Episode Summary
What’s the difference between an audience that’s simply listening and one that’s truly engaged? Often, it comes down to something surprisingly simple: giving people a voice.
In this episode, Brittany sits down with Oscar Svernlov of Mentimeter, an interactive presentation platform she’s used hundreds of times on stages around the world. Together, they explore what makes people want to participate, how to turn passive audiences into active contributors, and why helping people feel seen, heard, and included can transform an experience.
Drawing on his background as a teacher, game show host, and now product marketer at Mentimeter, Oscar shares what he’s learned about our deeply human need for connection and why the traditional one-way approach to presentations, meetings, and classrooms often falls short. They also explore the role technology plays in creating connection, including Oscar’s simple philosophy for keeping it human in an increasingly AI-powered world: start with humans, use technology to enhance the experience, and end with humans.
Brittany and Oscar also discuss:
- Why the best presenters spend more time understanding their audience than perfecting their slides
- How anonymity can give more people the confidence to participate and share what they really think
- Why great presentations should involve the audience instead of simply delivering information to them
- How to use technology to strengthen human connection without letting it replace it
- Creative ways organizations are using Mentimeter to capture ideas, encourage collaboration, and make experiences more inclusive
- How Brittany uses Mentimeter to co-create experiences with her audiences and adapt her presentations in real time
- The Mentimeter features Brittany and Oscar wish more people knew about
Check out Mentimeter here
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Transcription
Brittany Hodak: [00:00:00] Oscar, thanks so much for coming on the pod
Oscar Svernlov: Thank you so much for having me, Brittany. Good to see you
Brittany Hodak: It’s always fun to see you. And as I alluded to in the introduction, I am such a super fan of Menti. I’ve used it hundreds and hundreds of times for all of my live events, and I’m so glad that we’ve had the opportunity to become friends, and I’ve gotten to meet some of the other people, uh, who have created this tool that I love so much. I wanna know what made you first love Menti? Like, what drew you, uh, to this company, this opportunity, this way to make a difference in events?
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah, I, the, my intro story to Menti is, um, started actually way before I started working at Menti. I was a, a teacher. I, I taught Swedish in and around Stockholm. And I was contacted by a person at Menti, um, actually the, the sister of the creator of Menti. Uh, I worked with her and she– this was way back, like [00:01:00] 10 years ago.
She was like… She showed me this new app called Mentimeter, and she said, “Maybe you wanna use this in, when you’re teaching.” So I actually used Menti, uh, uh, when I taught Swedish. And, uh, I, I would have like interactive Swedish lessons where I’d ask the audience, you know, what their, what a new word they learned in Swedish or we’d do quizzes.
And it really changed my whole teaching approach. You know, having that way to like really involve your audience, not just like hand-raising, but having everybody answer at the same time. Um, it was, it was super cool. And, and that was my first intro to Menti. And then a few years later, I was working as a game show host, uh, in Stockholm.
It was a small game show studio. It wasn’t on TV, but it was more like an events place. And, uh, this was in the middle of COVID. We were like, we were almost all laid off or we at least had paused the work. And then there was this [00:02:00] company that contacted the game show, uh, that wanted to do an online game show, and that company was Mentimeter.
So we did a collaboration when I was working as a game show host with Menti, and I already knew Menti ’cause I had used it in teaching, right? So, so I had that introduction, and then from there they basically put out a role that was more or less my resume. Um, they wanted somebody to do their live events and quizzes and, and so I started as just like a communications manager, and then I’ve been here for six years, um, and now I’m working full-time with product marketing.
Brittany Hodak: So fun. Well, from teacher to game show host to now
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: marketing, what are some of the that you’ve seen that are kind of just universal to humans, whether you’re talking about children, whether you’re talking about adults in, like, a fun setting or a work setting? What are some of the things that are just true because we are who we are?
Oscar Svernlov: Wow. That’s,
Brittany Hodak: I think it’s
Oscar Svernlov: that’s
Brittany Hodak: [00:03:00] collaboration and participation, I should say. Maybe I’ll put some guardrails on the question to make it a little easier. But,
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: it, you know, kind of changed the way you were teaching. What are, um, what are some of the things that you’ve found to be true about why
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: humans react so well to being able to, like, share their voice in real time?
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah. I, I think, um, the way that I’ve seen, I’ve looked at this for, for a very long time is like humans, like we’re such a deeply social species, right? Our survival for very l- for a very long time, for millions of years, was based on our immediate social, um, context, right? A human by, by yourself in nature naked, we don’t have like big claws, we don’t have big teeth, right?
We need each other. And I think in so many settings when, when humans get to interact and participate and, and get that [00:04:00] like actual connection between each other, that’s when, that’s when we feel safe and that’s when we can start like really being engaged and, and being involved in things. And we see this in a lot of context in life.
Like, you know, you’re with your family and you talk about– You sit around the table and you, you, uh, you’re all participating. And then you’re like with your friends and hopefully you’re participating there. And then even online, you know, you send stuff to your friends, you have group chats, right? Where you’re engaging and you’re interacting and, and tho- that, that engagement and interaction is where, where people wanna be, right?
So what happens sometimes in schools and in, in companies certainly is that we lose some of that engagement just by the way meetings and classrooms are designed, right? You have one person talking and then a bunch of people just sitting and listening. I mean, everybody’s sat in a classroom or, or a meeting where they’re just passive, right?
And, and that works [00:05:00] sometimes. Like I’m not gonna kill that format completely, right? Like, like pure information can be that way. Like, “Okay, everybody listen up. We’re go- we’re going to Paris,” right? And you’re just informing everybody. But true collaboration comes from involving people, right? And asking their opinion and getting them included in whatever that you are doing, right?
And, and there are ways with technology you can u- you can do this. I, I work at a company that like we do this for a living, right? Including people. Um, but I think, I think it, it very co- it comes down to that basic primal need of being seen and heard and being a part of a social context, which goes across all humans.
Even, you know, you have people who are like introverts or who, who don’t really like to be in crowds, they also need it. They need it in their way though, but they need to be a part of it. Even if you’re not saying so much, you need to be in that context.
Brittany Hodak: Well, and that’s one of the really great things that I love about using Menti Live is it sort of feels like it levels the [00:06:00] playing field. There are so many times where clients will say, “Okay, you’re gonna do a keynote and then we want you to do a Q&A at the end.” And I always say, “Well, I wanna use Menti because I don’t wanna discount what could be really amazing questions or points of interest or conversation from somebody who doesn’t feel comfortable speaking into a microphone instead of in, in front of 800 strangers.” And so that’s one of the things that I think is coolest about whether somebody is, you know, more introverted or extroverted, they have the opportunity to participate on their terms and in a way that feels really equitable
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah. Absolutely. And I, and I think that’s where we talk a lot about the, the power of anonymity, right? I think it’s like a double-edged sword, right? Like, anonymous answers can be– You know, we’ve seen how the internet has developed over the years. It’s not maybe the best thing, right? People can get pretty nasty.
But there is also a part of anonymity [00:07:00] in these settings, right? When you have bigger settings and there’s, like, a lot of voices and, and this goes across classrooms and meetings and, and live shows, right? Where you might have a question or something that you wanna ask, but you’d never dare to ask that live, right?
Or you don’t wanna seem like you’re stupid. And so that’s why we often– You can use Menti with like– and have answers public, right? Like, “This was Brittany who asked this.” Or what I usually do is I just have anonymous input, and that creates– You know, you need to, to inform people and, and you need to guide them that like, “We’re gonna be nice here,” right?
But it also creates this layer of like softness and, and it removes the fear of being seen as stupid or, or incompetent, right? And that also lowers the threshold or p- of participation even more
Brittany Hodak: Yeah. Well, so obviously I’m a presenter, so when I’m using Menti it’s– I’m on stage. And because I talk about customer experience, when I [00:08:00] first started using Menti, and I don’t even know how long ago, it’s, it like, it’s been years, what I really loved was I was inviting people into the experience. I was making it feel interactive. what I very quickly discovered is while that is true, it also makes it so much more fun for me, because I
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: real time pulse check of how it’s going, what people are feeling, what questions they have. Sometimes I will totally pivot a line of conversation or teaching or interactivity in a keynote based on, on an answer, right?
If I see that 75% of people are saying, “We really care about this,” or if somebody gives a really interesting short answer, um, in an open-ended context, and then I’ve got a story to, to tell about that or, or a direction that I can go. Um, and so it very quickly became something that even though it is great for the audience, it’s really fun for me too, and there is that sort of two-way exchange of ideas. But I’m always thinking about it through my [00:09:00] lens, right? Of, of I’m, I’m talking about customer experience, I’m teaching on stage. What I would love for you to kind of talk about is the broad application, because since I’ve been using Menti on stage for so many years now, I, maybe not every week, but like multiple times a month, I will get an email out of the blue from somebody who’s like, “Hey, I saw you three years ago in, you know, Boise, and were using this tool, and I, you know, went back to my notes to see what it was, and now I’m using it at my hospital,” or, “Now I’m using it in my mortgage practice.
Now I’m using it blah, blah, blah.” Like, I’ve heard all of these fun stories of people who have adopted it for their work settings, which to be honest, are very different contexts than I would ever even think about it. But since you’ve got obviously not just such a rich background seeing what people are doing at Menti, but since you used it as a teacher, you used it as a game show host, I would love for you to talk a little bit about some of the most creative ways that you’ve seen this tool [00:10:00] change the game to bring that sense of community and social component in different areas.
Oscar Svernlov: I, I don’t really know where to start here ’cause there’s so many, so many incredible ways. I think the, the, Menti has such a fun history because it started as a tool to help an audience ask questions to the presenter, right? It was just a Q&A. And very quickly we saw that, like– And, and our, we, we were profiling towards, this was before I started, but we were profiling towards businesses and, like, meeting context, right?
But very quickly we saw, like, the entire education, uh, system in Sweden would like, not, not all schools, but a lot of them adopted Menti very early, right?
Brittany Hodak: Um
Oscar Svernlov: ‘Cause it’s, like, in a classroom setting, right? And then from there it just spread. And as you’re saying, you see pe- like we have, like, tons of, like, churches in the US who [00:11:00] u- who use it, like the word cloud, uh, in their, like, uh, y- you know, in church.
And we’ve seen entire universities in India run campus-wide quizzes for the, like, the whole university. It broke our quiz, like, a few times. And, and so I, and I get, like, daily, you know, w- we, people write us like, “Hey, I used Menti in here and here.” And I, I think it comes down to any, any context where you need to– where you have, like, a group of people and, and you need to, you want to hear what they think, which is, like, every context in the world.
But, but one that really comes back to me, which I think is the probably craziest and the most fun one I’ve seen as well, and the most, like, impactful because what you mentioned, where it, like, the input would change the, the outcome. Do you know what I mean? Like, if th- somebody throws in an answer that you weren’t expecting, then you, like, pivot to that.
There’s a [00:12:00] Swedish puppeteer, um, pretty famous. I- I- I he, he’s done a lot of kids shows, and he has these puppets that he uses live, and he does a bunch of these different voices. Um, and these characters, uh, re- come up in, like, kids shows and, and, like, you know, uh, usually in, like, big happenings like, uh, you know, like, like the king’s birthday.
One of the puppets will, like, comment on the king’s birthday or something like that. And he reached out to us, like, a few years ago and was like, “I wanna create a puppet show where the audience decides what happens in the show.” So I helped him set up– And, and by the way, it wasn’t just like a, “Oh, do you want the puppet to do this or that?”
His fo- it was an hour and 15 minutes of questions to the audience of like, “What should we do next?” So he had everybody join the [00:13:00] Menti, and this was, he ran this show. I think it’s still going, ’cause it was, it’s like the craziest thing ever. You, you walk in and there’s like adults and kids and, and a lot of like, like older people because they’ve just grown up with these puppets.
And you scan the QR code, and then he’ll start and he’ll ask which puppet should come up first on stage, and everybody knows the names, and then they vote, and then he brings that one up and it does something crazy. And as the show goes on, the questions become crazier and crazier, and he does what the people say that the, the– He, he always follows the answers.
And, and it was just, I’ve never seen so many people laugh so hard at like a word cloud or like at a, at a ch- at a poll, you know? He, he went like… And, and it’s like very humorous and very weird, but he, he had this thing where, you know, they were gonna fight a dragon, and then there was one answer which was like, “Instead we’ll have a beer with the dragon.”
[00:14:00] And, and everybody voted for the beer, and then he had to like change that live, and then they ended up having beers with the dragon and it was a whole thing. So I think that is the craziest thing I’ve seen because it was just for an hour and 15 minutes straight just asking the audience what to do next and, and it was, it was one of the funniest shows, like even without the Menti, but I think that added to it because it was like so engaging, you know?
Brittany Hodak: Yeah. Well, and it, it’s fun. It’s, you know, I often say that in the keynote speaking industry, you can k- kind of think of it on a continuum from, like, improv to Broadway, and
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: has a different style, and there are some people who are very much, have the, um, like, you could imagine them being , like a preacher.
They’re like, “This is what I’m called to say. This is the sermon that I’ve prepared for today, and this is what’s on my heart, and this is what we’re sharing.” And then you also have the people, [00:15:00] and sometimes you see this with, , a celebrity speaker, where they are famous for something, and they have their speech that they have written, that they
Oscar Svernlov: It was
Brittany Hodak: or
Oscar Svernlov: scripted, yeah
Brittany Hodak: them.
And it’s like it’s always gonna be the same. Like, there are a few speakers that, you know, and they’re… I’m not saying either is right or wrong, ’cause it’s, you know… But it’s like, okay, I, I know, I know exactly what minute of your keynote this bit is gonna happen or this razzle-dazzle is gonna be there. And for me, the tension is, You need a little bit of both, right?
Like that’s,
Oscar Svernlov: Totally.
Brittany Hodak: once your keynote fee gets to a certain level, um, you know, I had a bureau person say to me one time, like, “People, once they’re paying a certain amount, like they don’t wanna buy we’re gonna like mix up a drink for you and you’re gonna love it. Like they wanna buy Pepsi. They wanna know exactly what it is.
Like this is the formula, we’re paying for this, we want it to be the same.” And so for me, what I love about Menti is it threads that needle of I’m able to say the thing that made you say you wanted me to speak to your company when you saw me speak to [00:16:00] a different company six months ago, like framework, the structure, the bones will be there, but we’re also going to create an experience that is in many ways unlike any other experience that I’ll be doing.
So I’m speaking dozens of times over the course of the year. You know, I’ll speak, you know, 70 something times in person this year, but there will be jokes in every one of those presentations that are in no other presentation. There will be probably stories in every one of those presentations that are in no other, because the questions that I’m asking live to the audience create an environment to do something new. And what I love about having Menti as a tool is that it gives me the ability to feel like I’m, I, I know the outcome. Like I’m not saying write the whole puppet show yourselves, audience. What I’m saying is I want them to walk away feeling like 80% of this was scripted by them, even if in reality only like 25% of it was.
But it’s, [00:17:00] it’s, it’s, it’s
Oscar Svernlov: yeah
Brittany Hodak: cool, um, to be able to do that. And one question that I think about a lot, and I am so interested to hear your perspective, um, because your role in developing this technology is when it comes to that social component that you’re talking about, that human connection, that primal urge that we have, when does technology help and when is it a hindrance to really feeling like a deeper, truer connection, have you found?
Oscar Svernlov: We talk a lot, uh, quite a lot about this, um, th-this idea of, of technology versus humans or technology and humans and how they, h-how they relate. And I mean, we’re– right now, you and I are, uh, across the ocean, and we’re using technology, but to create a very human experience, right? You and I are talking to each other.
It’s not two AIs. I mean, maybe, uh, in the future it’ll become so good that we don’t need to, we [00:18:00] don’t even have to do that anymore. But what I, like, what I– w-when w-we come back to a lot is having the start and the end to be human. Um, and this is just a very broad framework and, and, and, but it works in a lot of, a lot of contexts.
So as long as what the activity that we’re doing starts and it ends with human interaction or, or f-face-to-face or, or human-to-human, then technology, like, can boost a lot of, of, uh, things and, and help us. For example, if, if we’re in a meeting, right? Um, I wanna start by, by talking to the people in the room or, or like, just like see like the humans who are here and, and, you know, get to know them a little bit.
And then we can go in and we can sit in Claude or do design or, or like watch a video or co-create live in the Menti, right? Use the technology. [00:19:00] And then at the end of the meeting, I wanna go back to the humans. Um, and the same thing in a classroom. Like, I want a teacher to introduce me to whatever it is, and then we can watch a video, but then I want the teacher to end with, with that interaction.
I think where, where it falls short or where I don’t like it, it is when you start with, like, technology. Let’s say we– I come into this podcast and the first thing that I see is an AI of you saying, “Hi, Oscar. Welcome to the podcast. Please hold until…” Then I’m like, “Ah, Brittany, you could’ve just met, like, what do I need this for?”
Right? And the same thing if I, if, if I get invited somewhere and then I get like the AI summary, right? Like, I get that that’s great, and but I rarely read those, you know? But I do read if you, you send me an email saying, “Oscar, thank you for the podcast. Like, this is so fun.” I’ll read that because it’s a human to human again, right?
So th-that’s kind of how we think about it at [00:20:00] Menti as well. We use a lot of– like, we have AI stuff in Menti and, and like the whole Menti is an online technology. But it always starts with a human pressing present
Brittany Hodak: Mm-hmm.
Oscar Svernlov: and humans answering, and then a human analyzing the votes. Even if you have AI summarizing or grouping, it’s the human start, human end, all good.
Brittany Hodak: I, and I, I think that’s a great, great test and a great way to frame it, because I, I’ll laugh sometimes where, like, know, there’s a lot of things that used to happen that have gone asynchronous, where a lot… You know, like, think when, like, back in the day when we were kids, you would, like, call your friends, right?
Like, you would just, like, call your friend. And now, for every call I get from a friend, I get, like, dozens of voice memos, right? Like, “Oh, I’m gonna just, like, record this two-minute voice memo and send it,” which at the ti- like, when voice me- pe- people were, like, sending voice [00:21:00] notes, um, from the jump, I was like, “Oh, like, what a great way to, you know, take this… Like, separate this. Like, I’m gonna be able to, to convey the nuance of a question or speak a little more or do a little bit more.” Um, but then, you know, like, like, like a lot of things, humans sort of, like, ruin things, right? It’s like we, we get things and we can’t be trusted with the things that we have. And so then what happens? It turns into, like, these long, rambling voice notes of, like, you know,
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: I did– I didn’t have the discipline to, to, like,
Oscar Svernlov: Hyper out? Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: in two sentences or 30 seconds, so here’s, like, a four-minute rambling message. So now what do we have on phones? We have the AI summary of now, like, when a friend sends you a voice note, automatically you see not the transcript anymore, but the
Oscar Svernlov: No.
Brittany Hodak: what it
Oscar Svernlov: No
Brittany Hodak: and now the introduction of the button that’s like, “Do you want AI to respond?”
And I’m like, okay, this is wild that in a very quick period of time we went from, like, humans talking to humans, to humans sending a recording, [00:22:00] to the technology on the phone saying, “Do you want me to just go ahead and, like, summarize that thing and respond for you without you ever having to listen?” And so I think that human start, human finish is a great litmus test of, like, if you’re not at least doing this bare minimum, you run the risk of not truly connecting
Oscar Svernlov: Oh, okay.
Brittany Hodak: that’s a
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: customer, uh, you know, whatever.
I, again, I’m always kind of, like, thinking through the lens of businesses because customer experience is what I talk about. But I think this is all even more fascinating when you think about it on that, like, human connection level. Because you’re right, we’re sort of on, it feels like, on the verge of being able to automate away a lot of the things that make us unique as a species.
Oscar Svernlov: Oh, totally. And I think a big– I mean, I don’t wanna go too deep into this, but I think the more we, we g- have these automated things and, and like, yeah, it’s fun, it’s [00:23:00] efficient, like it’s fine. We’re losing that like touch of hu- that human-to-human thing, and we’ve never done that as a species, right? Like we’ve, we’ve always been talking to each other and, and when everything is so clean and so…
Like I think that is gonna be very damaging to our, to a lot of things, like our social lives, our so- social skills, right? Like can I, or like do I need an AI to help articulate what I actually mean? Can I do, can I not develop those skills to do it myself? You know, I, I, I– to me, that is a very dystopian way when it ends with the AI, right?
But if, if we, you, you like chat with it, you’re like, “Help me rephrase this message,” and then or whatever, and then I send the actual voice message, but I, I got like help from AI to help me, you know, whatever, then, then it’s still okay in my mind.
Brittany Hodak: So, okay, this, uh, and I promise we’ll, like, get back on [00:24:00] track, but the… I find this all endlessly fascinating,
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: read so many stories of, so, like, have you heard the term catfished like, catfishing?
Oscar Svernlov: I, I guess I know what it, or n- no,
Brittany Hodak: It’s
Oscar Svernlov: I c-
Brittany Hodak: like apparently, like a real problem that’s happening right now is people are using AI for not just like their dating app profiles, but then every interaction that they have with somebody. So they’re– they’ll meet somebody online on an app, they’ll use AI to like write all the responses, and then they’ll go to the first in-person date, and it’s like there’s no chemistry.
The person doesn’t know what to say, and it’s like, what’s going on? And so like, you know, the obviously like the term catfished from back in the day, the people have sort of like repurposed it to say like, “Oh, you were chatfished.” Like
Oscar Svernlov: 10:50 AM
Brittany Hodak: instead of actually responding as themselves as a human, were like using AI either because they were nervous or they were trying to be impressive or whatever, but then like you get face to face with that other human and it doesn’t work.
And so that’s exactly what you [00:25:00] said, right? Of like what are the things that we’re away or, or trading off on. But I am a mom to two j- like young Gen Alpha kids. They’re six and eight, and it is so fun to watch the way they engage with AI, especially voice AI, and what their expectations are. And because they’re still so young and so creative, their expectation is that AI should be able to answer any question, create anything they ask for, do anything they want. And what I– where I think that like humanity thing will like come back around or like swing hard the other direction is the same way, you know, there’s like a difference in people who grew up as like internet natives versus those who learned it later in their lives
Oscar Svernlov: Hmm
Brittany Hodak: with AI. I think the amount of creativity and the amount of expectation of not I’m outsourcing this to AI because I can, but what can AI help me amplify that lives [00:26:00] within me to become like a superpower is gonna be really, really fun and interesting to watch.
But you’re right, it does feel like there is a like a middle ground where things could like take a, take a hard left and get pretty dystopian pretty fast if there’s not, you know, some guardrails.
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah, and, and I think that’s the line we’re all walking every day, right? Like, am I– ‘Cause I, I agree with you. Like, I’ve, you know, done, done a lot of cool things where human AI and then back to human and that, you know what I mean? And like as it’s kinda supercharged. But I think that, and especially maybe for, I mean, I don’t have kids, but I think that’s gonna be a hard, like, line to walk between what is something that you’re just automating away and, and that out of like laziness or out of, you know…
A- and what, what are you missing, right? If it’s, we take the chat fishing, uh, uh, I, I’m missing an opportunity to learn how to [00:27:00] communicate, uh, in like, a flirtatious or roma- romantic way, which is like a huge part of being human, right? Being able to, like, romantic relationships, right? And if you’re AI-ing away that, and, and everything that comes with it, by the way, right?
Like, you know, rejection or like, “Oh, I said something that I didn’t mean,” or, “I can’t really write it.” And like, I mean, that, that’s like such a deep human, uh, uh, which, like anxiety, which I think we all need to feel. Like when you sent that text that’s like a little bit too, uh, you know, forward or a little bit too unclear or whatever it is.
Like, we need that, and if we automate that away, we’re missing something. But again, with your kids, if they’re, uh, having, they have like their dreams and hopes and they’re like, “AI, help me do this, that like I couldn’t do, but now I can,” then that’s, that’s amazing and it’s wild. And like, like imagine like, it, it, it’s, it’s so fundamentally [00:28:00] different to how we can like unlock…
Like skills are… Yeah. Brittany, I feel like we’re going, uh, really far off the rails here, but, but it’s really interesting.
Brittany Hodak: Well, yeah. No, but I those, those are the fascinating things. And okay, so let’s maybe AI aside, um, but when it comes to, you know, technology, when it comes to interactivity, uh, the engagement that Mentee has sort
Oscar Svernlov: Hmm.
Brittany Hodak: into every space, what’s, what’s an assumption that you think a lot of leaders have that’s, that, that’s wrong when it comes to engagement or using technology to participate?
Like, what’s, what’s something that you’re often surprised to see as a belief held by so many?
Oscar Svernlov: I think, um I think a big thing that I’m ver- missing in a lot of contexts, and again, this goes, w-we, we, we talk to a lot of universities, we talk to a lot of businesses, a lot of [00:29:00] entrepreneurs, any setting really. And one thing that really good facilitators do versus w- new newbies or people who don’t have as much experience, is that good facilitators or, or presenters will, um, research their audience.
They will spend the majority of their prepping time understanding who it is they are going to talk to. And this is, this is truly what makes a great presentation versus an like, uh, uh, presentation that you won’t remember. Because if you, if you know who you’re talking to, if you know what they find interesting, uh, if you know what they already know, that’s a big one.
Uh, y- I mean, how many c- classes have we been to where like you’ve already read the book or you’ve already done it and it’s like completely irrelevant? [00:30:00] You know m- what, like, what your audience thinks and you know what they assume, you know what they, they think about you, you know, all these things, both, both soft, uh, values and also like roles, right?
Am I talking to s- to chemistry students or am I talking to, in your case, you know, are you talking to, uh, retailers, uh, or, uh, I mean, I can’t even imagine how many different contexts you’re in, right? But, um, if you spend that time to really understand your audience, you are doing them a huge favor because you can then meet them where they are.
And, and I think when people spend a lot of time on their slides or like, of course you need to have y- you need to be able to present your content, right? But I think people way over-index on like adding that word to a slide or changing the image or like, no, no. Nobody’s gonna read that slide if, if they don’t care [00:31:00] about what you’re presenting, right?
And the way to make them care is that you know what they care about.
Brittany Hodak: I love that, yes. Like doing the pre-work and even
Oscar Svernlov: Great
Brittany Hodak: room work sometimes to, to know what is keeping them up at night, what are the things that they’re struggling with that two years ago weren’t even on their, you know, on their minds, and now they’re, they’re, you know, concerned about it or, or excited about it.
So, uh, I love that. here’s another one. I wanna know what is the biggest mistake you see people make when they’re trying to engage an audience, other than not doing the research ahead of time that we just talked about
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah, biggest mistake. Um, I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of mistakes and a lot of saves too.
Brittany Hodak: Have you? Yeah. Yeah,
Oscar Svernlov: No, I think one, one, one big mistake and, and one kind of– it’s not, it’s not a, a fault that anyone… It’s more like how we as a species have allowed this, but this idea [00:32:00] that, like, a presentation is done with, with PowerPoint or with slides.
Um, I, I– Somewhere along the line, we, we took a step into, like, the wrong timeline, right? Where we, where we said, “Okay, a presentation is a set of pre-written slides with text and an image or b- or just a lot of text that you present in an order.” And that we agreed that, okay, that’s a presentation. And in no other context, like, is, would this have been accepted.
You know what I mean? Like, in, if you look at, like, how the internet works today in general, right? You have, you have videos and people are commenting. They’re, they’re reacting to it, right? They’re, they’re like live stream, like chat, put it in the comments. You have, like, even radio will have people call in to the radio show.[00:33:00]
Like, that’s such a one-to-many format. But yeah, we have, uh, we’re live here with a, a random person, you know, and that, like, creates that engagement. But somehow we just said that, yeah, presentations in business and in school is just like me and a bunch of slides here. Like, that is not… I, I don’t know how we accepted that as a species.
That, that’s crazy. That’s not how you involve people. That’s not how you get information out in the best way. You do it by involving them. You ask them things. Yeah, you can have a little bit of information, but that should, that should be like pictures or like, you know, uh, maybe a few words. But if you really want them to understand what you’re saying, you involve them and you ask them questions and, and you contextualize what it is that you’re trying to say.
That is a presentation That’s the biggest mistake, but that’s not on anybody individually. That’s on like, you know, PowerPoint having a stronghold on our idea of what a presentation is, or Google Slides
Brittany Hodak: Well, and it’s, it- [00:34:00] you’re right, and it, it goes back to what you were saying before about how much better we learn and absorb when we’re tapping into what has been in our DNA as a species forever, versus like, “Hey, I’m paying you right now,” or, “You’re a child and you have no choice but to be here right now,” if we’re talking about school instead of work.
So like, “You’re gonna sit in this chair until I tell you it’s time to get up.” Like, it’s just, you’re right, it’s very, it’s, it is wild that at some point somebody was just like, “Here’s how it’s gonna be,” and everybody else was like, “Okay.”
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah. Yeah
Brittany Hodak: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Um, okay. Well, I know one of the things that you probably have to think about all the time at Menti is how do you balance new functionality with simplicity and ease of use?
Like, how do we, how do we bring new things to the tool while, while keeping it what it is? What are you most excited about right now? Like, what’s something on the roadmap either that’s, you know, coming or maybe something new that you really love that really excites you when you think about the [00:35:00] opportunities it will unlock?
Oscar Svernlov: Well, I, I know this is gonna sound like I’m a paid actor on your podcast, but w- the slide that you– your idea of this compare slide, I… That is coming soon, and I am, like, so excited about it. Um, for, for all of our listeners out there, and again, this is– I’m not paid to say this , but, but Brittany, you had an idea about comparing answers live.
So, like, you ask one question, uh, like, uh, for example, in, in your case, like, how, how many, uh, how many customer interactions do you remember, right? Or something like that. And then you can ask another question later in the presentation, and then, like, out of those, how many resulted in, uh, a good, uh, outcome for you or the customer?
And the idea that you had was to be able to put those side by side, uh, in the live moment. And we had actually our, our, uh, one of our [00:36:00] product managers build this slide with his team in, like, a week, and we’ve now run it out, uh, internally, and it’s, like, such a, again, a very small thing, right? Tiny thing. Two, two questions compared side by side.
But it’s one of those things where it, like, meets the full circle of, like, you as a super-duper user will get value out of it. Like, we build it, and then now it’s, like, going out to everybody so we can unlock the value for everybody when, when comparing stuff live. So I’m really excited about that one, and that’s coming, like, on Tuesday.
Brittany Hodak: Anne, thank you for having it come on Tuesday so that I can use it in an event on Tuesday. I, I perhaps should have disclosed earlier, so I, because I love the product so much and use it so much, we have regular… We talk, like, once a
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah. Yeah
Brittany Hodak: and, and oftentimes what that looks like is I show up and I say, “Can I pretty, pretty, pl- pretty please have?”
Or, “It would be so great if I could.” And then you and your team magically, [00:37:00] like, makes all of these things happen. So thank you for doing that, for, for adding all of these fun layers to a tool that’s a- like, out of the box is already incredible, already game changer, already something that I could not imagine doing what I do without.
But the fact that you guys care enough to add more things and constantly be figuring out, like, what’s, what’s another, what’s another way we can up level makes it even more fun.
Oscar Svernlov: Oh, so great to hear. And I mean, it, to be honest, it’s just as fun for us too, you know, ’cause you have so many fun ideas and it, it’s, it’s like that’s how we wanna build products, right? We don’t wanna like build something out into a void, uh, or for a bunch of AIs to, to automate. We wanna give it to real humans and who can get, get, make, make it more fun and more inclusive and more interactive
Brittany Hodak: That’s awesome. Well, what, what’s one feature of Mentimeter that you wish every user knew about? Either something that just is your favorite or something that you can’t believe is not utilized to the extent [00:38:00] that it could be
Oscar Svernlov: I think we, we have a l like, this is my entire job, to help users find these, like, cool features, right? ‘Cause, ’cause Menti is one of these tools, if you, and you heard it throughout the podcast, we have so many different ways to use the tool, right? Like, our, our total addressable market is, uh, humans in groups
Brittany Hodak: I was gonna say all.
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
So it’s like any question you have to a group of more than like three people. I’ve seen people do Mentis like in one-on-ones. They’re like, “How was your work week?” And then they rate it, and then they talk about it, right? But that up to 10,000 people, any context where you have a question. Um, but I think one thing that I really like to showcase, and I think we get a lot of value out of, is the Q&A feature.
So it’s, it’s super simple. It’s a, a way– ‘Cause what happens in Menti, very often it’s the presenter asking [00:39:00] the audience a question, which is great. That, that’s, that’s how we do it. That’s how we should do it, right? Like, out of these, these examples, which one resonates most with you, right? But the Q&A flips it, and that allows the audience to ask the presenter something.
And what happens then is it’s like, basically i- imagine if you do hand-raising, right? Like, “Oh, I have a question,” but you remove the, the, you needing, need to raise your hand, and instead you can just type the question in. Again, you can decide if you want it to be anonymous or your name. But when you have a room full of humans that you trust and you turn on anonymous questions, uh, you can then get the, all the questions that people wanted to ask but they never dared to ask you.
And this, that’s like magic sauce, right? And it can, sure, it can get a little spicy and, or it can get a little like, you know… You can, of course, moderate it if you, if you’re in a really tough situation. But what happens then is allowing [00:40:00] the audience to ask you questions in a safe, anonymous way, and they can even upvote the questions that they like.
I mean, that is… It doesn’t get more relevant than that, right? And it’s super– I love doing Q&As ’cause, like, you don’t know what you’re gonna get. Um, and, uh, and we do it all the time. Like our C- CEO will do, like on a monthly or like bi-monthly basis, he’ll do a Q&A with the whole company, anonymous, unmoderated, you can ask me anything.
And the questions are tough. Like they range from like, “Why are we doing this?” uh, to like, “Why do you wear a black shirt every day?” He stopped because of, uh, now it’s summer. But, but you get the point. It’s that really, truly powerful, inclusive, all the questions that you wanted to ask but you never got the chance to.
Brittany Hodak: I love that. Okay, I’m gonna answer this question too, because one of the things that you taught me was using segmentation, and [00:41:00] it’s really fun. And so now I say to clients like, “Okay, if we’ve got, let’s say, 1,000 people in an audience from an association with, uh, differing roles, differing sometimes even industries, if we’ve got multiple industries represented, um, you know, maybe some people are there as guests, some people are new members, some people are full-fledged members,” we can ask a question early on saying, you know, “Which of these best describes you?” And then that to break out later answers in the presentation to see how the different buckets somebody’s in impacts the outcome of the responses. So, um, do we see a, a vast difference based on somebody’s tenure, somebody’s age, somebody’s industry? Like, that’s really cool, and a lot of times I won’t show the segmentation in the room because, you know, I’m giving a keynote, and you never wanna, like, distract from, from the bigger picture.
But it’s really great information to have after the fact. So I would say segmentation is one of my favorites that I wish more people knew about. And then also the way that I [00:42:00] Like the thing that people thank me for most
Oscar Svernlov: Mm-hmm.
Brittany Hodak: in like months later, is something that I usually don’t do in a keynote but I’ll do in a workshop, which is, so if there’s like a challenge question of, um, you know, for let’s say like, okay, what’s, what’s one friction point we wanna address?
Or like what’s, what’s one thing that, that we think would help us, you know, help with our churn rate? Like whatever it is, whatever the question is. I just ask it as an open-ended question, um, for everybody to be able to respond, and I’ll have the answers, the short answers flow on the screen. And usually people are in, uh, like t- like table groups, right?
So maybe there’s like six or eight people sitting at a, at a circle, but I ask this question and all 300 people answer it. And then I say, “Okay, together with your table, choose one of those answers. It can be an answer that one of you at the table had, or it can just be something that you saw on the screen and said, ‘No, I like that better.’
We’re gonna do that.” So then as a table, they choose one, and they talk about, you know, a very [00:43:00] specific improvement that they wanna make to that thing. We’re gonna
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: this friction point by doing whatever. So after a few minutes of discussing it, we have people stand up and share. So like let’s say there’s 20 tables in the room, maybe people from four tables get up and share what their idea is. before I move on, the person who’s been pre-appointed as like the recording person for the table responds all the great ideas that their table had, and they submit it. And so what that does, and then you like rinse and repeat, you know, if you do that like five different times over a 90-minute workshop or whatever, what you’re doing is capturing initial ideas people have, then you’re seeing what the upvotes and what the people in the room do, what are the ones that immediately jumped out to our audience, but then you’re recording in one shared place that everybody can go back and reference all of the great ideas that you came up with. And oftentimes I’ll say like, “Okay, now before we move on, let’s record the one thing that could be implemented like within a week for under $1,000.” And so we know like, okay, now we have those [00:44:00] immediately implementable ideas or, you know, whatever the parameters are. And so what then happens when people get their workshop deck is it might have started with seven slides of me asking questions, but now because of the responses, we have like a 200-page PDF that’s just really great ideas, so that then your product team can go by and be like, “Okay, here are all the ones we said we were gonna implement right away.” And sometimes that’s like everybody at the same company, but a lot of times it’s within an association or it’s people where they’re not competing with each other because they’re from different markets, but they’re all in the HVAC industry, or they’re all in like the sporting goods industry, or the mortgage industry, or whatever.
And so that’s really one fun way that, especially in workshop scenarios, um, but like I cannot tell you how many people will say to me like, “Oh, that, that deck that we did 18
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: became like the bible for our company, and we’re like, ‘I’ve got it printed out,’ and we like cross them off when we get to them.” Uh, so that’s another really fun way of like [00:45:00] sometimes in a meeting when you’re not intentional about capturing it, somebody just like says something out loud and then it disappears into the ether, or people are writing it in 20 different notebooks and then maybe they never go back and
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah, and then
Brittany Hodak: it,
Oscar Svernlov: some,
Brittany Hodak: they forget about it
Oscar Svernlov: yeah
Brittany Hodak: But when you can consolidate all of those great ideas into one sort of like master brain, um, I’ve found that that’s been really transformational
Oscar Svernlov: Wow. Th- this is, that’s incredible. Like, uh, uh, I it’s funny hearing, hearing that story. We started, like, here, and now we’re, like, off the screen in terms of value. You know what I mean? ‘Cause I, I was like, “Oh, open-ended,” like, that’s great. Like, yeah. And then it was like, wait a minute, the book, and then the BD.
Ah, that’s, that’s so cool, Brittany. Wow. I, I can now
Brittany Hodak: what
Oscar Svernlov: see why.
Brittany Hodak: again and again and again. And again, it’s
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah
Brittany Hodak: some… You know, everybody’s always like when they get it, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is great. Thank you.” But they understand the value
Oscar Svernlov: Oh, totally.
Brittany Hodak: later
Oscar Svernlov: And that’s where the co– [00:46:00] Yeah, sorry, that’s where the co-creation also, like, really is like, it, it’s like direct value too. You know what I mean?
Brittany Hodak: Mm-hmm.
Oscar Svernlov: That’s amazing. Um, out of curiosity, have you seen– Have I showed you the up, the, or the voting feature in the open-ended?
Brittany Hodak: You’ve showed it to me. I’ve
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: it once because, um,
Oscar Svernlov: Okay, just
Brittany Hodak: always have a, I don’t always have a laptop with me. So that’s one of those situations where it works better for me in a workshop than a keynote because I wanna be able to, like, have my laptop or be able to use the iPad with Mentimeter to, like, things
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. I just, I was sweating there that I haven’t, if I haven’t shown you that, but that’s good
Brittany Hodak: No, it’s, it’s so cool. It’s really fun. Um,
Oscar Svernlov: Yeah.
Brittany Hodak: Oscar, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. You know I’m so passionate about your platform. Um, but we, we need to wrap things up, so I’ve got a couple, couple last questions. Uh, number one, I need you to finish this sentence: People become superfans [00:47:00] when
Oscar Svernlov: The product that they use and the interaction with the company who provides that product changes their lives to the better
Brittany Hodak: Mm. I love that. You’re right. Changing my life. Okay, Oscar, where can people go to find out more about Mentimeter or connect more closely with you?
Oscar Svernlov: Uh, for Menti-related inquiries, I would just head on over to mentimeter.com. Uh, you can learn more about our tool. We have a free tier, uh, that you can, you can just log in. And if you want to get a little more information and dig deeper, you can write to me, Oskar Swernlov, on LinkedIn, and I can happily help you set your Menti account up.
And, and, uh, if you’re really hungry for it, I might give you, I might give you a sneak peek on our pro access
Brittany Hodak: Ooh. Uh, all right.
Oscar Svernlov: promised out loud, but yes, I will commit to [00:48:00] that. If you, if you contact me on LinkedIn, I’ll– we’ll talk about it
Brittany Hodak: Amazing. Well, and obviously as somebody who is a pro user who loves it, I can, I can tell you, um, it’s a game changer. It’s so much fun. Oscar, thanks so much for coming on the show, and more importantly, thank you to you and your team for all the heart and soul and love that you put into this tool. It is so obvious to anybody who uses it, either as a presenter or facilitator or just as somebody participating in a meeting or in an audience, um, that there is so much love and intention behind this tool.
So thank you for building something that is truly making the world a better place for all humans who gather in groups of three or more.
Oscar Svernlov: Thank you, Brittany. Th- this, uh, I’m gonna share this with the team. This is, this is super fun, and, and we really appreciate it
Brittany Hodak: Awesome. All right, you’ll come back and see us soon?
Oscar Svernlov: Yes
Brittany Hodak: All right, sounds good
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