I have to thank Lester Holt from NBC evening news for this one. Lester’s gang uses it regularly and every time, I am reminded how useful it can be for us. Whenever Miguel Almaguer, Hallie Jackson, Andrea Mitchell, Richard Engel (who is usually far, far away!) and all the others finish their report, it always ends with “Lester?” He then has his cue and picks it up from there. You can do this with your Zoom presentations, asking the audience to do the same…simply choose another attendee’s name and add a question mark to keep the discussion rolling.
I watched a video recently of ten or so professionals having a discussion where rather than using hand offs, they used resounding periods. Almost every time someone finished speaking, there was an awkward moment of silence as they wondered who would speak next.
You can use this same tactic when you are presenting with a partner. I work twice yearly with professional speaker Conor Cuneen, IrishmanSpeaks in a back-and-forth format of lecturettes. Conor is known far and wide as a well-rehearsed presenter…except when he works with me! We both like to present ‘in the moment’, especially for this audience, so use the ‘Lester Holt technique’ and hear our dear names called out with a question mark at the end, keeping the flow going. It works every single time even when I have no idea what Conor was going to say…and maybe he didn’t either!