Webinar Wire

Don't Go Greyhound - Go Virtual!

Posted by Ken Molay April 1 2008 11:15 AM EDT

Here's a fascinating article by John Buchanan in Procurement Travel. Apparently some corporate travel agency websites are starting to add automated business rules to their booking systems so that employees planning certain types of business travel are given an option to set up the meeting via web conference instead.

That's a wonderful idea in theory... as long as the employees have been trained on how to use the conferencing software or have access to a services moderator who can help them. Otherwise they are going to become frustrated on their first experiment with the meeting travel alternative and never try it again.

Web conferencing is still in a relatively early phase of awareness building, usage growth, and acceptance. We in the industry can help make the technology more inviting and rewarding for users by working with client companies to ensure that their employees get support and education to go along with the software. Remember the old adage: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

Education and support is particularly important when virtual conferencing is provided as an online service rather than as a locally installed software application. Suddenly the corporate IT department is out of the loop and users can find themselves on their own. I hope that the business rules on those travel systems note when a businessperson is using the conferencing application for the first time and offer a services contact as an option to help with meeting setup, conference software training, and assistance with connection problems at meeting start time.