Webinar Wire

Oh to See CO2 Sanity

Martin Ferguson wrote a fun column on ttglive.com fanning the flames of a feud between Cisco WebEx's marketing division and a spokesman for a travel agent consortium.

The column jumps between facts and assumptions in several areas. Ferguson starts with a statistic that Cisco WebEx increased its customer base by 42% in 2008. That is particularly impressive given their overwhelming market share to begin with. I haven't been able to independently find the statement that Ferguson references, so we'll take it on faith for now.

A WebEx UK manager takes a stab at one of the causes for this growth and says that as air travel declines, web conferencing is picking up the slack with more remote collaboration. Seems reasonable enough.

But then the travel agent spokesman jumps in with "But it [WebEx or web conferencing in general?] will never replace travel. I'd like to know how many deals are done by video conference. Probably none."

Well, first of all, nobody said anything about web conferencing replacing travel. It should reduce the need for travel in certain situations.

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When You Talk - Say Something!

I wrote a post about cleaning filler sounds out of your vocal delivery style. It seemed to hit a nerve, as I received quite a few comments and emails on the subject.

I thought I would point you to some great content from another presentation specialist on the same topic. Peter Cohan trains business people on how to deliver compelling and effective software demos - both online and in person. He wrote two documents with tips for speakers on the most overused and annoying filler noises encountered in American presentations.

First we have The Content-Free Buzzword-Compliant Vocabulary List. This is designed for marketers (especially in the tech space) and those who love to hate their output. If you create marketing and lead gen webinars, use this document to help you scale back the meaningless hype words all too common in the industry.

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Webcast Love From The CEO

Sunday's New York Times ran an interview with Terry Lundgren, the CEO of Macy's. In the online version the interview spans three web pages. But right on the first page, Lundgren points out the high value of company webcasts for him and his employees:

And when I do these webcasts, I say: “Look, it’s only 30 minutes. I’m busy, you’re busy. I’ll find 30 minutes every single month to talk to you guys. But here’s my plan, I’ll speak for 15 minutes about current events, what’s the most important things that are happening that you need to know about, and then I’m going to take your questions for the next 15. And you just e-mail me your questions, and I’ll give you an instant response.” And I always get more than I have time to answer.

Lundgren says he reaches 55,000 of the 170,000 Macy's employees...

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Webcasts As A Sales Enabler

Larry Kilbourne published some commentary on an IDG study from late last year. The study is available for free download after registration on their site.

The study came from a survey of 600 IT buyers, asking them what types of vendor information they prefer and find most valuable as they move through five IDG-defined stages of the purchase process.

Larry got IDG to republish a key graphic in the study when he pointed out that the one used in the original report didn't make sense when compared to the report text. You can see the new chart on his blog post.

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Social Networking For Webinars

Call me late to the party, but I just found out about a discussion group on LinkedIn entitled "Webcasting & Webinars Best Practices."  I'm hoping I got the link correct to drive you to the group overview page. You'll need a LinkedIn account, and the group is moderated, so you'll need to submit a request to join and be approved before you can post.

I've seen some attempts at webcasting groups on sites like Facebook, but they usually only feature 5 members or so. This LinkedIn group has 278 members, active discussion threads, and 12 new members over the last seven days. So it seems to be a good communal resource.

I recommend adding this to your participation in the Conferencing News Key People directory and the Web Conferencing Community Forum. If you know of other active groups for people involved with and interested in web conferencing, I hope you'll add a comment with appropriate links so we can continue to develop and extend opportunities for sharing advice, recommendations, and resources on the subject.

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6 Ways To Convert PowerPoint To Flash

[Editor's note: Several web conferencing technologies recommend or support uploading PowerPoint presentations as Flash files. This submitted article talks about the process of converting PowerPoint to Flash]

There are many benefits of converting PowerPoint to Flash, such as greater accessibility, compatibility, smaller file size, sound integration, streaming, security, email-readiness, etc. Here are 6 ways for you to convert PowerPoint presentation to Flash.

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Convert PowerPoint to Flash with Wondershare PowerPoint to Flash

Wondershare PowerPoint to Flash is a PowerPoint add-in that can help anyone convert PowerPoint presentation to Flash with one click. Here are the steps:

1. Download Wondershare PowerPoint to Flash and install it on your computer.
2. Launch the program, import the presentation you want to convert.
3. Click Publish to convert your presentation to Flash.

Advantages:
Retains all the animations, hyperlinks, multimedia objects after conversion.
Has up to 90% reduction in file size after conversion.

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E-assessment, Say Goodbye To Paper-based Test

For over a hundred years, paper-based tests have been the only way to deliver robust, fit-for-purpose assessments of learning. With the advent of the computer, e-assessment (Wikipedia definition, e-assessment is the use of information technology for any assessment-related activity) will gradually get the better of paper-based tests in teaching and learning. But are “paper-based tests” irreplaceable? NO. Just look through the following 5 questions and you will arrive at the same answer.

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Can you include multimedia objects in paper-based tests?

NO.

Letting a piece of paper play video and sound is impossible. At most, you can insert images in your paper, but the printing effects always disappoint you. E-assessment is different.

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First You Have To Care

I have been seeing more and more tips lately on creating better PowerPoint presentations. Resources such as Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points, and Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Blog are just a few examples of the incredible resources available for people who want to improve their slides and delivery. All these guys have books available in addition to the free tips they run on their blogs.

Last week I saw an absolutely mind-blowing presentation created by M62 in advance of a webinar they gave with Brainshark. It's worth watching just for the sheer fun of it. No narration, no educational value. Just incredible PowerPoint animation effects you would swear are Flash animations.

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Webinar Survey for non-profits, foundations, government agencies, educational and cultural institutions

Andy Goodman, of The Goodman Center, and a goodman communications consulting is conducting a survey on webinars and teleconferences.  Please check it out and/or send it on if you know if someone who might fit the profile. 

http://budurl.com/AGoodman

** This survey is intended only for those in the following sectors:  non-profits, foundations, government agencies, educational and cultural institutions.  If you aren't in one of these groups, but know someone who is, please send it on.  Thanks **

Here's a bit more from the survey creators:  

If you'll take a new survey on teleconferences, videoconferences and webinars, you'll receive a full report on what works, what doesn't and why.  Here's the scoop:

Given the current economic climate, everyone's looking for ways to cut costs and work smarter.  And that means more organizations may turn to teleconferences, videoconferences and webinars instead of in-person meetings.  Makes sense in theory, but will this really be a good thing?  

You've probably endured enough badly-run "long distance meetings" to agree that these can be serious time-wasters.  On the other hand, there are some organizations that are learning how to master these technologies.  Andy Goodman (author of Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes) wants to find and share those best practices (as well as the common mistakes we should all avoid), but first he needs your help.

His online survey takes only about 10 minutes to complete, and in return for your time, he'll send you a complete report with all the results in April.  So give him just a few minutes now, and hopefully  he can save you from countless borning hours in the months to come!  Click on this link to take the survey:  

http://budurl.com/AGoodman

And then forward this to a colleague and help make this study even more comprehensive.  Thanks for your help!  

I imagine Andy has a "Why Bad Webinars Happen to Good Causes" publication in the works.  As a webinar consultant in the DC area, I think it will be another great tool.  Thanks for helping Andy out.

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Are Webinars Effective?

A reader submitted a question asking for studies on the measured effectiveness of webinars for his industry. This question is fundamental to every vendor that sells web conferencing software and every company thinking of spending money on a webinar solution. And yet it is surprisingly difficult to answer!

You can find individual customer case studies published by some web conferencing vendors. And you can find some general anecdotal evidence that web conferences save money by reducing travel, cutting meeting costs, and so forth. But getting a more widespread survey of end users has proven very difficult.

I have created a short survey asking web conferencing users to indicate whether they measure the effectiveness of their webinars:

http://tinyurl.com/webmeasure

If you administer or deliver webinars for your company, please take a moment and answer the few questions. Even if you don't measure your results, that information is useful and important.

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