Finally, you may decide to ask someone who is at the audience’s location to send you the reactions of other listeners, especially if you are giving a long presentation with time for questions and comments. A simple way to do this is to have this individual (usually a session moderator) send you simple text messages regarding the audience’s level of engagement, comprehension, skepticism, interest, enthusiasm, or even boredom. Be sure to check your phone discreetly so that your audience doesn’t think that you are distracted. (If you’re using a group chat function, your observer may be able to use it to send you private real-time feedback.) Ask this individual to keep the feedback simple so that you can check it and adjust your delivery as needed. In this instance, the backchannel feedback source becomes a second pair of eyes for you.

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