9 tools to inspire action

As the first blog post on this fancy new website, and the first blog post that I have ever written and published, the "credibility building" section my mentor thought I should start out with is not going so hot.

But starting is the hardest part. Going from 0 to 1. From watching to acting. Eating to Cooking. In a culture with every corporation competing for our attention, making the shift from consuming to producing is not easy.

With fingers finally warmed up on this snowy Montreal evening, I'll share with you a list of the top 9 tools used to inspire action at meetings and events:

1. Video - if you have the budget, videos are a great way of delivering a succinct message. If you don't have the budget, shoot it yourself! An iPhone and an intern are all you need to start producing content. Make sure you have a quality call to action so people know what to do after watching
2. PowerPoint - To make them even more engaging, try using an integration like LiveSlides which lets you embed a live webpage. Whether they inspire action comes down to the presenter and intent for their talk. 
3. Workshops - Before information can become knowledge, we need to use it, play with it, see how far it goes and DO something with it.
4. Role Playing - Is an incredible exercise to help your employees emphasize with customers, get out of their traditional role and expand their thinking. But please, leave the nurses costume at home. 
5. Markup - Standard on all iPhones, this feature lets you add text, shapes or draw on any photos or email. Direct your audience to take a picture or select one from their gallery that represents your company, and draw how they see it evolving. You can get creative with these uses. 
6. Zoom - seeing each other is the next best thing to meeting in person when we can't all get together. Some fun features you might not have heard about: white-boarding, transcripts of the recording, virtual backgrounds and even smoothing out your wrinkles. 
7. Master of Ceremonies - While not necessarily a tool, an MC can help keep manage the flow of the presentation, facilitate Q+A sessions and stay on point and in scope. 
8. Polling - Speaking of Q+A sessions, when your audience is too big, using tech to facilitate Q+A or brainstorming can be invaluable as long as you have a solid wifi connection. Some popular ones are Slido, Poll Everywhere and MeetingPulse.
9. Sticky Notes - you know them, you love them, and you might have covered a coworkers computer in them. Check out this TED TALK to learn how group collaboration with these can be so powerful for decision making.

And there you have it! The top 9 tools professionals from the Meetings and Events, Human Resources, Education and Marketing fields shared that they use to engage audiences everywhere.

Thanks for reading!