The Webinar Blog

Is Webcasting Not Shiny Enough?

Kate Maddox wrote up a brief piece on Ad Age, interviewing the new CMO at ON24, Ken Robinson. Most of it is standard boilerplate commentary that new executives say… "Make sure we are on the same page and share a common language." "My top marketing goals are to continue to further ON24's position in the marketplace." And so on.

But when Ms. Maddox ended with the obligatory "What challenges does your industry face?" Mr. Robinson responded intriguingly:

One of the bigger challenges we face in the webinar or webcasting category is that it is considered 'old-school technology' and has been around for awhile. It is not like the newer marketing automation platforms or some of the newer, next shiny objects. Most people have done a webinar or participated in one. So how do we recreate or create a new problem set in the mind of marketers, so they see us as providing different uses of the platform?

I think it is worth examining this purported "challenge," as it brings up a potential disconnect between webinar technology providers and webinar hosts (I am going to use the terms webinar and webcast interchangeably in this post, as the difference is not germane to this discussion).

Companies that create and sell software products tend to think like Mr. Robinson. They want to "create a new problem set" that their product is uniquely positioned to solve. Product marketing managers at software companies constantly push their engineering departments to add "shiny" new features and cosmetics that are easy to show off in sales demos.

But companies putting on webinars and webcasts should be concentrating on everything EXCEPT the technology! The medium is not the message… Webinar or webcast software should be (as much as possible) a transparent conduit for the smooth and easy flow of information between participants.

This is one of the reasons I shudder every time I see webinar technology vendors urging their customers to "add three polls per webinar to stimulate engagement." Or "make sure to use video of your presenters to improve relatability." Or "allow your audience to place markups on a shared document to foster buy-in."

The availability of all those features is fine. I like having plenty of options as an event coordinator or presenter. But the purpose of the technology vendor should not be to create something cool and then urge people to use it. The technology should allow the presenter to create a two-way communication channel that serves their business purposes without calling attention to itself.

Webinar/webcast technology does a disservice when events have to start with a long recitation to participants on how to use various features. As a moderator, I hate having to start an event by telling the audience how to access hidden panels, switch modes, or find audio options.

Vendors, we don't need new and shiny… We need you to get the hell out of the way and let us tell our story! The art of good presenting should not be contingent on the amount of technical setup and practice we do with your feature packs. It should be contingent on our presentation materials and delivery.

Amusingly, I have written many times in the past that ON24 is the technology that has already gone the furthest in achieving this goal. Their webcasting platform is almost completely intuitive for attendees, who can open, shrink, resize, and move content windows around their screen like all the other windowed applications we are used to dealing with on computers. There is really no need for a moderator to begin an ON24 session with instructions to attendees. They can point and click to their hearts' content and see what each window does in a natural and organic fashion. And although ON24 offers a lot of optional functionality "widgets" to webcast hosts, I would guess that the vast majority never get used. They can be added in if they help the presenter achieve a business communication goal in a particular context, but in most cases they are superfluous and don't even show up in the interface.

I would love to see a webinar/webcast vendor take this approach in selling their technology. Don't push it as the newer, next shiny object that enables you to solve new problems. Push it as the transparent communication channel that disappears into the background of your consciousness. The one that needs no explanation or instructions because "it just works."

Want to impress me? Show me how perfectly you manage to get all the audio and visual content to all participants, no matter their hardware limitations, poor bandwidth, or technical naiveté. Show me the high audio/visual fidelity of your recordings. Show me how little technical training is needed to let a guest presenter come in and simply give the presentation they want to give, without making concessions to limitations or requirements of the technology platform.

Yes, I am happy to have the additional advanced tools of specialized collaboration available to me. But they are not the reason I am going to put on a web event. Stop trying to make me believe I should be worrying about new technologies, new use cases, or new problem sets... I would be delighted if you would solve the existing ones more effectively.

Technorati Tags: ON24,Ken Robinson,Kate Maddox,webcasting,webcast,webinar,web seminar,web meeting,web conference,web conferencing,online seminar,web event

Proposed Update Released For Section 508 Compliance

Today the United States Access Board released their long-awaited update proposal for Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That sounds dry and complicated, and it is. But it directly affects web conferencing as used in the United States of America, so I will try to take a quick swing through the legislation.

My usual disclaimers apply… I have no legal training or expertise and my views represent the personal opinion of an interested layman, nothing more. These laws are long and complex and are subject to competing interpretations. I will oversimplify concepts out of necessity to fit within a short blog post.

The newly-released Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Section 508 is part of a well-defined process for regulations that affect the public. The proposal is made public and everyone has a chance to submit comments, after which the rule may be changed before adoption as law. Hearings are planned for March 5 in San Diego and March 11 in Washington, DC. The new standards would be enforced six months after the update is adopted, affecting all new acquisitions by Federal agencies.

I might as well start with a direct quote from Wikipedia: Section 508 establishes requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured, or used by the United States Federal government. It requires Federal electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities, including employees and members of the public.

So right off the bat, this legislation does not require compliance by individuals and businesses in the normal course of business, either internally or in communications with the public. It only comes into play with communications involving US Federal agencies and employees, or organizations receiving funding from the government.

The biggest question for those of us in this industry is whether webinars, webcasts, and web conferences need to be Section 508 compliant at all! In my opinion, the scope is unclear in both the existing and newly proposed regulations. I have a feeling that this will create arguments and possible court cases at some point in the future.

The wiggle room is provided by several loosely-worded paragraphs that allow for alternative provisioning of "ICT" (Information and Communication Technology). For instance, paragraph E101.2 allows for "the use of an alternative design or technology that results in substantially equivalent or greater accessibility and usability by individuals with disabilities than would be provided by conformance to one or more of the requirements in… the 508 Standards."

Paragraph E202.5.3 says that "where conformance to one or more requirements in the 508 Standards imposes an undue burden or a fundamental alteration in the nature of the ICT, the agency shall provide individuals with disabilities access to and use of information and data by an alternative means that meets identified needs."

Even on the web page that attempts to summarize major issues in the update, they fail to address the question of whether information presented in real-time is covered. My opinion on the intent and general wording is that the web conference itself might not need to satisfy Section 508 compliance if ALL the content presented is made available afterwards in other (compliant) formats. That would mean a full recording for audio access, a full word-for-word transcript, and an audio descriptive track of any visual information that was displayed. If interactive Q&A was allowed during the session, there would need to be equivalent access allowed for persons with disabilities who wanted to participate. As you can see, complying with every possible use requirement could be quite difficult.

Assuming a webinar host did not want to reproduce all their content and interactions in alternate formats later, what pieces of the updated Section 508 requirements might prove difficult for web conferencing technologies? It turns out there are several interesting functional concerns.

Chapter 3 of the rule lays out "Functional Performance Criteria." They are daunting. ICT must allow use by people with no vision, limited vision (allowing magnification of content and compression to fit within a limited visual field). Users need to be able to change contrast and colors to cope with visual perception limitations. I don't know of many products that allow attendees to override colors or magnification of content.

One of my favorites is listed under "Limited Manipulation." The technology must provide at least one mode of operation that does not require fine motor control. That means no tiny arrows in the interface requiring a physical mouse movement within a couple of pixels and a click to move to the next slide. There needs to be a keyboard equivalent for next page. Waaaayyyyy too many vendors fall down on this functionality.

There is a lot of functionality that is accounted for under the general guidelines of "Interoperability with Assistive Technology." That basically means that the software doesn't have to provide all the compliance capability itself as long as it lets disabled users invoke and use hardware and software built to work with audio and text content to make it accessible to them. The elephant in the room is text content presented on PowerPoint slides. When an image of a slide is broadcast through a web conferencing technology, the entire slide is presented as a single image. Assistive technologies cannot "see" the individual words on the slide and turn them into speech. So I don't know how this would be accommodated under Section 508 compliance.

I would love to hear from any blog readers who work with assistive technologies or Section 508 compliance issues combined with web conferencing, webinars, or webcasts. What are the hardest parts of a webinar to make universally accessible? Do you think the new rule update is likely to help? And if you are a vendor, do you plan to change any product functionality to make compliance easier for your customers?

 

Technorati Tags: Section 508,compliance,Rehabilitation Act,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting,online seminar,online meeting,web meeting,United States Access Board

Secrets of Webcast Audio and Video

This week OnStream Media is sponsoring me as a guest speaker on the subject of "Secrets of Webcast Audio and Video." The free webcast is scheduled for Thursday, February 12 at 11am California, 2pm New York. I will appear on camera, talking about webcast audio and video, physical setup, vocal and visual mannerisms, and how to make sure you come across confidently, comfortably, and professionally to your remote audience.

You can register at https://join.onstreammedia.com/register/bklein/webcastsecrets

I look forward to seeing you online and answering your webcast presentation questions!

Technorati Tags: Onstream Media,webcast,webcasting,web conferencing,web conference,webinar,web seminar,presentation tips