New times, new challenges. Definitely yes! Delivering virtual trainings is a completely different area of expertise.

I did my research and experimental learning.

Started right away absorbing information on the tools, techniques, applications to be used on the virtual sessions. I attended virtual training benchmarking webinars, to see how others do this. Learned a lot, especially about the timing, frequency, length, content of these types of sessions.

I have also been doing my second-hand experimental learning, through which I can see who is doing how, absorbing good and not so good examples. I personally love learning by doing and participating in things, so I chose this channel as well.

However, delivering can still bring surprises. What if the system is not working? What if the page used for interactivity does not let the participants enter? What happens if the attendees after a while cannot see my slides any more? These are all such circumstances I need to count with, as they are out of my control mainly.

Connecting to people during a virtual session can be a tricky thing.

In one tool, you can see their names, maybe even their faces through their webcam, which somewhat helps. In this case, you can at least see that there are people over there who listen to what you are about to share.

In another tool however, you cannot see anything. No faces, no names, not anything. You just start the session, hoping for someone to be on the other side. You say hi to them, you deliver the topic and say goodbye. How many of them were there? You have no idea in the meantime, only afterwards. Sometimes around a hundred people, sometimes hundreds. It is interesting to experience this from a trainer’s perspective.

The challenge is that you cannot really connect to the people listening to you, which means that the message cannot be instantly tailor-made to the audience. This is what I normally do by the way on the classroom trainings. But on the virtual ones, it is not that much of an option.

The good side of it all, that through the virtual space my message, thoughts, opinion and work can get to even more people than before. The chance of helping and developing people increases a lot with this. Honestly, it is a fantastic opportunity that I am happily embracing.

Welcome everyone in the world of the virtual trainings! ¤