Product Description

Armed with laptops, cell phones, smartphones, and other devices, audiences have taken are taking control through “the backchannel” of conversation that is now prevalent during live presentations in conference halls, corporate meeting rooms, classrooms and even church pews. The intersection of frustrated audiences with unaware presenters can often create dramatic and public breakdowns of communication and even mob mentality. In this book, master presenter and communications expert Cliff Atkinson shows that if presenters embrace the changes and join the new conversations with audiences, are harnessed and the conversation with audiences properly handled, the outcome can be a new, more effective form of communication.

At the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in 2008, audience members using Twitter confronted a presenter during her interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when they thought she was straying off track. At SXSW 2009, author Guy Kawasaki called out to the audience, “Who is Mary Ann?” and when she raised her hand, he directly asked her confronted an audience member in front of hundreds of people, asking her why she was calling him a vulgar name on Twitter!

Far from being isolated incidents, these examples are signs of the future of live presentations, when audience members shift from passive recipients to active participants, and even presenters become more assertive in engaging the audience. The Backchannel describes the massive impact of social technology on the live presentation environment, and lays out practical steps that audiences and presenters can take to do to take advantage of the situation harness the change to get better results for everyone involved. The book presumes the reader is unfamiliar with social media, Web 2.0, blogging, or Twitter, and will introduce these important concepts and tools as they relate to the book.

About the Author

Cliff Atkinson is the author of Beyond Bullet Points (Microsoft Press, 2007), a bestseller that was named a Best Book of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com. Cliff designed the presentations that helped persuade a jury to award a $253 million verdict to the plaintiff in the nation’s first Vioxx trial in 2005, which Fortune magazine called “frighteningly powerful.” He has taught his approach at many of the country’s top law firms, government agencies, business schools and corporations, including Sony, Toyota, Nestlé, Nokia, Nationwide, Deloitte, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel, Microsoft and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal.