The Webinar Blog

Trends In Web Conferencing

This is yet another in my series of posts from the iLinc customer summit in Arizona. Andy Nilssen gave a presentation this afternoon in which he showed off several interesting trends, directions, and predictions about the use of web conferencing. Andy is a senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research, responsible for covering the audio and web conferencing sector. I don't want to restate too much of his work, since Wainhouse has put a lot of time and effort into collecting the information and offers it as a part of their services. But perhaps I can summarize a few key points to whet your appetite for more.

One of the things I found fascinating were the results of a study that surveyed use of web conferencing by smaller companies versus large enterprises. They put their arbitrary cutoff at above or below 1000 employees. They found a marked difference in most popular uses of the technology. The smaller companies concentrated on web conferencing for prospect and customer communications, often through structured events such as sales and marketing webinars. The larger companies concentrated on applications for training and team collaboration. Andy said that both types of organizations could learn from the other and review their uses to look for additional benefits they may not currently be focused on.

Another chart that caught my eye compared surveyed results on how users initiate ad hoc web conferences for collaboration. The overwhelming majority said that they linked to a web conference by using a web URL sent in an email. The smallest response rates were for meetings started from inside an application or an Instant Messaging conversation. When asked how they would like to be doing it, the results were perfectly flip-flopped. People wanted to be able to join meetings from inside applications and IM sessions and overwhelmingly rejected URL's in emails!

Andy had a lot to say about the trends in web conferencing, especially when considered in the larger context of unified communications. He looks for a strong increase in applications of the technology in the near term, fueled by business conditions, regulation, awareness of side benefits, and lifestyle choices -- as well as improvements in the technology and capabilities of the medium.

For more detail, definitely go check out Wainhouse's research and bulletins on the sector.

Technorati Tags: iLinc summit,iLinc,Andy Nilssen,Wainhouse Research,web conferencing

Is It The Technology Or The Presenter?

Another interesting presentation today at the iLinc Customer Summit came from Barb Nead-Nylander of the Dow Chemical Company. She talked about Dow's requirement for all of their online instructors (well over one hundred of them) to take an internal training and certification class before being allowed to host a meeting or course for the company.

She pointed out that expecting teachers to be completely comfortable with the web conferencing technology and tools at their disposal is no different than in days gone by expecting teachers to be able to run the 8mm projector or run the overhead slide projector and use markers effectively.

Barb said that when things don't run perfectly, the students don't blame the instructor, they blame the technology. For instance, Dow looked at student evaluations and feedback for the same virtual class taught by two different instructors, each using iLinc's conferencing technology. The instructor who was prepared, practiced, and comfortable with the technology had an average evaluation of 4.5 out of 5 for the course with positive comments about the content, the delivery, and the experience.

The instructor who didn't practice with the technology and was admittedly uncomfortable using it resulted in an overall evaluation of the course at 3.22, with comments about how the conferencing technology was too confusing, detracted from the experience, and distracted the students from the material. Which goes to show... If your attendees are spending any time thinking about the delivery mechanics instead of your content... They aren't going to be thinking happy thoughts about it.

Barb's trainer course is a full three to four hours and covers the web conferencing features and functionality, but more than that... How to use them effectively. How and when to use audience interactivity, how to run breakout sessions, best practices for delivery methods. And when the instructors finish their certification course, they are expected to actively practice with the technology until it feels comfortable and natural.

Take a tip from Dow. Presenting using web conferencing technology is a learnable skill and should be treated as part of the professional training and development that any employee would be expected to receive and practice in order to develop proficiency at their job. The results are tangible and measurable.

Technorati Tags: iLinc summit,iLinc,Barb Nead-Nylander,eTraining,training,web conferencing

Is "Green" Measurable?

I'm blogging from iLinc's annual customer summit, being held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Not much going on in town this week... Just a major golf tournament and a little event called the Super Bowl. Tomorrow I'll be giving a presentation at the summit, but today I'm listening to customers and experts talk about their experiences.

One of the most interesting presentations of the morning session was given by Chris Gosk of Global Knowledge. It turns out that Chris works a few miles from me in beautiful Cary, North Carolina. We only had to travel 2200 miles to meet each other.

Chris is in charge of delivering services and support to large enterprise customers of Global Knowledge. His company provides fee-based training to business students around the world. Much of their subject material is highly technical in nature. It is common for their classes to be five days of eight-hour sessions, with a 300-page course manual.

Global Knowledge uses local classroom training, but it also delivers many classes remotely, using iLinc's web conferencing technology. Chris said that they are running about 30 virtual courses per month, using up one million iLinc connection minutes. Yes, per month.

One of the key topics in Chris's presentation was a quantitative look at carbon footprints and environmental impact. He showed a slide with calculations of total carbon emissions associated with one of their average classes as delivered locally and remotely. Looking at impacts associated with facilities and overhead, physical materials, and travel, Chris came up with an estimated 15,941 pounds of CO2 emissions for a local class and 11 pounds of emissions for a virtual class. That isn't 100% savings, but it's close enough for most of us.

He went on to point out that from a sheer profit perspective for Global Knowledge, they find that their cost per session and cost per student drop dramatically (75-79%) when using iLinc versus classrooms. But more than that, they get benefits from the green perspective. They are still relatively small in measurable terms... They are able to meet client RFP requirements for green sourcing strategies and they can show some market leadership that benefits them in publicity and marketing.

But the interesting perspective is a look at the near term future. Chris predicts more legislation associated with the politics of global warming. Companies will need to show compliance and need to show measurements to get tax credits.

iLinc has published one of the few tools meant to help individuals come up with a way to do quantitative estimates of their carbon footprint offset for meetings. A mini calculator lets you put in travel distances and methods and see CO2 contributions to the environment. This is admittedly simplistic, but if it helps get people thinking and talking about the issue, that can't be bad. iLinc's CEO, James Powers, is chummy with Al Gore from their shared upbringing in Tennessee and it's nice to see that they also share some of the same concerns about ways that we can all help monitor and adjust our behaviors and their impact. iLinc's web conferencing technology has a built in calculator that takes the idea one step beyond by automatically figuring out the locations of meeting attendees and making a thumbnail calculation as to how much CO2 is being saved by not making them travel.

Technorati Tags: CO2,iLInc,carbon offset,carbon footprint,web meetings,web conferencing,green technology

New Web Conferencing Community Forum

I am trying an experiment. I just created a community forum for end users of web conferencing technology (or those who are interested in the subject but haven't tried it yet). The website can be accessed via www.wcc-forum.com

The site is a bulletin board and open forum for anyone with an opinion, story, question, or passion for web conferencing. It is not associated with any vendor and you can talk openly and honestly about your experiences. Thinking of trying a new web conferencing technology? See what other people think of it. Wondering if somebody has hit a problem you are having? Post a question.

I created categories for several of the web conferencing vendors, along with places to talk about resellers, service providers (including Webinar Success of course!), event production, and audio conferencing. If I start to see a lot of messages dedicated to a new topic, I'll add it as a category. I want this to be an easy place to find information... A global repository of collected wisdom from all the users of all the conferencing technologies out there.

You can browse the site and look at posts without any registration or login. If you want to post a message, you'll need to sign in (which takes seconds and is free). There is ZERO spam, advertising, or list building associated with the site. Registering will not add you to ANY marketing lists.

The forum is brand new and unsullied by content at this point. So you'll see a list of empty categories. I hope you'll get to work and fill them up. I'll be promoting it on other sites and with press releases soon. But as loyal readers of The Webinar Blog, you get first notification and first crack at the site.

I think we all have a lot to share with each other. Let's build a community for the greater good.

 

Technorati Tags: Web Conferencing Community Forum,Webinar Success,web conferencing,web conference,webinar,web meetings,web events

Web Conferencing Usage Survey Now Online

Web conferencing technology/service vendors, this is for you. Nobody really knows the true size of the market and how widespread the use of our medium is. Asking the clients about their usage won't ever get us a large enough response rate to get valid totals. So let's do a little group estimation amongst ourselves. I have put together a short (but difficult!) online survey. I'm asking each of the web conferencing technology vendors to go through and give best guesses and estimates of usage averages and totals that they see with their clients.

Click here to participate:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=pLzmzAXzKdzcU5zOVJqDcQ_3d_3d

I will consolidate the results and make them available to everybody. The last page of the survey lets you enter your email address for a private response and I'll also post key figures online. Of course, results will be cumulative only, and your responses won't be identified by your name or company.

It is fine for multiple people in the same company to fill out the survey. I ask you to identify what company you work for and what client geography you are making estimates for. That way, we can get some local expertise from the giants like Microsoft and WebEx by people who might know one geography but not their worldwide total. And I can do some averaging and internal validation by comparing responses from different people in the same company.

I know that many vendors don't or can't track exact client usage figures. Don't let that stop you. Answer the statistics that you have a good feel for and skip the others. Informed guesses are okay. We know this won't give us exact stats that will stand up in court, but a large canvassing of the industry will give us all a better picture of what is going on than we have now.

I have broken the statistic questions into three groups. Structured events, collaborative meetings, and on-demand recordings.

Take the survey today. And feel free to forward this to your colleagues who might have information and insights as well.

PS: I'm cross-posting this on Webinar Wire to hit the largest audience of vendors possible. Between these two blogs, I think just about every web conferencing vendor should see the note.

 

Technorati Tags: web conference,web conferencing,webinar,web meetings,web events,market survey

Adobe Connect Support Update

I just spoke to Tracy Wilson, the director of Adobe's customer care organization. We had a conversation last month after my article on problems with customer support for users of Connect Professional as a hosted service.

In our first talk, Tracy acknowledged that Adobe realized they needed to improve and restructure their support methodology, especially for hosted service users, which is a new delivery model for the organization. She said that they had embarked on an 8-month project, speaking to 2000 customers worldwide about experiences and pain points.

They then restructured their internal (Tier 2 and 3) technical support teams to build regional centers of excellence, hire more technical experts, and get more direct hands-on experience with customers. They are still building to full strength and competency there, with an Acrobat Connect team based in Ottawa, Canada. One of the early priorities was a faster response time to escalated problems.

In the meantime, they have started working on Tier 1 changes, which is the first line answering every incoming customer call. That's a larger problem, because it affects every product and every call all at once.

The operations team is working on a better self-service online resource for letting hosted customers find answers themselves. There are people assigned to building a larger, more streamlined online knowledgebase and search system.

In today's call, Tracy updated me on changes addressing the problems I had encountered with what Adobe calls the "entitlement process." That's the thorny question of whether a caller is on a support plan, checking for customer ID, and the like. This week they have made changes so Connect customers on a Bronze or Silver support plan can call directly to Technical Support without going through an Entitlement gatekeeper. The support rep will determine who you are and get you set up appropriately without shuttling you to another department. Then they can move on to answering your question. That will certainly help with some of the problems I reported.

Adobe has not yet resolved the critical need for instant in-meeting help though. If a host or an attendee is trying to get into a meeting and having problems, they need a way to get quick connection help without any of that entitlement rigmarole. Tracy tells me that putting a process in place for that situation is high on her list and that she'll give me updates as they make additional changes.

It's nice to hear that the company is taking an active interest in these problems!

 

Technorati Tags: Adobe,Acrobat Connect,Connect Professional,technical support,webinar,web conferencing,web conference

Is Your Email Marketing Award-Worthy?

You only have till the end of this week to nominate your company for a Marketing Sherpa Email Marketing Award. If you put out an email campaign that worked particularly well and can produce hard data to back up your claims, Marketing Sherpa wants to know about it. If you win, you'll be invited to their Email Summit conference to receive it, you'll be featured on their website, and you'll get a nifty engraved award for the lobby.

There are nine categories, and each one has a winner for B-to-B and B-to-C campaigns.

Best Email Opt-in Campaign

Best Email Newsletter for Marketing Purposes

Best Promotional Blast -- Direct Sale or Lead Gen Offer

Best Single Welcome Letter (to New Subscribers)

Best Automated Series (Auto Responder)

Best Triggered Personalized Email

Best Postcard-Style Campaign

Best (or most dramatic) test you learned from

Best Non-Email Opt-in Messaging Winners

Register online at http://www.sherpastore.com/EmailSummitAwards08.html

 

Technorati Tags: Email marketing,MarketingSherpa,email campaign

Webinar Webinar Webinar... Nyah nyah!

I am proud to note a mark of distinction for this blog. It has been picked as an exemplar of the decline and fall of the English language. Not for its content or for the tortured phrasings employed in my posts, but for daring to use the word "webinar" in the title.

Yes, friends and neighbors, it's that time of year again... The attentions of the self-appointed word police have once more been turned to protecting America from the linguistic decay that threatens to destroy our great nation.

As you may have seen in numerous press stories (they eat this stuff up), Lake Superior State University has published its 33rd (!) annual "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness." Never mind the fact that their criteria and examples have nothing to do with "Queen's English" (which is a difference in pronunciation, not usage or dialect)... apparently that particular misuse doesn't bother the team so much.

No, they felt it necessary to once again include the word "webinar" as useless and silly, perhaps forgetting that they already included it on their 2005 list. Nobody paid attention then either.

I have fought this battle before, as recently as September of 2007. But it gets new life from a community weblog called MetaFilter (apparently the use of "Meta" in front of any- and every- thing you can conceive does not make the list). Right up at the top of the page, the hyperlink attached to "webinar" is this self-same blog. And I even get an asterisk: "One of the requirements for a Banished Word or Phrase is that it has been used as a title for a Blogspot or Typepad blog." Wow... My apologies for not using WordPress. That would make my content much more legitimate. Oh, and by the way... "blog" was banished in 2005. You'd better keep that out of your writing.

Ho hum. Any list of made up words that says "truthiness" and "brunch" are fine, "webcast" gets a passing grade, and "Doh!" or "Eat my shorts" cause no consternation has no legitimacy in my book for calling down the powers that be on "webinar." Just because you don't personally like a coined or commonly used word does not mean I feel any hesitancy whatsoever in applying it where it is convenient, concise, and communicates my meaning. Do you dig, hepcat?

Technorati Tags: webinar,banished words,Lake Superior State University,MetaFilter,language