I agreed to talk about a subject, and then learned it would be via a Microsoft Teams live event. I’ve never used it before, and neither have the people I’m working with on this. Can anybody tell me what to expect?
I’m afraid my experience will be that I’m supposed to talk into the camera for 15 minutes straight, as far as I know without any feedback, audience questions, or other information flowing my way. This will be broadcast live. Is this likely the case?
It doesn’t sound pleasant at all. I wish I could write an essay instead – if we’re not going to be interactive at all, there’s no need for it to be live, and yet apparently I can’t prerecord a video. Seems like the worst of all worlds here. Maybe I can just read out loud, though apparently my face will be on all audience screens, and watching somebody read out loud is hardly very uplifting. I’ve done plenty of presenting over the years, but never exactly like this.
Has anybody here done a “live event” on Teams? Can you tell me what options there might be for interaction? For example, is there a “Chat” panel available where the audience can submit questions? I have arranged for a friend to have a phone txt message conversation running with me, so I can get some kind of feedback from her, but might that be the only thing I’d be receiving?
You’ll be speaking into a camera, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be feedback. People will have an opportunity to write questions into a chat box, and if it’s a well-organised event there will be a moderator who’s keeping an eye on that chat box and feed you interesting questions for you to answer verbally. There might also be a question-and-answer round at the end where people turn on their cameras and mikes and ask questions verbally; how that worlds exactly depends, again, on the organisation - the ideal is to have people catch the moderator’s attention by “raising their hand” (which is just a button they click, indicating to everyone that they wish to say something), and then the moderator gives them the floor to ask their question. If done well, it’s not an unpleasant format, although it does take a little while to get used to it.
There are also emoji reactions that attendees can click during the presentation, and you’ll see a little indication of it (thumbs up, heart, applause, laugh, and surprise). At the start of your presentation you can point out this functionality to attendees and encourage them to use it, or get real-time feedback in the middle (“if that all makes sense, click the thumbs-up. If I totally lost you, click the ‘surprised’ reaction”).
And like any online presentation tool, make sure you have your camera and audio devices configured well in advance. It’s also worth playing with your background to see what looks good. Teams is like Zoom - it has an option for blurring, or to replace it with an image.
Sorry, I should have said this, but I’m very familiar with presenting on Teams. I’ve just never done a “live event”.
In my Teams experience, I can see some sampling of faces of people whose cameras are on, and a Chat on the right border (if I turned it on), and emoji type stuff including raising of hands.
Is presenting in a live event exactly like presenting in a regular Teams meeting? Are other faces, a chat, and other people’s emoji clicks visible to me? I’ve heard that what attendees will see is just my face spouting wisdom.
Any idea how big an audience? Microsoft tends to give the same name to wildly different products (e.g. Skype could be either real Skype, which worked, or it could be rebranded Lync, which didn’t).
If it’s a small enough audience, and you’re using the same Teams app you’re used to, then it’s just social engineering to get people to use the chat and the emojis to give you feedback. Sometimes I’ll encourage at least a few people to leave their cameras on so I can see facial expressions.
If “live event” involves a different underlying tool that scales to larger audiences, it may be more one-way and harder for you to get audience feedback. I’ve found all the platforms (Zoom, BlueJeans, etc.) to be more sterile when addressing large audiences.
I agree with earlier suggestions to test the specific tech and to get somebody to monitor the chat to feed you questions.
Gotcha. It’s going to look a bit different with a live event. I assume you are just a Presenter, and not a Producer or Organizer, right? The Producer selects the video feed(s) of the Presenters, but the Presenter can choose to share content from their desktop, so you could share a slide deck or a demo if you want attendees to see something in addition to your smiling face.
You won’t see a live chat from the audience, but there is a producer/organizer chat. You will see questions from the audience and have the opportunity to type answers or answer them live. Questions are first visible to only producers and presenters. There’s a Publish button that shows them to all attendees. You can type answers to questions for everyone to see, or you can respond privately to the individual. You can also Dismiss questions. If you’re lucky, your producer will curate questions so you only have to look at ones that are published.
You won’t see a list of attendees or reactions during the meeting. I was wrong about their ability to click the reactions in a Live Meeting.
ETA: If they haven’t offered it, definitely request a dry run. The controls will be mostly self-explanatory if you’re used to Teams, but it’s different enough that you’ll want to test things out, like “who can see me right now? Who can hear me? Can anyone see this desktop? Is my answer published?”
In my line if work (a UK university) I’ve watched a fair few web-based live events, though have never seen a large (dozens upward) audience, with just a solo speaker, always with at least one companion to act as moderator. Usually they’ve been heavy on the slide presentation, so the moderator triages the Chat thread. I have seen a lot of bumbling with the technology (even when technology is the subject…) so would echo calls to practice beforehand.
Thank you! Very helpful. I’m a presenter, yes. I like that somebody running the show would be able to give me questions.
Unfortunately there’s no way to do a dry run. I don’t have the software, I’ll be joining via browser. I did try joining the (future) meeting and got as far as a dialog saying I’d be admitted when the organizer starts, so the basic level is covered.
I understand the whole event will feature several speakers, each having their time slot, but while we are up we are solo.
This is a presentation to a potentially large amount of people? There will likely be a moderator who curates questions asked through chat and passes them on to you. The effort on your part will be minimal, if they run it right, you will not need to read the questions yourself as their job is to somewhat sort through them, ignore redundant questions, etc. You won’t see their video except the other hosts, and may or may not see “emoji” content.
Also is this a symposium where you are one presenter among many? Hopefully any bugs will be ironed out. You don’t have any Powerpoint/PDF/etc content to present?
Yeah, you won’t be able to do the dry run on your own. I meant if the organizer and producer are willing, to all do a dry run together, along with a few people who can log in as attendees and confirm it’s working smoothly.
But if all you’re doing is presenting, and if the producer knows what they’re doing, you’ll be fine. You just sit there and talk, and maybe type in answers during Q&A. That part will be really straightforward. The producer’s role in selecting the video feeds, letting people in, turning on/off the Q&A, etc. takes a little more familiarity.
I at first thought your comment that the people you’re working with have never used it meant the organizer and producer were new to Teams Live. But now I suspect that’s not who you were talking about, and the producer is probably well-familiar with this.
The company I work for does Teams live events fairly often (too often, IMHO…). Typically the presenter will take over the screen with a power point presentation.
Mostly though, it’s pretty much like a regular Teams meeting. We usually have an assistant or two to monitor chat and to mute microphones when feedback issues and such arise, or handle technical issues when they arise (which is common). Since there are usually a lot of people participating, they usually ask everyone to post questions in chat so that they do not interrupt the presentation. At the end they’ll have some time for Q&A and that’s when they’ll go over the questions from chat, although on occasion someone may answer one of the chat questions during the presentation if the question is important enough.
If it’s a small enough group then you can have them ask questions while you are presenting, which they can do either from chat or they can speak into a microphone (if theirs is working). For large groups you’d spend too much time answering questions and getting through the actual presentation would be difficult, hence the Q&A part of each event.
Typically someone in our company starts the event, then various managers do their presentations. Each manager has to take control of the presentation so that their power point slides will show up for everyone. Usually they give a copy of their power point to the folks running the event ahead of time so that the event runner can display the power point if the manager has issues.
If no one is running a power point, you might see a few faces on the screen but usually Teams will have a small list of people with a +142 or whatever to indicate how many more names are not displayed. You can click on that and scroll through all of the attendees if you want, but most people don’t bother.
Our company policy is that each manager has to show their face and introduce themselves first. Then they put up their power point and we no longer see their face.
IT DIDN’T WORK. After a frantic half hour trying things online, while on the phone with conference organizers, I was never able to log into the event. I had to send the text of my prepared notes, instead, and somebody is going to read the notes out loud to the audience.
We tried to create a secure account for me, which included me getting several puzzles to solve. The puzzles were multiple choice: I’d be shown a graphic that included a numeral, and the letter X, and some other tiny graphic, and then I had to choose between about 8 different graphics. It took me a little while to figure out that I was supposed to choose the one that included a number of instances of the other tiny graphic that matched the numeral in the first one, but nothing said this, it just eventually occurred to me. And it put me through three of these.
All of this just reminds me of how awful having to work with computers in general, and Microsoft Teams, can be.
By the way, none of this came up when we tried logging into the meeting weeks ago when first setting this up.
I’m curious as to why the Powers That Be just didn’t get the Teams software downloaded onto your laptop. Hoping that this was a one-shot, and not something you’ll be expected to do with regularity. If this is to become a regular part of your duties … having the software installed on your device (on your phone would be helpful, as well) is essential.
I’ve never tried using the MS Teams online application … but I’ve used Zoom online many times, including as a small-group presenter. My experience with Zoom is that it is surprisingly easy to approach ice-cold and with limited computer knowledge. But like most things, mileage varies.
Ugh, that really sucks. I’m preaching to the choir, but trial runs are recommended for a reason!
The presenter-only view is pretty simple and shouldn’t really require the full software. My guesses for what went wrong would be incorrect setup/registration by the event organizer, or some blocker or interference on your browser side, like anti-virus, ad blocker, etc.
I feel for you. I know all too well that panicked feeling when things aren’t working and the meeting is live.
This wasn’t a typical application for Teams. The presentation was part of a meeting at my ex-workplace, from which I retired half a year ago. It was about retirement, and more specifically about a formal process they’re working for transferring knowledge from retiring experts. The person who ran this process for me is also my best friend, and still an employee, and my motivation for today’s was promoting what a great process it is and what a great job of it she did.
So, it was a one-off. With, by the way, no way for me to have tried a dry run without somebody else setting it all up. At least, not beyond the point of getting to a log in screen (which we had actually tested weeks ago for today’s event).
I don’t have the software, not anymore. Until my retirement, I had a company computer with company-maintained software, and all the insider access and privileges. I have many friends still at the company, and they still use Teams, and they often send me invites to Teams meetings between just the two of us, as a way of staying in touch socially. It has always worked! Of course, those weren’t “live events”. While still an employee, I did attend many “live events”, just as part of the audience.
Though there was one pretty weird experience, trying to be an audience member at a “live event” attended by about a thousand people, in which I didn’t get to see or hear the intended presentation, but instead had no visual, and had conversation between event organizers as my audio – that is, I got into the channel they were using amongst themselves to coordinate their presentation. I was backstage, so to speak. And I wasn’t supposed to be, and had nothing to do with delivering the event, and nobody’s ever given me any idea how such a substantial malfunction could have happened.
So, I’ve done loads with Teams, as an insider with software installed (often running meetings and presenting), and as an outsider accepting invitations and logging on using a web browser. And while we’re on the subject, I’ve also done a fair bit with Zoom, setting up and running and joining meetings with individuals and groups.
But what I haven’t done before today is presenting at a Teams “live event”. And I still haven’t done it. What a hot mess – I’m certainly not going to try that again.