Zoom presentations

I hosted my first webinar for Secfi on Friday. Producing regularly scheduled webinars has been on our list for many months so we’re happy to finally have kicked it off.

I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of experience with presentations in my short career so I don’t typically get too nervous anymore speaking in front of a crowd. However, the webinar was almost an entirely different animal and my nerves were definitely kicking in a bit before hand.

There is just something different in not having people in front of you to interact with or ask questions. There’s no ability to really read a room or try to use humor to lighten up the situation. There’s also something inherently weirder in speaking to my computer rather than directly to someone’s face.

On top of all this, there’s just a lot of to prep for in regards to technology in these presentations. Lighting, microphones, and backdrops all need to be considered. While the Zoom virtual background feature is nice, it’s far from perfect and creates for awkward viewing at times.

We had great reception and there were not many technological issues so it’s hard to really complain especially in times like these. But much like video conferencing in general, there’s just so much more left to be desired with Zoom’s webinar function.

I’m really excited for the evolution of video conferencing. It’s going to be great to see entrepreneurs build great software and hardware to make our remote work lives easier.