It has been more than six months since the start of the quarantine. During this time, I have participated in countless virtual events, primarily as a speaker, facilitator, moderator, teacher and host, and secondarily as a participant. The number of my viewers in these events has ranged from one — like in a one-on-one virtual meeting — to more than a thousand.
I may be used to speaking personally to big crowds, but speaking in a virtual event or facilitating a virtual workshop is not exactly my cup of tea. I had to experiment, observe other virtual speakers and read up on best practices. These led me to conclude that the biggest challenge of a speaker in a virtual setting is how to engage his or her audience and sustain its attention.