A powerful presentation is fueled by audience interaction moments. Many of us will agree. Yet most of us struggle with the actual implementation of these interaction moments. An event professional will ask: “When during my event do I engage with my crowd?”. A speaker will ask: “When during my presentation do I ask a question to the attendees?”. Prevent over asking, but cover all your information needs. We identified 5 key interaction moments that will result in a balanced scheme of speaking ánd interacting!

Interactions moments with your audience | 5 key moments

## 1. Opening | An entertaining multiple question

Ask a simple and light opening question upon the opening of your session. This will get everyone in the mood for interaction and on the moment suprême you can be sure of high response rates. People will remember how they can participate. As an example let attendees respond to a multiple question and with it let them rate their neighbour for “their degree of innovativity”.

## 2. Presentation intro | A clarifying multiple choice question

When starting a presentation you can choose an icebreaker in the form of a [multiple choice question](/en/questions/multiple-choice/). This sets the context for the rest of your story line. You’ll know if you’ll need to convince your crowd or whether you’re surounded by like minded souls. “Sustainability needs more attention on individual level, rather then on a corporate level” A) Agree B) Disagree – is a great introduction to a presentation on corporate social responsibility! 

## 3. Presentation body | An in between energizer

Regardless of how interesting your story is – the attention span will start to decrease after 15-20 minutes. Built in a multiple choice question, just to shake up your audience and put them into a pro-active mindset. Check how a theme is alive

(or not)
within ones organization e.g. “I’m proud of the small ecological footprint that my company leaves” A) Agree B) Disagree.

## 4. Presentation closing | Inspiring Q&A interaction moments
Allow your audience to send in questions throughout your presentation. Either pause and schedule interaction moments after every 5-10 minutes or save all the input to deal with after your presentation. Show all questions or only publish a selection on the screen. Let the chairman ask the questions or have a [professional sidekick](/en/professional-event-services/) take on this role as “voice of the audience”.


## 5. The End | An evaluating wordcloud
Time to check in for one more last time. Ask the audience how they evaluate today’s event. Either with a [live word cloud](/en/questions/wordcloud/) or otherwhise with a short online survey. Why wait till tomorrow? Built an evaluation moment into your program and get a high response rate. And better scoring evaluations. You can choose to share outcomes or simply keep them to yourself and use it internally within your team. It’s up to you!

Inspired? Time to turn your inspiration into exciting questions and add them to your PowerPoint presentation with help of the Sendsteps solution!

A powerful presentation is fueled by audience interaction moments. Many of us will agree. Yet most of us struggle with these interaction moments.

Interaction moments with your audience | Sendsteps

Man explaining something to his colleague

How powerful questions inspire you to grow

We watched 35 videos to help you ask better questions, and then selected the 5 most useful and inspiring of them. To save you time you’ll find a summary for each one below. These videos try to make you a better listener, questioner, and leader….

Embrace emotions like uncertainty, anxiety, and stress

Ask “What could we do?” instead of “What should we do?”

Mike Vaughan’s thoughtful presentation gives valuable insights into why we should ask better questions. The way of getting from automatic and reactionary thinking to deep thinking:

1. Mike Vaughan

Don’t pontificate. Let others respond to your opinion.

Go with the flow. That means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind. While your partner talks to you, listen to what he says and don’t think about something else.

If you don’t know, say that you don’t know.

Don’t equate your experience with theirs. All experiences are unique.

Leave the details out. People don’t care about the years, the names, the dates.

In her funny and entertaining presentation, Celeste Headlee collected 10 basic rules for having a better conversation.

2. Celeste Headlee

Pay attention to the sound. How many individual channels of sound can you hear?

Enjoy mundane sounds like a coffee grinder.

RASA stands for Receive, which means pay attention to the person; Appreciate, making little noises like “hmm,” “oh,” “okay”; Summarize, the word “so” is very important in communication; and Ask, ask questions afterward.

Julian Treasure advised us to do 5 simple exercises in order to improve our listening skills.

3. Julian Treasure

Where are you looking to anticipate the next change to your business model or your life?

What is the diversity measure of your personal and professional stakeholder network?

Are you courageous enough to abandon a practice that has made you successful in the past?

In her thought-provoking presentation, Rosalinde Torres declared that leadership in the 21st century is defined and evidenced by three questions.

4. Rosalinde Torres

**Professor David Clutterbuck** believes that powerful question is powerful because it has an impact, that is why the context makes the question powerful.
He created an acronym for defining a powerful question: **PRAIRIE.**
**P** stands for **Personal** because it relates to you.
**R** stands for **Resonant** because it hits you emotionally and intellectually.
**A** and I stand for **Acute** and **Insensitive**, which means it gets right to the point.
**R** stands for **Reverberating** because it keeps coming back to haunt you.
**I** stands for **Innocent** because it doesn’t have the agenda of the person asking it, it’s solely for the benefit of the person who’s being asked.
**E** stands for **Explicit** because it’s simply expressed.

5. David Clutterbuck

Sendsteps believes that everybody should be able to speak up during presentations. We make free PPT software that allows your audience to vote and send messages live on your slides using their phone. Do you want to give it a try?

We have selected the 5 most useful videos that can help you ask better and powerful questions for your presentation.

How powerful questions inspire you to grow | Sendsteps

You’re about to present. Some of us like it. Some of us can’t sleep anymore. Speaker cue cards are there to give you support and trust throughout your presentation. From TV presenters with years of experience to junior professionals that have to give their first presentation. Regardless of your experience, the following 8 tips will help all of us:


8 tips for your speaker cue cards

**Prevent yourself from writing down entire sentences.** In essence you know what to say. Trust yourself with that. Remember that YOU are the expert on your subject.

## 2. Whitespace

**Keep sufficient whitespace on your cards.** It is calmer to the eye and will help you to easily browse through your keywords. Next to that it allows you to scribble down last-minute thoughts.

## 3. Speaker names

When you’re in charge of announcing or thanking speakers, then **write down names.** In the heat of presenting, you can easily forget the most logical things.

## 4. Speaker pictures
In line with the previous tip, you might also want to **add [LinkedIn] portrait pictures of speakers.** This way you won’t mix up names with people.

## 5. Slide screenshot
A tiny slide screenshot **reminds you of where you are in your [PowerPoint] storyline.** Plus it helps you not to forget to click through to the next slide.

## 6. Time indication
On paper a story is always shorter than when telling it out loud [!]. **Write down your time slot per item in the top right corner.** Nothing is as stressful as having to catch up time.

## 7. Personal presentation
Don’t hold a crumpled piece of paper, but **use a carton card** instead. The backside of your speaker card can carry the logo of the organisation. It’s all about that first [professional] impression!

## 8. Tablet alternative
A tablet, compared to carton speaker cue cards, can be a little challenging to hold and operate while you’re presenting. Especially when also holding a microphone. **Cards are easier to hold**, to store and to put aside throughout your presentation.

1. Keywords

In addition to the tips mentioned above, technology can also provide solutions to enhance your presentation experience. Sendsteps.ai is an [AI presentation maker](/en/ai/) that allows you to engage with your audience in real-time, making your presentation interactive and more memorable. With Sendsteps.ai, you can create interactive presentations that your audience can participate in using their mobile devices, creating a more dynamic and engaging presentation. It also provides real-time feedback, allowing you to adjust your presentation as needed. With Sendsteps.ai, you can transform your presentation from a one-way communication to a two-way conversation, making it more impactful and effective. Whether you are a seasoned presenter or a beginner, Sendsteps.ai can help you deliver a more engaging and memorable presentation.

Bonus tip: use technology

You’re about to present. Some of us like it. Some of us don't. Speaker cue cards are there to give you support and trust throughout your presentation.

8 tips for your speaker cue cards | Sendsteps

Launching your message. Making sure it not only reaches many people their minds, but also their hearts. It is a marketer’s challenge to get a message across – to let it resonate with the listener: be it in print, on the Web or through any other form of media. Public speaking however is often a form of communication that lacks the professional marketing attention. Presentations are often made by ourselves, on a late evening, alone, isolated in one’s cocoon, and without the support of a critical colleague. Some of us even getting lost in the design of PowerPoint slides.
Yet, a little more awareness about the different types of audiences in a presentation can already make a significant difference. It makes it easier to boost your persuasive speaking and to reach your target audience. In this blog we’ll therefore address the question: *"How to relate to your audience in the best way?"*

Types of audiences in presentation and public speaking

Is there some sort or hierarchy in the group that needs to be addressed?

Are there any cultural differences to take into account?

Will attendees respond anonymous or non-anonymous to my questions?

How do I create a sense of safety with help of my room setup?

How formal or informal do I address my attendees?

This immediately raises the question; **What’s the role of your audience, as a group and as individuals, and in what context are they listening to your presentation?** In marketing plans a primary audience, a secondary audience and even tertiary audiences are defined to predict and measure the impact of a message. These different ‘layers’ relate to how far your message will end up. That is, beyond the venue in which you give your presentation. As it is already challenging enough to relate to your primary audience, we’ll therefore will stick to this group (but when you’re a frequent speaker – you might want to dive into these theories).

Based on example(s) we’ll take a tour along different crowds that are potential listeners to your story. From uninformed audience to subject experts and from students to board members. Based on your audience analysis, which you’ll notice almost is a psychological analysis, you’ll be able to make smaller and larger strategic decisions with regards to your presentation. **For instance on questions like:**

“How to relate to your audience in the best way?”

Just like a professional marketer; find out who is listening, twist and tweak your story or even make radical changes and leave a lasting impression with your audience!

### Types of audiences in different types of communication
A presentation always carries a message and a trigger to some sort of action. You might want to entertain, inform or instruct people or maybe you want to sell something. Interactive presentations are an effective way to clarify the message you want to send to your audiences and ensure that your message is not only heard, but also remembered. With the help of technology like Sendsteps, speakers can gather real-time feedback from their audience, by adding for example an [open ended question](https://www.sendsteps.com/en/questions/open-ended/) to the presentation and use it to adjust their message accordingly. Read [this blog](/en/blog/get-real-time-feedback-during-course-with-live-polls/) on how you can use [Sendsteps](https://web.sendsteps.com/) and gather feedback from your audience. 

**It helps to ask a short set of [live questions](/en/questions/) to your audience.** To sense their energy, to relate to their knowledge level and to get a better demographic/psychological analysis and understanding. You can do so by asking people to sit or stand up as a mean to reply to your question, or they can cast votes through an [audience response system](/en/audience-response-system/). The system lets you create [polls](/en/sms-polling/), [quizzes](/en/questions/quiz/), and surveys that can be displayed on the screen, and attendees can respond using their mobile devices. This will help you to define the types of audiences in presentation. Plus, it is interesting for the attendees themselves too!

**As a speaker you carry authority** based on your specific achievements, knowledge or based on a specific social status which your audience doesn’t have yet. This makes you and your presentation unique and it’s the reason why you are given the floor for your presentation;

Authority however, in whatever form has a certain **energetic impact** on an audience. There’s never a complete neutral attitude of the audience towards you and your story. People can be a big fan of your ideas or they can almost be hostile towards them. This can already start with how you’re being anounced during an event or within an event program. It’s important to be aware of this;

**Anonymous Voting,** in certain cultures it might be a bit exciting to answer [live questions](/en/questions/) from somebody higher in the hierarchy (e.g. in parts of Asia). In such a case anonymous voting already helps to lower a barrier for an audience to give authentic feedback. Discover on the spot how your attendees relate to your topic and as such finetune your onward story. Speak with authority or maybe temper it somewhat – sense from the first minute how the rest of your story can have a smooth landing!

The model implies that every person carries three characteristics within oneself: **a Parent, an Adult and a Child.** None of the roles is right or wrong, but in the very moment one role can be more effective than the other. A boss presenting to its employees, can easily be recognized as a Parent talking to a Child. Being aware of this analysis, can for instance help to adjust your tone more to an Adult, which also triggers the Adult character within the audience. Or more concrete: as a boss don’t tell employees what to do or what not to do, but address their own capacities and **create a sense of empowerment** instead. You can turn this into a live action by asking the audience: “How would you solve this?”. Let attendees discuss with their neighbour, to create ownership within the audience, and let them reply live or anonymous. After that, reflect on the input and give your idea maybe not as the solution, but as a suggestion. You’ll notice that analyzing the types of audiences, letting them play a role in your story, often results in a more well-received story and it supports your persuasive speaking.

A platform with a speaker and an attendee in an audience, **easily triggers the resemblance with a parent** telling something to his or her child. During public speaking, a neutral [audience] approach is almost impossible. Therefore the understanding of the Parent-Adult-Child model, a psychological model, can help you to further gain insight in your persuasive speaking style;

### In public speaking, persuasive speaking; The Parent-Adult-Child Model


Once you know better who your audience is and once you’re more aware of how you’re being perceived as a speaker, then **relate your contribution to the right Parent-Adult-Child character** and address a yet uninformed audience. From there the form and tone of your presentation develops almost automatically and strategic choices flow more natural.

Dealing with uninformed audience

**Less hierarchy?** Do you want to prevent being perceived too much as an authority? Then take away the lectern to stand behind. Or leave the stage completely and stand in the middle of the room. Instead of your audience sitting in rows, seat them around you in a circle on an equal height. Almost as having a cat walk. Do you sense that actually more authority might help your message, then of course make use of that lectern, stage and seating in rows.

**Safe environment?** Do you want to take away an unsafe feeling (e.g. when discussing personal or very strategic subjects)? Use an [audience response system](/en/audience-response-system/) and allow students, business relations, members or employees to reply to questions anonymous. The use of such a tool also allows an online audience to participate in your presentation and discussion. During brainstorms for instance, it requires a lot of trust to share an idea. Plus you also like to foster creativity the Child role in a group, so the use of anonymous replies can help building an energy of trust. At the end of the session you might not even need a tool anymore, simply because everyone will feel safe and will start to share freely annd happily!

Because of your knowledge about the audience now, some of these choices can be made so much easier. You’ll be able to tailor your story better to the crowd and its dynamics. Taking some time to figure this out, will help you to deliver a story that won’t be forgotten easily! In short, you’ll leave a lasting impression! So, what do you know about your audience?

In conclusion, knowing your audience and adjusting your message accordingly is key to delivering an effective presentation. By using an interactive presentation tool like Sendsteps, speakers can engage their audience and gather real-time feedback, making it easier to tailor their message to the needs of the audience.

Launching your message to the right audiences. Making sure it reaches many people their minds and hearts.

Types of Audiences in Presentation and Public Speaking

11% of Amsterdam-based freelancers feel “seriously lonely”. Think of web designers, copywriters or musicians. Professionals who are passionate in what they do. Far from ‘people shy’, but the nature of their work often involves a high level of solitude.
Some freelancers deal well with that, they even like it, but 11% simply struggles with it. Visiting a Starbucks, doesn’t necessarily do the trick.

Safe Room Amsterdam

**Recognition.** To what extent do you yourself recognize the challenges around the subject?
**What can you do about it yourself?** In little groups talking through concrete solutions.
**What can others do about it?** Reflections from expert speakers that talk along with the audience.

Safe Room Amsterdam: the concept

## Fixed characteristics 
Next to that, every Safe Room edition always contains a few fixed characteristics:

### Safe Bubble
A small living room pre-event with 8 attendees to talk through the topic and finetune the content for the actual event.

### Facilitation
The actual Safe Room event is hosted by two facilitators; a man and a woman.

### Audience response technology
The event makes use of Sendsteps to participate anonymously. This fosters people to share without having to speak in public.

### Role of expert speakers
The speakers are seated among the rest of the audience. They’re not invited to give a presentation, but are there to reflect out loud and think along together with like-minded attendees. Expert speakers come from different backgrounds. Through their input, the subject gets a 360 degree perspective.

During the “recognition” part, Sendsteps was used to ask the audience: **“To what extend did you feel lonely last month?”.** A [too] direct question to ask a group that has just met and doesn’t know each other. Yet, the fact that attendees can [respond anonymous](/en/blog/anonymous-feedback-helpful-for-these-3-meetings/), allows the facilitators to immediately start a dialogue on a substantial level.

There’s no need asking “who responded a,b or c?”, **the result on the screen is all that counts.** From there you can easily ask clarifying questions like “Who likes to elaborate on this?”. Or, “Who recognizes this?”. The anonymous responses on the screen often work as a trigger to many attendees to share a little from their own experiences. From there, the expert speakers can easily tap into the discussion and the talks become lively and dynamic.

## Group talks in a safe setting
With taboos it is easy to lose yourself in negativity. **Yet, Safe Room encourages attendees to contribute to a positive forward-thinking climate.** Which ideas are there to share? How can you profit from other person’s best practices? During a plenary summary, groups and individuals are briefly interviewed by the facilitators to share outcomes. But only, if people are willing and if they feel safe enough to do so. At all times Safe Room attendees should feel comfortable and safe to join the conversation if they like to.

Anonymous replies, lively talks!

## Live evaluation and concrete results
The first edition of Safe Room Amsterdam was evaluated on the spot. On purpose; to evaluate what went well and what could be further improved. The evaluation was done with help of Sendsteps and the results were shared with the audience. The event scored an 8.3 and received constructive tips for next editions.

For instance, introducing “connectors” helping people that walk into the group, to connect with other attendees. Besides the evaluation of the event, the attendees also agreed to start small initiatives among themselves [a monthly meetup, a talk with co-working spaces to see what can be done together etc.]; in line the with the philosophy of the event!

## Sendsteps a proud sponsor
Sendsteps founder and CEO **Steven Blom** is a big fan of the Safe Room concept:

In the #metoo era, in times of fake news and social media facades it is great to create events and places where people can openly talk about whatever challenge they experience. **The Safe Room concept caters well to this need that many people have.** And Sendsteps is used in a very constructive way as such. We’re happy to sponsor this new and positive initiative!

11% of Amsterdam-based freelancers feel “seriously lonely”. Think of web designers, copywriters or musicians.

Safe Room Amsterdam | Sendsteps

Imagine a meeting that you leave full of energy. Encounters with colleagues and talks that just greatly inspire you! Unfortunately, these kinds of meetings rather seem an exception than a rule. There are some worrying figures out there that underline the ineffectiveness of most of our meeting behavior. According to research conducted by American software company Altlassian:

How to run an effective meeting: 4 essential ingredients!

… 91% of the average meeting goers daydream

… 31 meeting hours per month are considered unproductive

… 50% of the average meeting goers consider meetings a waste of time

Altlassian puts the cost of unnecessary meetings to US businesses, in terms of wasted salary hours, at $37 billion. In short, it seems your staff meetings are considered productivity killers.
We hear you thinking “Hold on, we can’t just stop having meetings then?”. Indeed, we can’t. Although, are you really sure? In most cases the answer indeed is no: we can’t stop hosting and attending meetings. We’ll therefore have to come up with different strategies. How to run a meeting that is an effective meeting on one hand and still a pleasant contact moment on the other hand? There isn’t a specific template to apply, but there are some pretty straightforward guidelines to follow. Start experimenting with a few of these ingredients and you’ll see your meetings change to the better!

**Define your goal:** An open door? Maybe, but in practice there aren’t many meetings that start with describing the goal of “why we’re here together”. As a meeting host, make sure to define your goal as concrete as possible and share this at the start of the meeting – or even better, enclose it with your meeting invitation. In it also describe the form of the meeting: is it a brainstorm, an informative session or do you want to have a debate?

**Meet online or offline:** Do you need to reserve a meeting room? What if the same meeting can be attended online via a conference call, Skype or a livestream? With help of Sendsteps, online attendees can vote on proposals or reply to questions during short presentations. If technology can be an alternative for your physical meeting, then think of the costs you can save in terms of time and travel!

**Who’s joining?:** Consider who is invited to your meeting. Select strategically and be aware of team member roles. Which colleagues have a large network? Who is a subject expert? Is there a good balance between introverts and extraverts? Our recent blog about “How to build trust in the workplace” might give you some more ideas.

**Pre-meeting survey:** Once your goals are clear, when you know who is joining and how your meeting takes place, then make sure to setup a short pre-meeting survey: this way you can collect expectations from all attendees. This will help you, in the days before your meeting, to further tailor the meeting to everyone’s information needs. For those with a [free] Sendsteps account – check out the Sendsteps Survey functionality and get started straight away.

Obviously, when there is more at stake, the more time you’d like to invest in preparing your meeting. And there’s more to prepare than you might have expected – and so, more to be successful at too!

1: Pre-meeting input: What to prepare in advance of the meeting?

A comfy space helps us to concentrate and to get inspired. So, let’s see what’s there to improve in your meeting room.
**The space:** To start with, a tidy space gives space in your head too. In a number of studies, plants also have shown their positive effect on the work floor. **According to US Professor Roger Ulrich:** “They attract attention without effort and evoke positive emotions that can respectively promote renewal of the capacity to concentrate and interrupt the stress process”.

Did you ever consider the factor ‘color’ upon answering the question of how to run a meeting? Well, you can go as far as adapting the color scheme in your meeting room. Scandinavian hotel chain Radisson SAS took the factor color very serious in designing their hotel meeting spaces: **“Each color has both a physical and mental influence on our wellbeing and general health”.** Bright colors make us want to engage stronger, nature colors express harmony and reliability and green in all its tones stands for innovation and optimism.

Finally be aware of what impact your seating plan has on the meeting. If as a host you want to make a decision at the end of the meeting, you might want to sit at the head of the table. However, if you rather like to have a brainstorm, then it makes more sense to have somebody else take a seat at the head of the table. Or to make use of a round table. Or like in many Japanese meetings: don’t have a table and chair at all and have a **standing meeting.** According to Forbes, this will even cut meeting time by 36%!

**The meeting space getaways:** If your own office simply isn’t the most inspiring place, or if you don’t have the space to host larger groups, then there’s hundreds of alternatives. In larger cities you see more and more smaller meeting spaces being offered, that have the vibe of a living room. In Amsterdam, **Singel 80** is a good example of a living room-style meeting space in an old canal house. Next to popular meeting centers like **Seats2meet.com** and **Spaces**, international hotel chains like **citizenM** and **The Student Hotel** also do a great job on offering creative and fun places to meetup. Go out of your office and leave the comfort zone!

2: Setting the meeting stage: How should you the ideal meeting space look like?

Now that you’ve prepared and organized both the content and the meeting venue, it is time for the actual meeting. Factor “time” is one of the most important influencers on the success of your meeting. That’s why we take a closer look on clever time management tricks:
**When to meet:** Pick the right moment of the week for your meeting. Mondays are often packed with “to-do’s” after the weekend and Fridays can be lower in energy. So, pick a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Attendees tend to lose focus after 45 minutes, so plan an hour and try to squeeze it into 45 minutes. Also, the moment of the day matters. Early morning meetings often loose time on people catching coffee, colleagues running late because of the traffic or colleagues not awake yet. Yet late in the morning people are most alert and therefore are a good moment to meet. However, don’t schedule it too close towards lunch time; The meeting might become unnecessary long because of colleagues wanting to use the lunchtime as extra meeting time. It remains to be seen how effective this extra time is and how strong the decisions will be.

**Manage speaking time:** Delegate a timekeeper who makes sure to stick to your agenda time slots. Announce him or her upfront, so that attendees are familiar with the person’s role. You can prevent individuals to “monopolize the conversation” not only by strong chairmanship, but also by making use of technology. Sendsteps allows you to quickly collect data during a meeting. For instance, by [letting attendees vote](/en/questions/upvoting/) through their smartphone versus live reflections of individual attendees. Once the results are on the screen, you can spend time on a general discussion about the outcome.

In the same way, you can also let attendees send in questions, that don’t necessarily need to be answered during the meeting; but you can filter the most important ones and answer the rest at a later stage. You might even want to appoint a “sidekick”, a team member that monitors all incoming messages through the Sendsteps [message filter](/en/blog/interactive-text-response/) and who interrupts once there is interesting content to share.

3: Time management tricks: How to cleverly deal with the factor time during your meeting?

**Create ownership:** Instead of creating your own work out of a meeting, make sure to assign activities towards individual attendees. This not only makes your work less, but you also easily create ownership over a project or activity. It also helps to distribute a short list of outcomes after your meeting. This is something else than minutes: more compact and to the point. Combine these notes with some of your poll- and evaluation results, and people will be eager to attend your next meeting. And, you’ve showed them how to run an effective meeting!

**Evaluate:** In your last agenda item, briefly make a round and ask attendees “what went well and what’s there to improve in the next meeting”? Alternatively, you can do the same by asking your attendees to fill out a short online questionnaire [e.g. via the Sendsteps Survey functionality]. When asking to evaluate within the same meeting, you’ll not only get more responses [‘your attendees all have something else to do tomorrow morning’], but also higher evaluation scores.

Once your well-prepared meeting has finished, you might want to follow up with a few last activities.

4: Post-meeting follow up: create ownership and activate team members

Imagine you have an effective meeting that you leave full of energy. Encounters with colleagues and talks that just greatly inspire you!

How to run an effective meeting | Sendsteps

In business, the word ‘trust’ can easily be perceived as a hallow term. It can be difficult to grasp the real meaning of it. Trust might not be easy to quantify, but everyone will agree that it is worth spending time and resources on. [British employee engagement specialist Susan Jacobs](https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-jacobs-a896a312/?ppe=1), known from the Jacobs Model, defined the following 8 drivers of trust on the work floor:

Infographic about trust in business meetings

How to build trust in the workplace by having better meetings

A sense of belonging: the feeling of an employee being part of a team

Voice and recognition: the possibility to speak up and have a say in decision making

Significance and position: the extent to which an employee feels valued

Equal treatment: the understanding that everyone is treated equally

Learn and experiment: the experience of being able to experiment, make mistakes and learn

Choice and autonomy: the empowerment to make individual choices for the organization

Security and certainty: the sense of being save due to confidence in the team

Purpose: the understanding of how an individual contributes to the whole

At Sendsteps we often relate to trust, since the audience interaction tool is used in settings where trust is such an important ingredient: during all kind of meetings. Think of team building exercises, strategic board room sessions or shareholder meetings. Clients often ask us questions on how to:

Creating Trust | How to organize business meetings?

Karen Stephenson’s theory on trust within office networks. Her theory helps us understand how trust steers information flows within an organization.


A second aspect is that of introvert and extravert team members and how both have different influences on the experience of trust within a team.

And finally, the stage for trust, namely the actual work floor, is of influence for creating a safe and positive atmosphere. We’ll discuss the so-called “open workspace”.

Before answering these questions, it helps to get a better understanding of the different roles and characteristics of your individual team members. What is their influence on trust within the team? Obviously, there are many ways of looking into this. At Sendsteps there are a few perspectives that we believe give an interesting view on trust within your team. We cover three aspects;

**Hubs:** The hubs are the social butterflies of your team. They know a lot of people, are talkative by nature and bring people together. Tell something to a hub and soon everyone will know.

**Gatekeepers:** The gatekeepers play an important role in passing on information to a next level or to block it. They can either use or abuse power.

**Pulse takers:** The pulse takers can be found on the edges of the network. They might not be the center of attention, yet they have sufficient overview, and enough relationships to get a good sense of the picture.

Karen Stephenson is an American professor and corporate anthropologist who does research into “the anatomy of networks”. Stephenson especially focusses on how information flows within a network. For instance, she helped U.S. Defense to identify the weak spots and key connections of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. But her research covers all kinds of networks: from family, to social, to office networks. With it she contributes to a better sense of community and even helps to monetize trust. In her theory, Stephenson defines [three roles](https://www.corpedgroup.com/pdf/three_important_roles.pdf) that are present within every team and that dictate how information flows [or not, with a lack of trust!]. Keep your own organization in mind, when reflecting on the following roles:

Creating Trust | The roles team members play

**Define the roles in your team:** Take a minute and think of your colleagues: who is a typical hub? Could John be a pulse taker? Let it be clear that these roles are informal and not necessarily related to function levels [e.g. a receptionist can be more of gatekeeper than a CFO].When exploring these roles within your team, it might not come as a surprise that most of the speaking time is consumed by hubs. Now think of all the pulse takers among your meeting attendees; actively engage them by asking them questions, or by letting them pitch ideas.

**Spend a team session on roles:** Why not spend a team session on defining these roles together with your team? It can be interesting to do so, because the knowledge of these three roles can be a strategic tool for controlling and building the communication within your team.With a clear team awareness about everyone’s role, you might find a new dynamic in your meetings and group interaction. Do gatekeepers speak up more easily? Can hubs count to 10 before replying? Make it a little challenge and see what happens. Experimenting is the first step towards innovation!

**Rethink your internal and external communication activities;** communicating change traditionally is executed by the communication professionals within your team [hubs]. But in some occasions, there might be other colleagues in the office network that have a much stronger, strategic position within the network [pulse takers for instance]. Can you think of someone else to do the next communication job?

Karen Stephenson claims that innovative companies have a large sense of trust. There are many connections between the individual team members.

### 3 tips to make clever use of different team roles:

So what to do with this information in regard to your office meetings?

**Don’t rush:** Take time for your meeting, but stick to the point. Rather spread a longer meeting over two dates, rather than quickly skimming over agenda items in order to fit them in.

**Introduce think breaks:** Let attendees have a think-break, so that everyone can process information before answering;

**Limit group work:** “Stop the madness for constant group work” [as Susan Cain puts it] – quality can also come from solo time and activities. There isn’t always a “need to discuss in pairs”!

**Facilitate follow up:** Organize a clear follow up; what will be discussed, will be further investigated and processed? Introverts, especially, appreciate their input being taken seriously.

The next trust aspect we’d like to explore is the difference between extravert and introvert team members. Whereas extraverts can often be found in the role of “hub”, introverts are typical “pulse takers”. Let’s zoom in on our introvert employees – one out of two or three of our colleagues!
Introversion is easily mistaken by shyness. But be aware, “introversion is more about how you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation”, says Susan Cain [an American writer, speaker and former Wall Street lawyer]. Introverts are quietly listening and reflecting. They need time to answer. They like substance over chitchat. They’re often overlooked during a meeting or even on a broader scale; when a new management position needs to be fulfilled. Yet, introverts create brilliant work, are thoughtful leaders and only speak during meetings when things are overthought. But, also here; trust is essential in the communication between both groups. Extraverts trusting the work of introverts and vice versa.

### 4 tips to engage extravert and introverts during meetings:
When organizing a meeting, keep in mind both type of employees and create a setting where both experience trust;

Creating Trust | Introvert and extravert employees

**Spread seats for different roles:** Seat your hubs in the middle, then your gatekeepers and let the relatively more quiet spaces belong to the pulsetakers.

**Create your quiet spaces:** A place to focus, to maybe even re-charge; ready for more and better interaction! Solitude is a crucial ingredient for productivity.

**Go out!** Studies show that business trips boast creativity, social cohesion and interaction in the team.

Did you know that 70% of all U.S. offices use open workspaces? Since the mid 2000’s the concept was introduced by many Silicon Valley companies. There are many advantages to having an open workspace. The most important being stronger collaboration. Yet, there are also critical remarks to be made.
In 2005 Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear from the University of Sydney conducted extensive research into differences in employee experiences between those working in an open workspace and those working in private offices. They compared 303 offices. Noise, disruption and sound privacy were the most frequent mentioned negative experiences in open workspaces. At the same time, the ease of interaction was valued most. Interestingly, that aspect was not experienced differently by private office workers.

In short and according to the researchers, the open workspaces are not necessarily the engines of collaboration. For extravert hubs it might work better than it does for introvert pulsetakers. Don’t forget also that the currency of friendship is sharing confidence. Funny enough, this is less easy to achieve in an open workspace. So, it seems there’s no one-size fits all and it comes down to finding what works best for your team.

### 4 tips to engage with your team in different office spaces

When you want to foster interaction in your team then an open workspace seems like the logical step. Yet, when keeping in mind all the different roles we discussed [introverts, extraverts, hubs, gatekeepers and pulsetakers], you’ll need to do some clever thinking of your floor plan so that everyone feels comfortable and experiences the trust to share or to work quietly;

Creating Trust | Open or closed workspaces?

Discuss statements [agree/disagree] in which the word “I” is used. E.g. “I believe our team communication style is effective”. Give your introvert team members a think break, let your gatekeepers speak up.

Facilitate anonymous feedback to get to the core. Sometimes it doesn’t matter who says what, but the fact that an issue is addressed by itself is positive. Don’t ask “who said that?”, but ask “who likes to elaborate on this issue”? Maybe initiate such a talk during a team field trip – in a relaxed setting.

In very strategic meetings it is helpful to know that anonymous is anonymous. Sendsteps technology is ISO compliant and used by Fortune500 companies because of its data security settings.

When there’s trust in the workplace, there’s trust to connect. Space for positive team member relationships from where innovative ideas are born. Keep in mind your team’s DNA and in what kind of setting they feel most trusted. Foster a culture where it is good to ask questions and keep it personal. To make it a bit more concrete:

Conclusion | Meetings with trust

In short, cultivate an atmosphere where employees’ questions come from a desire to grow and learn. As employer, you can create a perfect setting with proper insight in factors that build trust and with the intention to grow and innovate as a team. Meetings that express trust!

In business, the word ‘trust’ can easily be perceived as a hallow term. It can be difficult to grasp the real meaning of it.

How to built trust in the workplace | Sendsteps

Interactive workspaces, what do they look like? And what does it take to realize them? Clients who once used Sendsteps during a one-off event experienced the power of interaction. Many of them decided to proceed with the use of Sendsteps: in-house and via year license of the software. Our Customer Success Manager interviewed 4 professionals who represent diverse industries and who all use Sendsteps within their company. Meet Fedde, Karlijn [VodafoneZiggo], António [BCG] and Ferry [KLM] and hear how they create interactive workspaces: with passion and success!

Interactive workspaces

… cut travel costs by facilitating online participation

… get to the core by allowing anonymous participation

… increase response rates on questions, surveys

… safe time by handy stored data on individual and group level

… create content to be used for new actions

Basically every gathering of stakeholders or employees gives an opportunity for interaction. And with it an opportunity to create value. A vision that is shared and carried by all three interviewed companies. It offers great chances to:

Why are these interactive workspaces value engagement?

There’s many forms to think of in which you can apply audience interaction. VodafoneZiggo uses Sendsteps to facilitate interaction during employee meetings, whereas BCG collects valuable data during client sessions. Other meetings to which you can apply audience engagement are:

How these interactive workspaces apply engagement?

Each meeting requires its own approach if it concerns the type and timing of these questions and how to deal with the outcome of the questions. The better prepared, the more valuable the outcome of your interactive session will be.

How do Interactive workspaces look like? And what does it take to realize them? Clients who used Sendsteps during an event experienced the interaction.

Interactive workspaces | Sendsteps

To most of us presenting on itself is already a challenge. Some get pleasure out of it, but most people are happy when it is over. **So why even involve the audience?** Doesn’t it only make it more difficult for the presenter to manage the story line?

Obvious thoughts, but experience often shows the contrary. Once you let the audience participate in your story, **dynamics will start to work for you**, instead of against you;

Upvoting Feature

**Keep focus:** When going back and forth between speaker and audience, the focus is less on you as speaker. Every now and then this comfortably takes away the pressure. Giving you time to zoom out a little, to decide where to speed up or where to give more attention to. Just make sure you have a script to follow and you won’t lose track.

**Foster engagement:** The audience will feel more involved. They can reflect on what you’ve just said and compare it with their own practice. They can give you and other attendees suggestions or ask you to further explain. When you feel it is time to move on, then remember that you’re in charge at all times!

**Create excitement:** Your story will come to life. Since often as a presenter you’re the expert, you’ll find that hardly none of the audience’s questions will catch you off guard. Trust it. They will actually fuel your story, because you suddenly remember this good example!

**Clearly there’s a moment for everything during presenting.** In most cases a monologue is very useful to kick off with. It gives attendees a clear understanding, they can get used to you as speaker and it gives time to form some first thoughts. Yet, after a few minutes questions will pop into people’s heads…

By using [audience response tool Sendsteps](/en/audience-response-system/) you can let the audience send in comments or questions from the very first moment. This doesn’t mean you have to deal with all of them. Nor deal with them instantly. Your audience can follow all the live comments through the response website on their smartphone. They can give “likes” to questions and comments that appeal most to them. [This is called “upvoting”](/en/questions/upvoting/). Either pause in the middle and deal with a few remarks or save them till the very end. The comments ranked highest are there for you to answer.

Normally [Q&A sessions](/en/questions/qa/) are only short. But this is based on the 1.0 approach whereby the presenter asks “Are there any questions?”. Most attendees don’t dare to speak up. However [!], with the use of the tool you’ll find that attendees send in many more comments. Be clever and schedule more Q&A time and don’t be afraid this will cut down your presentation time: consider it as an essential part! A thumb rule? For each 10 minute presentation – 5 minute Q&A!

When to ‘bring in the audience’?

**Prepare scenario’s**: Being an expert in your topic, you know when attendees can sense possible friction. Or when stakes start to conflict. When thinking from the audience’s perspective, you can already prepare on how to tackle certain concerns or critics.

**Play a joker:** No matter if you’re the CEO or a junior professional, when you receive a difficult question it is perfectly ok to “park it”. Acknowledge the concern or question, let the attendee know you don’t have the answer now, and immediately proceed in informing on how you will follow up. E.g. “That’s a very good question. I understand it bothers you. I find it challenging to answer that question right now, but I’ll get back to it in next month’s newsletter”.

Let’s grab the bull by the horns. Many presenters don’t involve the audience as they can be afraid for unexpected questions.

**Still, what happens when criticism or negativity remains unaddressed?**

Criticasters: How to deal with unexpected comments?

At the end of the day you’ll have to get your message across. You simply can’t answer all the questions of an audience. With Sendsteps you store the raised questions and by using the upvoting option you can easily filter through the questions with most likes. From here you can decide on how to follow up:

Post-event: How to follow up with unanswered comments?

**Write a blog:** In a blog you can address all questions that haven’t been answered during the presentation. Or at least find the common theme and elaborate on that. The blog can be mentioned in a post-event mailing or can be disclosed on an organization’s website.

**Live backstage:** During larger events you can consider a back office where speakers go to after their presentation. An interviewer can then ask those questions that are still unanswered. The backstage interview can be livestreamed on the event website. This allows a remote audience to also attend the event and it generates nice footage for after an event.


**Record a vlog:** In a vlog you can do the same as in a blog. Simply record your answers on video and with it give it a personal touch. Video often scores well and it is great content to spice up the traditional post-event mailing!

**E-mail attendees:** Or simply follow up personally. If you’ve allowed attendees to send in questions identified [a setting in your Sendsteps Dashboard], then you can e-mail them with a personal reaction. Time consuming? Yes, but often with a big impact!

No matter if you’re using “upvoting” or not, it is helpful to have a [professional sidekick](/en/professional-event-services/) onsite, in the audience. Somebody who represents the voice of the audience. The person either selects incoming messages himself, or he uses the ranking of the audience with it. The point is to have someone to put the questions into a perspective, to give a short summary of what has been shared and with it add to a lively presentation and event. This sidekick operates individually and next to a presenter and/or moderator. Someone supporting the process of audience interaction. Entertaining and valuable at the same time.

In short, involve the audience. Trust the flow that will come with it. Experience the added value for all stakeholders of an event. Set it up cleverly and let it work, not against you, but for you!

Tip: The use of a sidekick

Involve your audience in your presentation by making it interactive. Use Sendsteps tp add interactive questions like the Upvoting Question.

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