The New Etiquette of Webinars (insert post-Covid statement here)

Leave a comment October 29, 2020 Thom Langford

Hands up if you have been to an in-person conference or summit since the middle of March this year. Yeah, me neither.

And so we saw the rapid build-up of the online webinar, starting from the first tentative steps made by the BBC’s Have I Got News For You, through to LinkedIn Live, Zoom based cabinet briefings being “hacked”, and the advent of the vanity backdrop. And there was much celebration amongst members of ISACA and (isc)2 as we could now still get CPE’s for sitting around drinking coffee and chatting with our infosec mates.

Some fo the first ones were, frankly, a little bit crap. Poor sound and video, and events organisers more used to managing people in person rather than at the end of a dodgy video link. But these were pioneering days, and let’s face it, we needed those CPEs. It didn’t take long for features to start pouring into platforms like Zoom, Teams, Discord, even Webex (used only by employees of Cisco and people trapped in a Cisco building), and other platforms like BrightTALK. Events people got better at putting them on and using the tools, and the quality went up. New tools (or tools that found a new audience) such as StreamYard and Livestorm have truly democratised the ability to produce slick online conferences with a big budget feel at pocket-friendly pricing.

But.

The rot is starting to seep in, and quickly too. It’s only been a few months as well.

For context since the beginning of this month (October) to the end of next month, I will have hosted over 30 hours of online events, mostly as a full-on Host but also as a panel moderator, and some poor behaviours are starting to seep in already.

So I present to you my Top Ten Webinar Peeves, from both sides of the screen

Start on time. Even if some of your speakers are suffering from technical difficulties, start on time. You should always have a plan B anyway, or a host that can think on their feet quickly enough to engage the audience for the few extra minutes needed. Unlike a physical conference, you don’t have a captive audience. They will leave to do something else or assume it was cancelled last minute. Be on screen straight away and engage immediately.
Finish on time. Or slightly earlier. Never overrun. Your attendees are busy people and have meetings and places to be. Again, they are not a captive audience with the promise of a free drink or six at the end of the show and will leave the session at the published time. This means any closing remarks, thanks to sponsors or calls to action will be lost, and the benefit of the session in the first place significantly reduced.
Test the platform upfront. There are so many different platforms out there now, all with their own quirks and foibles. Each one has a different workflow to share your screen to give a presentation or require an upload prior to the session. Others require a certain browser to work properly, and they all seem to handle audio devices in different ways. Get it sorted upfront.
Position your camera properly. Everybody’s home setup is different, but there are basics that need to be observed. Don’t sit with a window or other light source right behind you as it will darken your image such that you can’t be seen. Can’t move? Then close the curtains. Try out different lights in different locations to get the best picture of you (you want to be recognised at a real conference, later on, don’t you?), and get the camera at the same hight as your eyes. Nobody wants to look into your nostrils. This might mean putting your laptop on a stack of books or similar, but the change is very noticeable.
Use a wired microphone and headphones. Having audio coming out of your speakers is suboptimal and can result in feedback. Wired is best because of latency and sound quality. There are some Bluetooth headsets and buds available that do a good job here, but they are the exception, not the rule.

The steps you go to ensuring you look good on screen. I need all the help I can get.

Present to the schedule. As a speaker, if you have been given a 15-minute slot, speak for 15 minutes (give or take a couple of minutes I am not a heartless monster). the organisers will have some buffer built-in and can work on the fly for genuine accidental overruns, but if your 15-minute slot goes on for 40 minutes, that is rude and disrespectful to the organisers, the speakers following you, and the audience who may not have even joined to watch you but rather subsequent speakers.
Have a timer. Conversely, more organisers should have a visible countdown clock on-screen that will allow everyone to see how much time they have remaining. Additionally, confirming on a regular basis that the speaker knows they will be interrupted and shut down if they exceed their slot by too much is a good way of reinforcing the message to the speaker.
Have a discussion area available. Not all questions are going to be answered in the session, so having a Slack, Discord or other platforms available will help immensely and ensure your speakers have an opportunity to connect to the audience after the session if need be.
Let everyone speak. A good host will ensure that everyone on a panel or discussion gets the opportunity to put their point across. Most of the time everyone is happy for this to happen, but sometimes people like the sound of their own voice over everyone else’s. Short of removing that person from the session, it is very difficult to manage that without causing embarrassment. Don’t be that person. Let the moderator/host guide you through the whole session as they have a much better idea of what is supposed to happen and when.
For goodness’ sake, have fun! As if this year hasn’t been tough enough already, having an opportunity to get together and listen to good talks should be embraced and be enjoyable.

So, speakers, presenters and organisers alike, some tips to make these new (obligatory post-COVID statement here) webinars and sessions more effective for everyone. There are plenty of other tips (don’t use a virtual background if you don’t have a green screen for instance), but these will certainly improve any even you are involved in, and in whatever capacity.

The best thing about virtual events though is that I can get my tea and snacks whenever I want, and not when the venue staff decide. Win-win.

A Lot of Talking…

Leave a comment March 21, 2019 Thom Langford

One month in and (TL)2 Security seems to be attracting a fair amount of interest which is very heartening. What I am not used to however is projects just disappearing. In my old day job, if i decided to pursue a project we got onto it and did it until it was finished or I decided to abandon it. In my new world that decision is not up to me and so a number of leads have, as is the normal course of things, just gone cold on me.

It is, to say the least, very disconcerting, and I have a new found respect for salespeople as a result. Who knew I would be uttering those words today?

That said, I am also keeping busy preparing for two big speaking engagements coming up:

One Identity UNITE Conference, April 1 – 4 2019

This is a new conference for me, and one where I am doing the closing Keynote of the main conference on Wednesday 3rd April.

A closing keynote is an interesting one to do, and I discussed this with the organisers in a preparation call; the delegates will be tired and need buoying up , the message needs too be uplifting and inspiring, and does not need to be technical or even a core message from the conference.

To that end I will be talking about trust, why it is important, how we lose it and what to do when that happens. Trust is key in IAM, not least because it is a fundamental tenet of uniquely identifying someone under the auspices of the authorising them to a system. But it also matters as we continue to gather more and more details about people in order too ascertain their identity in the first place. I opened a business bank account recently and had to take a photo of my passport to be uploaded in order to be correctly identified. I have to trust that that bank will not lose my passport details or sell them on, and if they do, what are they going to do about it?

Wednesday 3rd April: Won’t Somebody Think of the Users? – Auditorium

I am looking forward to the conference, and while it is driven by a vendor for its users the agenda looks to be very engaging across the board. Any vendor that avoids selling directly during events like this is always OK in my books!

European identity & Cloud Conference, May 14 – 17 2019

I have worked with Kuppinger Cole at this conference (and a couple of their other ones) since 2014; they put on a fantastic show with great talks, and a wide range of workshops and topics. The setup is very professional, and the staging and production vales are very high. As a speaker it is an absolute pleasure as everything is taken care of, your requests are taken seriously and they do their best to make the environment as easy as possible to work in.

In my experience, most conference organisers will focus mostly on the attendees; after all they are the ones that are playing to attend. Speakers are often bundled around, ignored until five minutes before we are required, told we have to use their Windows XP laptop with Powerpoint 2011 on it, and then quickly forgotten about.

Not so Kuppinger Cole. Given I have spoken at their conferences some five times, and enjoyed every part of it means not only do they like what I do, but I also like what they do. To be fair, they also like to get the value for money out of me so I am going to be presenting one keynote and then involved in two other talks:

Tuesday 1§4th May: Facing the Post-GDPR Reality – Auditorium

Wednesday 15th May: How Traditional IAM Will Change Within the next 5 Years – ALPSEE

Wednesday 15th May: Panel: Anonymisation and Pseudonymisation – What Is It and Why Does It Matter? – AMMERSEE I

What I also like about working with Kuppinger Cole is that these are the titles they gave me. I could change them if I really wanted, but as they stand they challenge me to create interesting content and take it in a direction i may not have originally though of.

Ultimately, what I am saying is come and see my talks as i will be delivering with a smile and from a good place (not just the stage), and in fact every speaker will be doing the same. Come and see the difference a happy speaker makes at a fabulous conference!

The Art of the Presentation (Part 3 of 3)

4 Comments July 20, 2018 Thom Langford

It has been a while since part 2, we have had BSides and InfoSec Europe, and it has been a busy time in the day job. Nonetheless, here is the last part of three of “Art of the Presentation” (abridged version) for your edification and delight.

Part 3 is about the actual delivery of your presentation. This is where your deck and your practising come together in perfect harmony to deliver something that is memorable, engaging and above all educational. I believe there are seven key areas that need to be taken into account and addressed, either on the day or mentally before you deliver your presentation.

Presentation Aids

The simplest presentation aid you need is a is a ‘clicker’ remote. You can spend anything from £10 to over £100 on one of these. For your time, I would suggest something in between that, by Logitech or Targus who produce good solid devices. Cheaper devices are not always reliable and will often chew through batteries, the last thing you want live on stage. Personally, I use the Logi Spotlight presentation remote, which has a few bells and whistles such as a built in timer. Moving backwards and forwards from your presentation laptop looks amateurish and breaks the flow of your performance.

You may think you need notes or crib cards as well, my one word of advice is “Don’t”. As I have mentioned before they are a crutch that you will rely on far too much and they remove the natural flow of your presentation. If your nerves (see below) are getting the better of you and you absolutely must have something just in case, have your notes typed up in a large font and very clear markings as to what slide relates to what notes fold them up and keep then on the lectern out of reach (again see below). Once more, avoid this if you can.

Technical Setup

Things to ascertain up front are if you are using your own laptop or the organisers. Using their laptop and sending your Powerpoint or Keynote in advance doesn’t guarantee that your deck will display correctly. Missing fonts, different versions of the software etc.. Making sure you check that your beautifully crafted deck still looks beautiful when up on the screen on stage means you won’t be surprised when you get on stage. Any decent organisers will work with you to find time to not only check if your deck looks good, but also to test your own laptop if need be. If using theirs, they should also provide presentation remotes for their own laptops as well.

If you are using your own laptop, make sure to bring every type of a/v adapter you need, but it boils down to three types:

VGA
DVI
HDMI

These are in increasing order of preference; VGA is an old standard now, but most commonly used. HDMI is the easiest to use and requires the least amount of setup as it operates around a strict standard. More often than I care to recall has the use of VGA and a misconfigured projector or LCD screen resulted in my slides looking stretched and distorted: Heartbroken!

Staging

This may not seem very obvious, but you also try and stand on the stage for a few minutes and walk around it while testing your slides. Set up your laptop if possible so you can see the screen for the next slide etc. and then walk the stage so you know where you can see your screen and where you can’t. The larger conferences will often have a comfort screen at the front that shows your on screen slide, and on rare occasions (when using their own equipment) even have it as a secondary screen.

Walking the stage also ensures your presentation remote will still work at the furthest distance from your laptop; the last thing you want is to lose connection while you are in the middle of your flow. Finally you can also ensure you are at least aware of any trip hazards on there such as loose carpeting or cable runs.

Nerves

There is no getting away from it, but except in very rare cases you will be varying levels of nervous prior to your moment in the spotlight. Nerves are good as they will sharpen your performance, but too much and your performance will rapidly tail off. I recall early in my speaking career physically shaking and attempting to come up with an excuse to not present; it took all the energy I could muster to go on and deliver that day!

One exercise I do can be done very easily, either standing or sitting. Start by slowly clenching your fists until you are squeezing them as hard as you can. Hold this for as long as possible or up to 30 seconds, then very slowly start unclenching your hands. As your figures open, feel the tension release in your forearms and slowly breathe out. Do this 2 or three times and you should find the tension in your body ease a little, as well as feeling somewhat calmer. It isn’t a panacea, and you may well have your own trick for this, but I find it can help you prepare your body for the upcoming performance.

Movement and Oral Delivery

Depending on who you talk to, there is conflicting advice on how you should present from the stage. I was involved in some formal public speaking training a few years back, and their guidance was to stand still, and avoid any kind of arm movement. Not my style at all!

With that said, an movement around the stage should be paced and deliberate, as if you are consciously trying to address a different corner of the audience. Pacing backwards and forwards makes you look nervous, as does rocking on your heels, stepping backwards and forwards as if rocking, etc.. Identify a spot on the stage that is your “base” and plant your feet squarely in it. When you walk around, do so, especially when emphasising certain point, and especially when involving the audience. The return to your spot. The trick of course is to try and make sure you don’t look like a wind up toy, but rather a natural sequence of movements.

Using your hands is perfectly acceptable, as you can use them to emphasis you points, and even put across your emotions and feelings about certain areas. Be aware however, that sometimes you will need to use a handheld microphone, and if you haven’t practised not moving your arms it can very easily distract you, especially as your other hand will have a presentation remote in it.

Q&A

There are three things to remember here; firstly don’t expect to know the answer to every question, and say so when you get a question you can’t answer. Promise to follow up with the individual, and if you have social media accounts or other means of sharing further information with your audience then use it to publicly do so.

Secondly, always repeat the question. Not everyone will have heard it and your repeating of it through the microphone will help. This also has the added bonus of giving you more time to consider your answer.

Finally, always do your best to call out “more of a comment than a question” type of questions. depending on your style either call it out as not a question, or say it is too complex to answer easily now so you will catch up with them afterwards. These types of questions will almost always derail any Q&A session.

When it all Goes Wrong

What if you freeze, or your slides stop working, or you get lost in the presentation, or your trousers fall down or something awful happens?, well, always make sure you have a plan. It may be as simple as always going back to the previous slide to pick up where you last knew what you were talking about, or even having your slides on an iPad (with he correct A/V adapters if possible, or having a routine to check your clothing before you walk on stage.

Remember, there will be very few people in the audience willing you to fail. Virtually everyone is on your side, and hoping you will educate and entertain them. They will be very accommodating and accepting of mistakes. This accommodation does not last forever however. If you constantly fail to deliver in subsequent talks because you haven’t learnt anything g or failed to seek help, your reputation will precede you.

Take every mistake as a learning experience, and over time, you will find yourself learning less and even teaching more.

The Golden Rule

This is part eight of my seven part list. Bear with me.

Never, ever, run over time. Anything more than 30 seconds is going to affect the timings of the rest of the day. Unless an organiser explicitly asks you to continue past your time you need to get off stage so the next speaker can get on.

You can however finish early; a good conference will find ways of filling the gap, either stepping up to ask questions when no one else will, or even filling the space themselves.

So there it is, three parts to help you in your public speaking career. I hope some of you found it useful, and as always you can reach out to argue with me or come up with other tips. Thanks for listening!

The Art of the Presentation (Part 2 of 3)

3 Comments May 30, 2018 Thom Langford

You’ve created your presentation, now you need to practise. Or as the great Yogi Berra put it:

In theory there is no difference between theory and practise. In practise, there is.

Almost certainly in the early days of your presenting you will need to practise a considerable amount. There are two main reasons for this; firstly you will be presenting your own unique content for the first time in an open forum like a conference, which means you will need to be absolutely sure of what it is you are going to say to ensure you don’t come across as someone who is less knowledgeable than you are. Secondly, you will almost always be nervous. How quickly you overcome your nerves will vary greatly from person to person and a variety of other factors. For me it took just over two years before my nerves stopped kicking in to the point where they were visible.

The key to coming across confidently is to know what you are going to say right from your first sentence, all the way through to your last sentence. You also need to ensure that you don’t learn every single word of the talk parrot fashion. Unless you have a gift for remembering dialogue (in which case you will sound like you are simply reading your verbiage), you will have to employ a few tricks to get around this…

The Opening

Firstly, practise your very first sentence, and make it snappy and to the point, and impactful at the same time if you can. Don’t drone on about how happy you are to be here, what your name is, thank you all for coming, I hope you like my talk, how you can’t believe you are stood in front of such a talented crowd at this amazing conference etc.. I recall practising in front of a good friend, and before I had got halfway through my introductory sentence he bellowed:

BORRRRRIIIIING! YAWN

His point was that people weren’t there to hear your platitudes, they are here to get their money’s worth and listen to what you have got to say, so just get on with it. Additionally, if people want to know more about you personally they will either read your bio in the conference agenda, or look you up after the talk. Do not spend five minutes establishing your credentials as not only can it come across as egotistical (except in very rare circumstances) but erodes your impact as a confident and knowledgeable speaker.

Slide on the slides

The second trick is to use your slides as a prompt for a train of thought rather than using them as an aid to specific sentences you want to remember. In the first blog on this topic I mentioned using imagery as much as possible; avoiding the use of bullet points or long sentences as much as possible means you won’t be tempted to rely on the text for what you are going to say. Try to sound conversational, and while practising do consider filming yourself or at the very least an audio recording. Running through it a few times will help embed a few key phrases in your head you can move between, and also give your imagination a chance expand further on your thoughts. Having a few Tweetable length phrases ready to roll off your tongue is a useful way of making an impact with few words, as well as encouraging people to potentially tweet your quotes during the talk (an increase your audience). Don’t forget your “story” or the beginning, middle, end structure either.

Variety

This point is also an opportunity to practise varying the tone and pitch of your voice, the use of your hands and even how you want to move around. Practise slowing down your talking , and possible even lowering your volume (more easily achieved if you are going to be using a microphone), when you want to emphasis something of critical importance. You can also speed up and become more animated on sections that you find exciting, fun or revealing. A little bit of humour thrown in as well helps, but be careful here, especially with an international audience. Test it on colleagues and peers first.

The Close

So you have made it through the deck and you are on your last slide; before you know it you have finished your presentation. how do you finish? “And, um, that’s it really…” is not the way to go. See the first point and memorise a closing statement, something straightforward, and again, snappy. “With that, I will close and thank you all for your time and attention. I will now take questions” is a good place to start. Don’t be afraid to make changes to the deck and the story as you go through either; they will evolve as you become more proficient, and the deck should not limit your message; the message dictates the deck.

How often should you run through your deck? In my early days I would practise at least five times, recording it a few times, and often in front of a critical friend or two. This is a very real time commitment, so be aware and plan it into the creation of your presentation to meet your deadline. As you get more comfortable, you will be rehearsing the presentation as you create the deck, and after a few reviews will know what you are going to say (roughly) with each slide and each transition.

Patience

Above all, be patient with the process; like anything it takes thousands of hours to be proficient at something depending upon your natural ability, the circumstances and the topic in hand. If you are not having fun, ascertain what part of the process are you not enjoying? Very often, I talk to people who hate the entire process, including the presenting, until immediately after when they get such a rush they want to do it again. if that is the case, the painful parts do get easier. Also, make sure you find someone who will honestly critique your presentation either in person or after watching a recording. Take their viewpoint very seriously, and if they are a serious speaker then all the better.

So, if you are wondering how you can get to Carnegie Hall, as the violinist turned comedian Jack Benny once answered:

Practise Practise Practise!

Next time, The Art of the Presentation (part 3 of 3) – The Delivery.

Note: Look out for a new YouTube series from me coming soon, The Lost CISO!

The Art of the Presentation (Part 1 of 3)

1 Comment May 18, 2018 Thom Langford

In a post a few years ago I talked about The Art of the Conference, and what conference organisers can do to improve their conferences and make lives easier for their presenters. I was reminded of this post again recently as this is the sixth year that I am mentoring a rookie speaker at BSides London, and in my initial conversation with them I discussed a three stage approach to creating, practising and delivering the talk (the latter of which touches on the content of my previous post).

This post focusses on the first part of this process, the actual creation of the talk.

The Idea

This is actually the hardest part of the entire process (aside perhaps from actually standing in front of 200 people of course). In my experience many people try to not only come up with a wholly unique idea, but then try and explore it in too much detail. Given your talk will probably be competing against many other talks, the easiest way to make yours stand out is with it’s simplicity. Take the core of a topic, and honestly ask yourself what your view on it is; do you agree with it, if not why not, what could be better, what is your experience of it and how have you addressed it? By keeping it simple your audience will have more chance of remembering what you said. This process could take anywhere from minutes to weeks and weeks dependent upon your experience, knowledge and confidence. Don’t assume however that just because you have an opinion that everyone else is fully knowledgeable of it either; if nothing else you are bringing your own unique viewpoint.

The Creative

This is a point at which your approach may differ, but I have always found this the best way of actually inspiring myself and getting my story straight. I fill a sheet of paper with boxes (below) and then start to sketch out, not always legibly) the approach I am going to take on the deck I produce. I do this because it ensures I don’t write any actual prose on the topic; personally when I do this I find it very difficult to then pull myself away from the prose when presenting. It is a mental block of sorts of course, but this approach allows me to sketch out the story of my talk without having to get attached to a certain way of saying things

I try and avoid too many words as they are a distraction to the audience, and focus on high resolution images that help embellish my point or provoke an appropriate reaction from the audience. There are some very good books on creating slides for presentation that I have referenced, Presentation Zen and Slide:ology; I strongly recommend these to anyone who wants to up their game on the visual presentation side of things.

This approach also allows you to build a story; making sure your presentation has a beginning, middle and end help draw your audience in. What talk would you rather watch…

My talk is about a simple technology we used to allow someone to Tweet over a phone call.

John Doe is a man who was imprisoned on the flimsiest of evidence and with ludicrously high bail. He had restricted access to legal counsel and even family were not allowed to visit him. His entire campaign for justice was focussed around his significant Twitter followers, and given his elevated fame in his industry was where most of his support would come from. Here is the story of how we used a Raspberry Pi, two cans, a length of string and Python to allow him to live Tweet from his weekly phone call, directly and un-redacted, and ultimately beat the corrupt government that had arrested him.

Your approach needs to be simple, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be dull.

The Timings

Timing a presentation is very difficult, but after some experience I have found I can not only tell roughly what the length of a presentation created like this, but can also vary it in length, sometimes upon to 100%. The other rule of thumb is to dive the number of minutes you have by the number of slides. One slide for roughly every minute is a good place to start, but keep an eye out for when that number increases. Trying to cover more than one slide every 15 seconds is going to be very challenging.

The Takeaways

I often say that people will remember less than 30% of what you said less that 30 minutes after you have finished speaking. Not only is this where the simplicity of your deck is important, but also making sure you leave the audience with clear activities or advice on what to do next is vitally important. If you don’t do this, you will leave the audience somewhat nonplussed even if your content is great. As one close friend of mine said to me after I had asked for feedback: