Webinars are losing audiences. Not all of them, of course, but a lot more than is acceptable. Why? Because they are so boring. Yes, I said BORING. Not the subjects, nor the Q&A but the substance and delivery of the lectures. Oh, so BORING. Endless introductions, repeated titles, unbelievably dull thanks for support and text that would put a cat to sleep. Look at some of the popular YouTube videos and what strikes you?
Brevity, punchiness, humour, sensitivity, love, enthusiasm, passion. But above all, freshness. ‘Good morning’ is very polite but hardly fresh. ‘A mad cat chased me all the way up the stairs when I got here this morning’ may not be exactly true but it will wake the audience up and get what you have to say listened to. And if you drop a few further anomalies into your talk you will keep it fresh.
“How difficult are some of the accents if you don’t have subtitles? Gaelic, American, South Pacific, PNG can be very confusing. I saw a crook in a recent thriller threatening a fellow with what I swear sounded like ‘a pig mash steak’. It took me nearly three minutes to work out that what he was saying was a big mistake“. Tell an audience and they’ll love you forever.
Why don’t people add the salt and pepper of the language to liven up their talks?
Because they’re riveted by what has become known as ‘legacy’. Oh yes, I met a very well known world politician who is mesmerized by his need to (as he sees it) correct his legacy. He was accused of lying in order to take a decisive and costly adventure which, I suspect, he now regrets. Maybe it was a mistake but it’s over. And that is the absurdity of legacy. When you go, you go. If you did your best, that’s what you did. Life moves on, so should you.
You do not want to leave an impression of perfection. It wouldn’t be true and it isn’t credible. Get in there, do the best you can and sock it to them for their learning and fun. You can’t do more than that so don’t try to pretend that you can. And what people bent on creating a legacy forget is that we always suss out authenticity in the end. That’s what lives after you, not some archetypal concoction we have tried to mold out of the pathetic plaster of presence.
Being spontaneous requires a little creativity. That’s something we all need more than ever faced with the conforming challenge of AI. Get creative and your mind will buzz around the subject you are to lecture on. I can teach a class of fifty how to be creative in seven minutes. I make them read aloud the words of a well-known song from the musical My Fair Lady. The song is “I could have danced all night”. Then I make them read it again in a way that will be accepted by the country we are taking it to – a country which forbids dancing.
When they reach the last line, blocking out the word ‘dance’, it reads: ‘I could have umph, umph, umph all night’. They’re quite creative about that.
Good morning
John Bittleston
If you have a creative story, please tell us at [email protected]. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter!
30 November 2025
