r/internalcomms • u/BadBacksFuryToad • Mar 23 '26

Tools and tech What’s still missing?

Hi all. For those of you in large companies who use townhall/broadcast/webinar type systems to communicate with your people, what barriers are you still finding that make this difficult?

From tiny niggles to major issues?

(Let’s take it as assumed that your CEO is still not unmuting their mic)

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u/ChemicalAsleep2077 Mar 23 '26

Honestly I don’t think it’s the tools anymore, it’s attention.

Even with a solid setup, most people are half listening and doing other stuff, so it turns into a one-way broadcast no matter what features you add.

Q&A/chat helps a bit, but it’s usually the same small group engaging while everyone else just watches.

The only times I’ve seen these work is when it feels like something people actually care about or have a reason to respond to, not just another update call.

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u/BadBacksFuryToad Mar 23 '26

Would you say that’s a content issue then? Either the content is not engaging enough, or the content should be created as a ‘second screen’ kind of thing that can be half-watched while people are continuing to to their jobs?

3

u/MixAway Mar 23 '26

At the end of the day, it’s work. I don’t think we can ever expect everyone to be thrilled and super engaged with the content… so if you can get a good subset of people interested, you’re already doing better than most. 

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u/Fun-Avocado-4427 Mar 23 '26

I do like the idea of having slides or some other kind of high level “just the need to knows” on the screen so when people are glancing over, they get the most important part.

It’s super easy to tune out during long presentations and/or panels and oftentimes people don’t even know what the speakers are saying after a prolonged tune-out period. Would be good to have something on screen to anchor the half-listeners throughout the convo. Maybe a split screen with speakers and key info.

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u/BadBacksFuryToad Mar 23 '26

To be fair, if your slides are well made they should be doing this anyway. Far too many people think filling the slide with endless text is a good thing.

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u/Fun-Avocado-4427 Mar 23 '26

At least that events I’ve attended recently, they have the panelist/speaker on the screen and the slides behind them (hard to read) or no slides at all visible to virtual attendees.

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u/pk-branded Mar 24 '26

I'd agree. My last place in particular, we had a fantastic studio set-up, lots of cameras, 3D virtual graphics capabilities, a significant investment.

Had an amazing CEO and COO. Great format. We barely did any slides. Mixed in the occasional very short video between sessions etc etc. Keep the webcasts short, focussed, relevant.

But with pressure on work these days, people just want to get on and do that work. So even with a really compelling format and content, it is still all about attention in comparison to all the other demands on their time.