I’ve always enjoyed giving presentations. Speaking for an audience isn’t just the speaking. It is the ritual. First there is the planning of the drive. When should one leave to miss rush hour traffic in just the right way. Leave too soon and the resulting smooth sailing will get you there ridiculously early. Leave too late and even though there is in principle plenty of time, in reality, traffic will make the required journey virtually impossible. The different between the two departures might be only a matter of minutes.
Next there is the drive to the venue with the miles hypnotically clicking by and a mixture of watching the scenery and listening to a podcast, usually about history, to get the mind into the right place.
Then comes meeting the host, followed by the setup and obligatory cable ballet to get that welcome sight of slide number one properly projected. With luck there will be time to chat with the host and the audience.
I generally don’t remember much of the presentation itself. I point. I explain. I answer. I move around. I look to the audience–is everyone following? Are there questions? Did someone just “get it,” can I see the light bulb illuminating?
The ritual continues next with public questions and answers, then with more private discussions and then the drive home, often on newly quiet roads in the darkness with time to decompress.
In the age of Covid-19, that is gone. No hypnotic drive. No pretalk chats. No checking the audience to see how they are doing.
The new ritual is lining up the green screen, removing the cover from my camera, and making sure I have the ZOOM link handy. I think I still point but I don’t move around. At the end, I scroll through the chat and the Q&A to see what questions I’ve been asked.
The old ritual might be temporarily gone but there is something a bit magical about sitting 30 miles from the place where I am, in principle, giving a talk and then looking at the chat while in suburban Chicago and seeing “Hello from Alberta” or “I’m in West Virginia.”
In a few weeks I’ll be speaking three times at GeneaQuest2020. I will be at home. The audience members will be in their homes, and yet we will all be in the same “place.” Whether you’re in Alberta, West Virginia, or suburban Chicago, I hope to see you there.