The Webinar Blog

Can Webinars Kill Your Income Stream?

Readers, we need your help and commentary. I received an email today from a company that has been providing software training on behalf of a federal organization. Their traditional business model had them teaching a broad amount of material over several days in a classroom setting. Now they are teaching much more focused, shorter segments via web seminar.

The federal organization wants the training company to record the webinars and make them available on demand. The training company obviously wants to charge more for ongoing use of their expertise and program material, since this effectively takes them out of the picture for delivering the classes in the future.

But the federal organization says that the training falls under the public Freedom Of Information Act and that they have paid for and own the training company’s invested time and resultant recorded works.

Negotiations drag on as both sides try to protect their interests and the scope and pricing of services.

The training company is asking for any relevant precedents or similar situations they could reference to justify increased pricing for the use of their training recordings. If you have something you can contribute, I’d sure appreciate a comment on this post (or a private email if it is information you don’t want to make public).

This situation illustrates the need for a well constructed agreement on ownership of Intellectual Property and Created Works if you develop webinar recordings on behalf of a client. Make sure you know up front who gets ownership of the finished archive and what uses may be made of it. The scope of work in your agreement should specify exactly what they are paying you for. Training is a valuable service, and you should expect to be paid commensurately to the value provided. If they are going to get ongoing long-term benefits from reuse of your creation, make sure you are compensated fairly.

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web training,online training,webcasting,webcast,intellectual property,freedom of information

The Creation Of A Webinar Consultant

I wrote a blog post last month in which I laid out all the various types of consulting and service activities I get involved in. I just received a comment on that post asking how I got into this business and what made me want to change from my former career. Although I try very hard to keep this blog from turning into a personal diary, I also want to respond to the interests of my readers. So with your permission, I'll talk about myself in this post as a departure from the usual tips and news items.

I started this business in 2004 to fill a niche that I didn’t see being served at the time. I had been using webinars as a product marketer in a succession of Silicon Valley tech companies (Actually, I never changed jobs… The companies just kept changing names and going through acquisitions, sell-offs, mergers, and IPO’s).

I had slowly developed an understanding of what worked and what didn’t when preparing and delivering webinars. I was getting positive ratings and feedback from audience members and good results on our marketing efforts. Yet I found that when I brought in guest speakers, they often had difficulties communicating clearly in their web presentations. Even industry analysts with formal training in audience presentation techniques would seem uncomfortable and ill-equipped to use the tools and remote nature of web conferencing.

I realized that web seminars were gaining traction in the business world and that I had to do less and less basic explanation of what the concept was when inviting people to register and attend. The technology vendors were doing a good job of spreading adoption of the tools, but there wasn’t a corresponding growth in training and support for people trying to use the technology.

Sure, there was public speaking training available, and I had taken a number of such courses myself. But these tended to concentrate on one of two areas… Either how to appear on camera for interviews and TV appearances, or how to “work a room” when appearing on stage in front of a live audience. Web conferencing had its own strange set of requirements that didn’t match either of those scenarios.

I sat down and created a business concept that concentrated on providing speaker training for webinar presenters. As a side note, I figured I could also provide a few tips and guidelines for people who wanted some help in setting up their web events. Much to my surprise, I found that my “sideline” business offering was the one that caught fire first. I’m coming up on five years with my business, and the two offerings are only now starting to balance out. I have lots of presenter training clients and lots of event support clients, which makes me quite happy.

In terms of my business goals, I made a decision that I was not out to create a big company that would some day be sold off or go public or would rely on ever-expanding volume as a measurement of success. Instead, I wanted to be in personal control of all aspects of the business and services rendered. If I never again had to sit through another corporate departmental meeting, that would be fine with me. So I have no employees, no big marketing and advertising campaigns, and no commission-hungry salespeople. I take on as much business as I can personally handle while delivering quality personalized attention to each client. It keeps me busy, but it also keeps me happy. Not a bad thing to accomplish in a career.

There are a lot of strange and seemingly unrelated influences and experiences in my background that contribute to my understanding of and comfort with the tasks needed for good web conferencing. Some of the things I call upon come from this grab bag of experiences:

• My father has been an advertising and PR professional all his life. I learned a lot about public presentation of concepts from him. I also worked in an advertising agency and got a chance to see how copy and graphics work together to influence an audience.
• I have had training in public speaking (on and off camera) and radio broadcasting (which is surprisingly applicable to web presentations). I have a great deal of experience in stage acting as well. But one of the best training grounds for this type of public presentation may have been the five years I spent as an international tour guide and tour director. There’s something about having to engage an audience over a microphone, even when you’re sitting down in the jump seat of a tour bus and can’t see your audience while knowing they can’t see you. Vocal skills and an ability to combine education and entertainment become crucial.
• My early career path concentrated on computer programming and corporate training/support for computer users. So I had to learn how to use various types of software technology and make it understandable for new users. Later I switched to product marketing, which gave me an appreciation of various promotional techniques and lead generation requirements.

As the Grateful Dead sang, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” I hope these ramblings have given you a better idea of my path to Webinar Success. I appreciate your comments and questions, and I hope this blog continues to satisfy your interests.

--Ken

 

Technorati Tags: Ken Molay,Webinar Success,webinar,web conferencing,web conference,webcasting,webcast,web seminar,web event

Presentation Tip #276: Talk To Me

I just got a marketing email sent from a web conferencing vendor. It touted their high quality webcast video feed. I clicked on the link to see the demonstration video, and indeed it looked very nice. But the presenter started off with “Hello, everybody.” Man, that turns me off! I’m not an “everybody”… I’m me. An individual. And I want you to recognize my special place in this world.

When you say “Hello, everybody” or “Does anyone out there know the answer?” or similar phrases in your remote presentations, you are thinking in terms of your perception of the event rather than your audience’s perception.

An audience member sitting in front of his or her computer screen is all alone. As far as they are concerned, you are presenting information directly to them. They don’t know how many other people are in the remote audience. They don’t care. They want to feel that you are speaking only to them, addressing their needs.

It’s easy in theory to change your sentence structure. Instead of “How many of you think this is correct?” you say “Click the button if you think this is correct.” Instead of “I wanted you all to see this demonstration” you say “I wanted you to see this demonstration.” Instead of “Hello, everybody. I’m glad you all could come” you say “Hello. I’m glad you could come.”

When you try it, you’ll see how tricky this seemingly trivial change is to put into practice! As a web conference presenter, you are saddled by the fact that you can see the attendee list and you know you are reaching a mass audience. Try to change your point of view. Pick one attendee in your audience. Now convince yourself that you are delivering your entire presentation just to that one person, but you are never allowed to mention his or her name. It’s taboo. You have to keep referring to him or her as “you”. Magically you will change your sentences from a plural to a singular orientation. And just as magically, your attendees will each feel a closer connection to you and your material.

By the way, if you get really good at this, you’ll find that it creates a moderately annoying side effect. Your audience members really will feel that you are speaking only to them and that they are involved in a one-to-one conversation with you. If they type in a question and you don’t answer it, they may ask why you are ignoring them! I have had this happen in a webinar with hundreds of attendees.

It’s okay to cheerfully mention the fact that there are a lot of people watching and that you may not be able to address every question during your session. Acknowledging the fact of a large audience is not taboo. But it doesn’t change your phrasing style… Even when you are talking about your audience, you are presenting it as information you are conveying just to that one listener. It’s for his or her personal edification and understanding. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I may not be able to answer your question right away if other people put things into the queue ahead of you.” See how you are acknowledging and speaking to the individual and addressing his or her needs?

Practice this. It gets easier the more you do it.

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,web event,webcasting,webcast,presentation tips,presenter training,speaker training

Webinar Effectiveness Survey Still Open

The anonymous, marketing-free survey on webinar effectiveness is still open and looking for your input!

http://tinyurl.com/webmeasure

So far we don’t have enough voting for statistically valid results, but I have seen some fascinating anecdotal information. A big thank you to the people who are writing in comments about their experiences with webinars. I’ll be sharing these online when the survey ends.

Don’t miss your opportunity to stand up and be counted. Help us find out whether webinars “work” – and how you are able to tell. It only takes a minute or two of your time.

I solemnly swear that you will NEVER be contacted by any company or added to a list from your participation.

Vendors, please consider helping to spread the word. This information benefits everyone and all results will be made public for you to use and reference.

 

Technorati Tags: webinar,web conference,web conferencing,web seminar,web event,online event,online meeting,webcasting,webcast

Conferendum Offers Innovative Service

Conferendum is a web conferencing vendor based in Germany. They just announced a new service that should appeal to many small businesses and even some larger companies. The basic concept is that Conferendum will let you use their web conferencing software to run pay-per-view events. They handle the online registration and payment process. You manage the content and the delivery. You pay nothing up front. Conferendum simply takes a 25% cut of whatever revenues your event brings in and sends the rest to you.

This implementation addresses a kind of call I get every so often. “I am a consultant (or trainer or knowledge expert) and I usually conduct paid local seminars or training sessions. I want to try taking my service to the web, but I have no idea what the response will be. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on technology costs up front that I might not recover. And I don’t have web programmers who can build payment processing systems. Is there a service that will let me try out paid classes on the web in a way that is easy and practical for me?”

This is the first service I have seen that truly goes after this kind of application. But it gets even more interesting, because you can elect to charge by the minute instead of by the event! The application that comes to mind is support calls. You might charge someone for every minute they are in a session with your support engineer. I don’t think it would work too well for a structured event, as people would be itching to disconnect at the earliest possible opportunity in order to save a little cash.

But come to think of it, you might run a long multi-topic session over the course of a day with many different speakers and subjects. Then you could charge viewers only for the parts they actually watch. That’s not a bad idea!

The implementation of the pay-per-minute approach leaves some questions. Participants have to pre-pay funds into their personal account. The funds are then drawn down as they watch an event. I’m not sure what happens if they hit zero while the event is still in progress. If they don’t use all their prepaid minutes, the funds stay in their account ready to be used against a future event, but they have to pay service fees if they want to recover the unused portion.

Conferendum seems to be serious about addressing multinational requirements as well. Events are charged in dollars and Euros, and you can elect to receive your payment in either currency. The company supports 19 different languages, has dial-in telephone numbers available in 30 countries, and offers a feature that is absolutely unique in my experience… Dedicated translation rooms.

Translation rooms send an audio stream to a dedicated interpreter, who can simultaneously speak the translated language. The interpreter’s audio is broadcast to participants attending in that translation room. If an audience member in a translation room wants to ask a question, the interpreter is linked in to the main conference room to enable reverse translation. And participants can easily select any translation room from the main web conferencing console frame.

This isn’t a review, as I have not tried out the service. But assuming it works the way they say it does, Conferendum has given businesses some options that were previously too difficult, impractical, or expensive to work with. I love seeing innovation in the web conferencing industry!

 

Technorati Tags: Conferendum,web conference,web conferencing,web meeting,web event,web seminar,webinar,online meeting,online event,webcasting,webcast

InterCall/West Buys Corvent

You heard it here first. The announcement isn’t public yet, but InterCall (owned by West Corporation) has purchased Corvent. Corvent is a big services provider for large web conferencing events. They also market a nifty event registration/management tool called AMP.

I talked to Corvent’s president, Robb Cason, who told me that the immediate plans are for Corvent to continue business as usual with all employees. Corvent will also take over management of InterCall’s event managers for web conferences. Corvent had already been providing event management and moderating services for many of InterCall’s customer web conferences, so this just brings them into the fold instead of keeping them as an outsourced provider.

Best wishes to all involved!

 

Technorati Tags: Corvent,InterCall,West Corporation,webinar,web conference,web seminar,web event,web conferencing,webcasting,webcast,online meeting,online event,Robb Cason

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.

All answers are optional, you can stop at any time, and you are not asked for any information that identifies you or your company. You won't be added to any list. This is NOT a marketing trick from a vendor!

I will publish cumulative results if we get enough responses to make a difference.

Vendors, please don't answer on behalf of your customer base. If you conduct your own marketing or training webinars, feel free to answer based on your events. I would love it if you helped promote this survey on your site or in outbound communications. The more responses the better. There is no logo or branding on the survey... I am not marketing anything through it.

Let's see if we can get a better idea about measuring webinar effectiveness together as a community!

 

[This article is a copy from a post made on Webinar Wire. I try to minimize cross-posting between the blogs, but I wanted to spread news about the survey to as many readers as possible. Thanks for your understanding.]

 

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcasting,webcast,web event,collaboration,web training,online event,online training