Thread by @QuinnyPig

If you were planning on running an in-person event that you're now converting to a digital event instead, and are wondering how you can make it engaging, my DMs are open. I'd like to help.

So I've gotten a fair bit of response to this, so let me expound a bit.

People hate webinars--desperately. If I had to disclose a data breach I wanted to hide, I'd call it a webinar just so that nobody clicked the link to read it. I'm only half kidding.

The problem is that the format is wildly different. There's no crowd energy at all, so humor doesn't work the same way. People tend to reduce the talks down to "just the technical content." The problem is, people don't work that way.

Humor *is doable* within a webinar, but it's a very different kind of humor. Personally, my big breakthrough was first when I did the @acloudguru Release Reviews, then again when I launched the @awsmorningbrief podcast.

It's hard to be funny and engaging when you're doing a monologue. It takes practice. For me, a dry wit works much better than slapstick.

"Well slow down there, hasty pudding. Why do you posit that content has to be funny?"

It doesn't--it's my method. It may not work for you.

I just can't sit through a presentation that's evocative of Ben Stein on the Wonder Years.

It's an order of magnitude easier to be engaging if you have another person to collaborate with during the presentation. It creates energy; you don't have to carry all of it by yourself.

@mike_julian and I once did a video AMA about our business. It was a blast!

Interactivity is key. People aren't used to staring vacantly at a computer for four hours while you fill their brains with your words.