Webinar Wire

LinkedIn Group For Web Conferencing Professionals

There is now a networking group on LinkedIn for professionals in the web conferencing industry. This should be a good place to discuss news and develoments that impact us all and maybe to do some job posting and hunting (don't ignore that tab!).

Click here to join Professionals in Web Conferencing.

You need to have an active account on LinkedIn. But honestly, if you are a business professional and don't have a LinkedIn account, you are way behind the curve anyway!

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How the U.S. State Dept. Broadcasted the Obama Town Hall in China

I had the pleasure of working with the U.S. State Department this past weekend to broadcast President Obama's Town Hall Meeting in Shanghai, China.  Because the event was not carried by Chinese TV, the White House enlisted the help of the State Department, which in turn, enlisted a combination of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and ConnectSolutions Podium to get the event to as many people as possible.

Learn more about the behind the scenes of this event and how we reached 7,000 people behind the "Great Firewall of China":

http://www.connectsolutions.com/blog/2009/11/16/obamainchina/

 

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Flash-based Web Conferencing About To Take A Hit?

Twitter is getting a lot of action today about a CNET article highlighting security concerns with Flash content running on web sites.

I'm not a security expert nor a Flash developer, so I won't comment on the technical aspects of the warning. At first glance, it looks like web conferencing applications shouldn't be a problem... The concern is for malicious Flash applications specifically built to be run on their own in a web browser and possibly camouflaged inside other things such as images.

But the "shot across the bow" comes near the end of the article where the interviewed security expert, Mike Bailey, says "users should disable Flash completely or use NoScript, a browser plug-in that blocks Flash and Java from untrusted sites."

Flash is becoming a much more common base platform for web conferencing technologies. Vendors like it because they don't have to make multiple versions for different operating systems and it can significantly speed and ease access times and operations compared to computer-installed applications (such as WebEx or Live Meeting client installs). Connect Pro, omNovia, ON24, VoxWire, and many others have made big investments in running their web conferencing packages as Flash applications.

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Adobe Connect Introduces Some Cool New Features

Anyone who talks to me about web conferencing knows I am a big fan of Adobe Connect Pro. No, I am not on their payroll. I just find the interface incredibly elegant and unlike anything else out there. So it was with great anticipation that I attended a webinar yesterday announcing their new release, 7.5. As the webinar host noted, while a "dot" release, it still provides some pretty good bang for the buck.

Now I must first offer the caveat that I haven't yet tested the new functionality but I think you'll agree with me that it is mouth watering.

The first concept introduced was "Universal Voice". Prior to 7.5, you could use "integrated voice" with Connect provided you maintained a separate account with an approved provider such as Premiere Conferencing. With integrated voice, the moderator can maintain software control over the teleconference aspect of the webinar. If you didn't subscribe to one of the approved vendors, not only could you not exercise software control, you could also not record the audio portion of your webinar.

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6 Weeks To A Great Webinar

Wayne Turmel of Greatwebmeetings.com has written a book called 6 Weeks To A Great Webinar (available on Amazon). It ships as a paperback, but I read the electronic version.

Wayne concentrates purely on public marketing / lead generation webinars. His approach is highly pragmatic, laying out specific tasks that need to be accomplished on a timeline, starting from six weeks before your scheduled webinar.

One of the most useful features in the book is his inclusion of checklists and templates that are ready for a webinar producer to copy, revise, and use. For instance, Wayne not only gives you tips on what types of things you should include in your invitation and follow-up emails, he actually writes out sample text, with fill-in-the-blank spots for your information.

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How To Get Leads From Marketing Webinars

To make up for that last silly post about the Fark discussion, here's a link you can really use. Michael Cage has written up a concise and well-reasoned article on "The 12 Most Common Lead Generation Webinar Marketing Mistakes." Read it. Follow the advice. Get more leads from your marketing webinars.

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Farking WebEx

Love it or hate it, you've got a lot of company when it comes to WebEx. When you're the market share leader, everyone loves taking pot shots at you.

Here is a link to a hilarious thread on the FARK social commentary site. Some of it is mildly distasteful for work, but no explicit swearing and no nasty graphics. It seems to have been inspired by a text ad that WebEx ran on the site, sparking a major running commentary chain by users of the software and its competitors.

Nothing of educational value, but fun reading nonetheless.

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Survey Results - Live Webinars Aren't Worth The Time

I listened to the eg3.com webinar mentioned in the previous post. Host Jason McDonald presented findings from what he called a "virtual focus group" of 73 screened and qualified engineering respondents.

For me, the most significant findings were those related to what type of presentation vehicle the respondents preferred. Jason said that live webinars scored low on preference compared to other options. Archived (recorded) webinars scored highly. But then the same question was asked as a hypothetical, "if time and money were of no importance."  This time, live webinars scored highly!

My take on this is that audiences have come to anticipate and expect bad webinar practices. There's going to be some good information in there, but you're going to have to listen through uninteresting and time-wasting fluff such as introductory comments, marketing information, backgrounder material you already know, and so on.

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What Do Engineers Want In A Webinar?

eg3.com is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, September 29 where they will present results of a survey they conducted. They asked engineers about their preferences in webinar content, format, and so on. If you give webinars targeted at the technical market, this could be useful information.

You can register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/545132410

 

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Webinar Planning Timeline Available

MarketingSherpa has posted a "timeline at a glance" for planning the major steps in hosting a structured webinar. It is only available for open public access until September 10, at which point it becomes part of members-only materials on their site.

The timeline assumes you are working on a public event that includes promotion and marketing. As with any such generic plan overview, you would need to shift details to fit the requirements of your particular situation. But it's not a bad way to remind yourself of some of the key tasks that need to be addressed.

There's just one item on their list that really strikes me as the wrong suggestion for a standardized best practice. They put a dry run with your speakers as a "1 day prior" activity. Although I have been forced to do run-throughs with speakers the day before my event, I almost always regret it and would never recommend that timing as your target. Dry runs tend to bring up problems... Slides need tweaking, somebody has access problems, somebody else has bad audio. You want time to deal with those issues and preferrably have a final checkup session. If you discover them the day before your event, it's panic time. I shoot for anywhere from 7-3 days before my event for a dry run.

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