How to Create an Incredible Virtual Keynote – A Look at One Year of Reinvention!

It’s been almost a year since I walked off stage from my last in-person keynote. With clients like NASA, the World Bank, Disney, and Pfizer, I’d been busy for 25 years providing future-oriented leadership insight to some of the most admired organizations in the world.

I walked off the early last March, stage, and into my basement. Knowing the world had changed, I looked at my existing studio setup which I’d been using to film pre-event client videos – and knew I had to build something better. So I did.

Today, it looks like this (with a few annotations as to what all this gear does!)

All that gear allows me to do things like this:

And this – some short clips to help understand the scope of the opportunity!

In essence, this happened.

As signs begin to emerge that within a year and probably less, we’ll be getting back to some weird sort of normal – not a ‘new normal,’ but a ‘weird normal’ – I believe I’m well positioned not only to offer insight on the biggest stages in the world to the fastest moving organizations – but I will also be able to offer them the world’s best virtual keynote speaker product as an alternative.

I defy anyone to show me someone who is doing anything better. I don’t say that lightly. I’ve looked.

So what goes into creating a great virtual keynote?

First and foremost, it’s the content. That hasn’t changed. I’m represented and booked by many of the top speaker’s bureaus in the world because they have the confidence that I deliver highly engaging, content-rich trends keynote based on some pretty advanced research capabilities. Over 25 years, I’ve been booked by a vast range of the global Fortune 1000 because they know I deliver very detailed insight based upon massive amounts of pre-event research, consultation, and preparation.

You aren’t asked to go in and talk to a bunch of astronauts about the future and leadership unless you know what you are doing. You aren’t invited in by Disney for a talk on creativity – unless they need the insight of your creativity.

All of this insight is based on very detailed research for each engagement – often, thousands of articles from a very advanced online research service. Discussions with the client and industry experts. And more. I’m known for the quality of the work I do.

In other words, I don’t; deliver canned crap. That much has not changed.

And it hasn’t changed for the virtual world. What has changed is that rather than having an AV team of 30-50 people behind the scenes at one of my Las Vegas keynotes, I’ve moved much of that gear in-house, into a truly world-class production studio.

This includes:

• 3 high-end digital cameras that provide for 3 different live camera angles
• 5 other cameras providing for a virtual “behind-the-scenes’ view
• one large screen monitor for Zoom or other webinar interaction
• 1 powerful iMac 2020 used as the main production machine
• 4 other Mac computers used for enhancing the production with additional scenes, content, and backup/redundancy – with 2 of them also acting as live ‘stage monitors’
• 2 professional, wireless lavalier mic sets, similar to what I ‘used in Vegas’, for crisp, clear sound
• 3 green walls!
• 9 high-intensity lights that blend my virtual sets and cancel out the green, letting me put myself in a spaceship if I like (and I have!)
• a pretty amazing software program that lets me pull together a presentation with multiple scenes, advanced camera angels, and context-sensitive multimedia
• this includes over 500 virtual stage set scenes that let me mix and match the backdrops to the client/topics /issue/trends that are being covered
• insight is enhanced through the use of two stock video/image/music services that let me bring professional production quality inlays into my virtual keynotes
• interview and panel discussion technology that lets me go beyond the keynote
• interaction provided by advanced text message polling software, Q&A tools, and other software

It’s not just the gear – it’s the effort I’ve put into mastering the delivery of virtual insight.

I estimate that I’ve put in almost 3,000+ hours of virtual presentation rehearsal – going live with small shows, longer events, and full-on keynotes. I’ve been going live every day or second day, simply to go live – because I know developing the comfort to deliver world-class insight from a small space is critical.

I’ve mastered that. Simply watch some of my clips. Hit the ‘Home Studio” button over on the left!

It’s not just what I can do – it’s the role that my overseas video producer can play in helping me enhance my work with advanced post-production. Taka a look at the video we released just this morning!

It takes a lot of work, effort, and gear to develop the world’s most advanced virtual keynote speaker product. I think I’ve done it.

I documented my voyage in a video that examined my progress, month by month. It’s painful to watch the early months!

But I must admit, it’s pretty weird when you show up for work one day with the wrong shirt on.

Take a look! Contact me!