Facilitation Dream Team

The content and complexity of your web conference will determine the facilitation team needed. In general, you need a facilitator and a producer to carry out key tasks such as:

Facilitator Role

• Main speaker, subject matter expert.


• Advances slides. Engages audience verbally.


• Not active in chat. Comments verbally on what others type.


• Comments on poll results.


• Leads and debriefs exercises.

Producer Role

• Web conferencing expert. May or may not be familiar with subject.


• Explains technical features. May kick off and conclude the session.


• Active in chat. Engages audience by posting and responding to questions/comments. Prompts facilitator to address chat questions. Types key messages to reinforce learning as facilitator speaks.


• Opens/closes polls.


• Explains how exercises will run.

What does your faciliation dream team look like?

Using Your Voice to Convey Body Language

If you’ve ever attended presentation skills training, you may be familiar with the research findings that show that audiences receive the most meaning from your presentation from visual cues such as body language (55%), followed by your voice (38%) and finally from the verbal message (7%).

Let’s assume you are not using a web cam in your web conference। How do you communicate your message and content with impact when your audience cannot see you? The trainer or presenter is left with his/her voice and content to keep participants engaged and interested. I’ll focus on voice in this posting.

The speaker(s) during a web conference should focus on a variety of volume, pitch and rhythm in their voice. Presentations skills trainers often suggest that you think about how you use your voice when you read a story to your children or other kids. Clarity and focus are also of utmost importance. Finally, to keep the speaker’s voice animated, he or she should stand up during the web conference, smile and gesture while speaking. Even though the participants can’t see this body language, they will hear it in the speaker’s voice.