new kinds of solutions
• looking outside the firewall for solutions

And all of this comes in an ever more challenging world:

• The Business of Learning faces real pressure and we are expected to do more with less.
• We need to provide value to concept workers who are the highest value people in the organization and are in a continuous learning mode – it"s part of their work. But concept workers don"t get as much value in traditional learning solutions.
• These workers direct their own learning. Learning and Development is likely not producing much content that will be useful to their day-to-day work except by building core skills. Thus, we must look to provide value in the long tail of learning.
• The nature and value of content production is changing.
• There"s a ton more content available both inside and outside the organization and some of it is free learning
• There"s much greater accessibility of experts inside and outside the organization and ways to engage with them.

When I described eLearning 2.0 back in February 2006, I focused on the technology aspects. But there"s so much more to all of this picture. I"m not sure if Convergence quite captures it, but …

These are truly interesting times.

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