Last week (yeah, I’ve been busy) was the first time I’d delivered a web-conference – using Microsoft LiveMeeting at my current customer site.
As others have reported in the past, it’s a little weird not being able to look into the eyes of the people you’re presenting to but I’m pretty passionate about the OEM Performance Pages and ASH instrumentation, so I think I probably just about pulled it off. However, the second half was much better than the first half after someone suggested I asked if anyone had any questions*! For one, it’s difficult to know if people are following you if you can’t see them so it’s better to check and, for another, hearing other voices on the line helps alleviate the strange feeling of talking into a void!
* … and, interestingly, they asked the question via IM, rather than pipe up verbally in the meeting and interrupt me which was both nice of them and also an indication that the web-conference experience is weird from both sides.