Webinar Wire

Features: Q&A

Posted by Ken Molay December 7 2007 9:22 AM EDT

3 comments

I'm starting a new series today. In each article I will discuss a single feature of event-related web conferencing software. We'll take a look at different implementation approaches by vendors and the advantages or disadvantages they offer.

Since this is a community blog, I encourage lots of input on the subject. Comment on my views, disagree, point out things I may have overlooked. Submit your own feature discussions. If you are a vendor and are particularly proud of a unique feature implementation in your product, you can send me an email and suggest that I add it to the series.

On to our first focus feature: Q&A

You would think this is the world's most obvious and trivial piece of functionality... Let attendees type a question and let hosts answer it. Every vendor checks off this feature on the ol' RFP checklist. But the variations on implementation in different products are mind-boggling.

Let's start with where the Q&A area lives. In some products, there is a dedicated space for audience entries and host responses embedded in the panels or framing that permanently surrounds the meeting content. ON24 is an example of this fixed-frame approach. Some products let the audience move that panel to different locations in the frame or undock it to free-float as its own independent window (Microsoft Live Meeting takes this approach). Adobe Connect Professional lets meeting organizers determine the size and position of the Q&A panel, but the audience can't alter that location on their own computers. Vcall places Q&A in its own window, separate from the main meeting content. It can easily get covered up by the meeting window and you might not see that a communication has arrived. Some products allow the meeting content to be displayed in full screen mode, where you don't see any surrounding control panels. I like WebEx's implementation in this case, where there is a small question mark icon at the bottom of the screen. An audience member or host can click on it to display the Q&A panel overlaying part of the screen and then minimize it back out of the way. And the icon changes color to alert you that a new message has arrived. It's just subtle enough to work well.

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Don't Let Your Slides Steal Your Job

Posted by Ken Molay December 4 2007 3:49 PM EDT

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A client of mine recently sent me some materials in preparation for producing and delivering a webinar. There were newsletter articles she had written, a marketing brochure, and a sample PowerPoint deck she had used in live presentations to audiences. I replied with the following email message.

You are obviously a "words person." Your newsletter articles are well written, with a good hook at the beginning and a smooth flow that brings your audience along with you as you describe your points. Your PowerPoint presentation is written the same way. It is so clear and fully-written that it delivers your message without you being there. This would be very effective as a leave-behind for audiences who have seen your presentation and want reference materials that they can pass on to colleagues or refer to later.
 
But paradoxically, this kind of construction actually reduces the effectiveness of a live presentation. If your audience is carefully reading all the text on your slide, they aren't listening to you. They are reading ahead of or behind the point you are currently talking to. And their brains are getting conflicting information channels to process and comprehend... part of it through reading, and part through listening.
 
Your presentation becomes more powerful if you reduce the amount of text on your slides and add graphics to support and reinforce the points you are making verbally. Some of your slides would expand naturally to six or seven individual graphics, each one letting you speak to a new bullet point and drive the information home. The addition of more frequent visual changes helps keep your audience focused on the screen and waiting to see what shows up next, rather than sitting on one slide for five minutes at a time.
 
And while many corporate PowerPoint templates are made just like yours, with the company logos prominently displayed on every slide, these have been shown to detract from your message and effectiveness as well. Keep your logo and company information prominent on the invitations, registration, title slide, closing slide, etc. and there is no need to pull focus from the points you are making while you are talking. It's like placing your logo at the beginning of every paragraph in one of your journal articles. Come back to your company as an action item at the end of your presentation and refocus the audience's attention on who can bring them all the benefits you have just introduced.

If any of this sounds like it pertains to your presentations as well, think about breaking out of your comfort zone and spending some time making your presentations visually interesting and involving. Your job as a webinar speaker is to present information, not to show text to your audience and read it out loud for them. Try handing a copy of your slides to a friend or coworker who doesn't know the subject matter. If they say, "Oh I understand" and they don't have any questions about the material, your slides are doing all the work and you are unnecessary. Cancel the webinar and just email the slide deck. It's cheaper and easier.

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So You Think You Want Video

Posted by Ken Molay November 28 2007 8:56 PM EDT

Webcams are marvelous devices. They finally opened up the long-predicted dream of the "video phone" in a way nobody had expected. "Wave to Grandma, honey!" What a wonderful way to add a visual touch to interpersonal communications.

But as delightful as this Norman Rockwell-meets-Dick Tracy image might seem, the webcam also has a dark side. It is dragging online event quality relentlessly downward.

There is an art and a science to making a person look good on camera. And trust me, you and your webcam don't have what it takes.

If you are bound and determined to greet your webinar audience with your beautiful mug, here are some tips. If you don't have the time, the inclination, or the resources to comply with them, perhaps you should think about leaving the video off or getting yourself to a studio and doing your webcast from there, in a controlled setting with professionals who know how to present you in the best light (figuratively and literally).

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Tips For Effective Online Presentations

Posted by Ken Molay November 27 2007 8:36 PM EDT

I see that Citrix is hosting a webinar on December 13 with Michael Osterman covering the "Top 10 Tips for Effective Online Presentations." This is always good information to spread around the business community. I do a lot of presentations in this area myself and I'm interested in hearing what Michael has to say. Unfortunately I'm moderating a client event at the same time and I won't have a chance to attend.

This is a great opportunity for a guest submission from our faithful throng out there. Would you like to do a review and let our readers know how the presentation went? Maybe later you can review one of my presentations as well and compare styles and recommendations.

Registration for the seminar is available on the Citrix GoToMeeting site. Psst... Citrix and Michael: You should list this on EventSpan for better publicity!

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InterCall Finishes Off Raindance

Posted by Ken Molay November 26 2007 6:52 PM EDT

Although the software lives on (for the moment), InterCall sent out a notification message last week to Raindance account holders letting them know that Raindance Meeting Edition and Raindance Seminar Edition will be changing their names to InterCall Web Meeting. The old Raindance logo and all mention of the name will be replaced by InterCall branding.

Nothing unusual there... It's to be expected after an acquisition. What amused me was this sentence in the email: "Over the next month you'll continue seeing and hearing less about Raindance and more about InterCall." Is it theoretically possible to hear less about Raindance? I scan everything I can find in news feeds, press releases, blogs, and articles about web conferencing on a daily basis, and I haven't seen a mention of that software since the acquisition back in April of 2006. Talk about going out not with a bang, but a whimper!

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Improving Audience Focus

Posted by Cecilia Vilches November 23 2007 1:38 PM EDT

Being relaxed and comfortable as a webinar presenter is important. But do we ever think about relaxing our audience?

Many people attend a webinar in the same way that they deal with any other computer application. They lean towards the screen with one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard. This can have two negative effects on audience members: It encourages multitasking on other applications and it builds tension and discomfort in the back, neck, arms and hands.

Why not put your audience at ease by starting your presentation with a suggestion to “sit back and enjoy”? If your conferencing software has a full-screen display mode, try using that and treat the presentation like a movie. Lean back, let go of the mouse and keyboard and take the opportunity to put your feet up!

We can’t control how individuals will behave in a remote setting, but we can take steps to let them know that the presentation should be an enjoyable and comfortable experience.

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6 Tips for a Successful Virtual Event

The folks at Conferencing News reported on the launch of the iLinc blog, (thanks for that) and in their post, asked that we talk about EventPlus, our proprietary web-based event management software. 

For many of us in the web collaboration industry and most of you utilizing our products and services we have all heard for years now the cost-saving argument of using collaboration tools versus traveling to live seminars.

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Web Events vs. Web Meetings

Posted by Ken Molay November 19 2007 12:37 AM EDT

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The last year or so has seen a huge shift in the public perception of web conferencing. It used to be that the marketing push by WebEx, Placeware, Raindance, and others concentrated on the benefits of reaching many people at once... For training, information dissemination, and especially for lead generation. But now all you seem to hear about is small group collaboration.

WebEx gets press not for Training Center or Event Center, but for MeetMeNow. Citrix advertises the heck out of GoToMeeting, but you hardly hear about GoToWebinar. Microsoft tied almost all of their Live Meeting 2007 product announcements to how it fits with a fancy conference room webcam and their Unified Communications suite of hardware/software for interpersonal communications. Adobe made big waves by announcing Connect as an easy way to collaborate while viewing a PDF document.

Meanwhile, every week brings a new press release about a low cost or no cost alternative for simple screen sharing or slide sharing in a one-to-one or small group online meeting. The concept of web conferencing is being promoted to the masses so strongly as a collaborative meeting tool that I fear we are losing important momentum in the events space.

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Online Training Makes Dollars and Sense

When it comes to Webinars, the technology is just a tool. “In terms of getting people working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important,” said Bill Gates.

This is why some of the smartest organizations are using Webinars to conduct online training. This technology allows companies to use the best teacher to conduct training seminars to hundreds of employees in scattered locations.

Webinars also eliminate all the hard costs of an in-person meeting, including copies, room rental, refreshments, and more.

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How Long Should It Be?

Posted by Ken Molay November 15 2007 11:02 AM EDT

| 1 comment

Today I am giving a public web seminar on how to make your webinars more effective. And I know that one of the questions from the audience will be: "Is there a recommended duration for a webinar?" It always seems to come up.

Most sales/marketing web events these days are scheduled to last 60 minutes. People have become used to blocking out that amount of time for attending an online seminar. It works just fine. But if you advertise a one hour event, you owe it to your audience to end on time. They have other calls, meetings, and appointments scheduled. Drifting over your time limit is disrespectful of their priorities.

You can tell yourself that while some of your audience will leave, the really interested ones will stay. The problem with this is that you engender ill will among the people who have to leave. They feel they are missing something. Probably something a lot more interesting than the ten minutes you spent up front on general introductions and overviews. After all, you are extending the session because you have a lot of interesting interaction going on or important information left to relate.

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