The Webinar Blog

Get Those Votes In For Best Webinar Days

Participation in my survey on best webinar times is still lower than I would like. We need lots of data to make a good generalization about public preferences. But I'll tell you this... Participation from the US Eastern time zone is more than double the participation from the Pacific time zone. What's the matter with you in California, Oregon, Washington, etc? Too laid back to take part?

It only takes two minutes or less to complete the short radio-button form. It doesn't even ask for your email address... You won't get on any lists.

The great thing about this survey is that the results could make your life easier! If companies know when people want to attend their webinars, they can schedule them based on your preferences rather than theirs. I'm already seeing a few surprising trends.

C'mon... make your voice heard. Every vote counts. It's an election year -- Start practicing now!

Take the survey online at www.webinarscheduling.com

 

Technorati Tags: webinar,web conferencing,web conference,web seminar,web events,survey

Webinar Scheduling Survey Available

I just put up a post on Webinar Wire announcing availability of a survey designed to find out whether common assumptions about webinar scheduling are accurate or not. I urge you to go and follow the link to take the survey. It only takes one minute... maybe two if you are really detail oriented and want to add a comment.

I get the question all the time: "What are the best days and times to schedule public webinars?" Most everyone in the industry tends to give the same answer. "Mid-week. A little before lunch for the West Coast, a little after lunch for the East Coast." That's why you get so many invitations with events competing against each other in the same time slot. It forces you to pick and choose which one you will attend at the expense of others.

Now I'll tell you a dirty little secret. None of us really knows if this answer is verifiably correct or not. It's based on some common sense assumptions... People may take a Monday or Friday off for a long weekend. People are too busy getting into their work week on Mondays. People are scrambling to finish up projects on Fridays. Too early or too late a start time misses people who work flex hours.

But to test the theory is almost impossible as a statistically valid exercise. You would have to run the same event for the same audience using the same invitation at a variety of different times and see which date/time slot got the best response. Except that you'll tend to get a drop-off in registrations for whichever slots you offer as follow-on opportunities after the first show. That's because the really interested parties sign up for it as soon as they see it. And then they don't have to sign up again. I watch this happen all the time, as I'll give a public webinar with fantastic response. Then I'll offer the same webinar a month later on the same day of the week and time slot, promoted the same way. It gets fewer registrations. Because I've exhausted part of my potential audience. If I tried the second showing on a different day and time I might assume that it was the fault of the time slot, when actually that was not the determinant in response rates.

If you can't run valid experimental tests, you fall back on asking a sample of the population. And that's what I'm doing. If we get enough people responding, we'll be able to validate our assumptions and maybe get some surprises. Perhaps people are ready and willing to close out their work week with a webinar on Friday afternoon? I don't know any company willing to try running one then on the off-chance it might be successful.

If you are a webinar vendor reading this, I hope you'll promote the survey to your customer base as well. There is no branding on the survey and it doesn't mention Webinar Success, Webinar Wire, or anyone else. I do not ask for names or emails from respondents, so there's no chance of being added to a list. This is a true altruistic exercise for the public good. I'll share the findings publicly and we can all start scheduling events with more confidence that we're matching the preferences and availability of our public.

Technorati Tags: webinar,web conferencing,web conference,web seminar,event scheduling,web events

CIO Magazine Looks At Virtual Meetings

Esther Schindler has written a long column on CIO.com discussing tips for "Running an Effective Teleconference or Virtual Meeting." I was one of the people interviewed and quoted in the article.

Esther covers a lot of ground, taking a look at telephone conferencing, video conferencing, and web conferencing. There are certainly commonalities between the communications methods and tips that apply to all three, but a meeting leader should be aware of the differences as well and make an effort to work with and within the capabilities of the chosen medium.

It's worth a read, just to remind yourself of some common mistakes we all make that frustrate participants. You may pick up a pointer or two that you had overlooked in your own meetings.

Technorati Tags: Esther Schindler,CIO,virtual meeting,web conferencing,collaboration

Uses Of Web Conferencing

Web conferencing is a tool. It's what you do with it that makes it interesting. I give a lot of public presentations on tips for delivering structured, one-to-many webinars. That reflects the fact that I come from a marketing background and I do a lot of work helping companies with marketing and lead generation events.

Inevitably after each such presentation, I get questions from attendees asking me for advice and best practices on other uses of the technology.

"What are some tips for people leading collaborative meetings?"

"Can you give me a list of best practices for remote training?"

"Our company gives live product demonstrations via web conference. How can we do it better?"

I'd love to help everybody with long lists of free advice, but sometimes I'm too busy working with my Webinar Success clients on their virtual training classes, group meetings, sales demos, and lead gen webinars! So I tried to do the next best thing... I created discussion forums dedicated to each of those topic areas on the Web Conferencing Community Forum.

If you navigate to www.wcc-forum.com and scroll down to "Event Types" you'll see folders dedicated to collaboration, employee communications, investor relations, press/analyst communications, publicity and marketing, sales demos, and training/education. These rooms are great places to ask questions and share your expertise with your peers. Since they aren't associated with any one vendor or technology, you have access to a wide range of people in all areas who have experience and opinions that can benefit you.

I also scan the boards and I'll contribute my two cents when it seems warranted. I think our collective wisdom is an untapped gold mine. Remember, using the community forum is free, unsullied by advertising, and doesn't add you to ANY marketing list. It's just sitting there and waiting for you to take part.

Technorati Tags: Web Conferencing Community Forum,web conferencing,webinar,sales demos,sales training,e-Training,remote training,web meetings,collaboration,investor relations,employee communications,marketing,virtual learning

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

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

Live Meeting Web Access - Still No Luck

Here's another exciting update in my attempts to test Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 and its Meeting Web Access (MWA) mode. As a quick recap, this is the mode that presenters and attendees can use if they are not on Windows machines or if they don't want to download the 15MB installation file and install the local client application on their computer.

To upload a PowerPoint into the meeting room, the software wants to load an ActiveX control. On my test machine (Windows XP Professional with SP2), the file uploader refuses to install, leaving me unable to upload and display a slide presentation in my meeting.

I have now spent many hours (yes, I am being literal) on the phone with various Microsoft technical support personnel. I started with the Live Meeting support team, who said their application doesn't seem to be at fault (strange, because I can load every other ActiveX control I can find for testing).

They turned me over to the XP support team, thinking that my user profile might be corrupted so that the controller can't write to my personal temp space. After a lot of testing and profile management, we concluded that everything was fine there.

Next I got bounced to the Internet Explorer team, who ended up having me uninstall everything that has ever been associated with IE, delete all cached and stored objects, reset all settings to the factory default, and even try it while running in Windows Safe Mode.

Through all of this, Live Meeting refuses to install its uploader control. Now the tech rep wants me to physically uninstall my antivirus software (instead of simply disabling it). I'm a little confused by this, as the antivirus software isn't even enabled in Safe Mode, so I don't see how it can have any effect. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Eventually I'm afraid they are going to tell me to install Vista to fix the problem, at which point I'll simply give up the testing.

For fairness' sake, I want to remind my audience that I have another computer where the control installs without a problem. So it is a local conflict. It's just annoying that none of us can figure out what it might be!

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Live Meeting , MWA , webinar , web conferencing , web meeting , web conference

Wanted: Multilingual Registration

Webinar technology vendors... read this to the end. You have a chance to get free publicity and recognition!

Web seminars are an incredibly powerful tool for reaching a global audience. Your participants can watch from anywhere in the world without having to spend time and money to travel to a physical meeting place. As an organizer, you can create registration pages that collect vital information on who registered and attended your seminar. These might represent new sales leads or they might indicate existing customers with an interest in a new offering. Perhaps you are tracking employees who have taken a mandatory training class online. Maybe your presentation is a prerequisite for a live telephone discussion so you know all your committee members have seen the salient facts before working collaboratively to reach a conclusion.

Whatever the case, the ability to collect and analyze a list of registrants and attendees is vital. Most webinar technology vendors offer the ability to create registration pages (some offer more customization flexibility than others) and to download reports pulled from the registration information. But I have been running up against problems with international attendees lately.

Consider someone from Poland attending your event. Their alphabet (and keyboard)contains characters not found in the standard ASCII codes used for Western English.

If they enter their name with one of the non-English characters, it is likely to show up on your registration report as an empty rectangle or some other character conversion that leaves you scratching your head over who they are, what their address is, or what their company name is.

It gets worse if you are trying to reach Asian audiences. Many Asian language representations on computers use what is known as a "double byte" architecture. That means a character needs two bytes of digital coding in order to represent it, instead of a single byte, as is common with Western alphabets. Japanese and Chinese have even more confusion, as there are different representation schemes even within their own language representations.

A standard was created for consistent representation of different languages on computer systems. It is called Unicode and can handle around 100,000 different characters taken from all the major languages of trade and commerce. Great! Something we can all use. Unfortunately, Unicode is inefficient, as it uses a lot more storage space for each character's coding. And the "universal standard" has been broken down into many subsets, which kills the whole point of it, if you ask me.

So now we come to the crux of the matter. Which (if any) webinar technology vendors support Unicode or some other way to get registration reports that faithfully reproduce characters entered from non-Latin keyboards. Can you show me the Japanese name of my attendee? Can you give me the street address that my Korean participant typed in?

Send in a comment or email and I will update this post to give you the recognition you deserve. I figured WebEx would be able to handle my request, as the global market leader in web conferencing, but it turns out they can't do it. So this is your chance to trumpet your feature superiority to WebEx!

UPDATE (Oct 15):

ON24 is the first vendor to speak up. Cece Salomon-Lee (Marketing Communications Manager) writes me that "our platform can take the non-standard characters and display them correctly in the reports. This assumes that the person viewing the report has the correct fonts installed on their computer. In other words, you have to have the correct fonts installed on your computer in order to see the characters. If so, then our presentation manager program will also display the correct characters."

UPDATE (Nov 8):

WebEx now says they can properly capture foreign characters in registration information. You need to segment and save the report rows from each different character set as a comma delimited text file and import the file into Excel indicating the source character set. Excel will interpret the codes correctly and display the characters in their original format.

Technorati Tags: webinar , web conferencing , web conference , web seminar , unicode , ASCII , registration