Gartner’s Whit Andrews previews “Everyone is in the Front Row and in the Back Row – The Hidden Joys and Risks of Virtual Speaking”

Whit Andrews is VP, Distinguished Analyst, at Gartner Inc., where for more than 20 years he has advised CIOs and other technology leaders on the effective uses of technologies including artificial intelligence. In 2020 and 2021, as chair of Symposium Americas he had the challenge of moving an enormous Orlando tech conference online — while also advising clients how they should make their own adaptations to an era of online and hybrid speaking and leading.

Whit’s abstract of what he will present: Delivering presentations to virtual rooms accelerated markedly in 2020 and 2021 and speaking will never be the same. Go beyond “look up at the camera!” to imagine how addressing a group can be even more engaging and interesting – but in novel ways that force a reimagining of the speaker-audience axis.

About Whit Andrews

In 23 years at Gartner, Whit Andrews has delivered countless professional presentations but he has also taken classes in improv comedy to improve his delivery. He has been active at a local storytelling festival where he won best storytelling and best overall. He was chairman of Gartner’s Americas Symposium from 2019 to 2021 — one year when the event was held in its traditional format as an enormous tech conference at Orlando’s Disney hotels and two years where the event had to be reorganized and rethought as a 100% online event.

He lives in Holyoke Massachusetts and will join us from a former garment storage room on in his house’s third floor. “It’s my office. I love it,” he says. 

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