The Webinar Blog

New PowerPoint Torture Test Available For Testing Web Conferencing Products

My last two posts talked about how hard it is to accurately reproduce advanced features of PowerPoint in web conferencing products.  Over the years I have tried to help vendors and users evaluate their conferencing software and spot potential problem areas with a "PowerPoint Torture Test" that throws difficult content at the web conferencing products.

I just updated the file to include the new PowerPoint 2016 "Morph Transition" effect, along with a few other complex transitions and full-screen animations that should give screen sharing products a hard time reproducing all the smooth motions for participants.

You can download the PowerPoint file from this link:

• http://www.wsuccess.com/download/PPT2016TortureTest.pptx

Please add comments to this post if you find a web conferencing product that displays everything perfectly, or you can mention areas where they run into difficulties. If you are reading this in an offline reader, you can comment on the original post at:

http://wsuccess.typepad.com/webinarblog/2016/06/new-powerpoint-torture-test-available-for-testing-web-conferencing-products.html 

I want to emphasize that this file is intended as a "stress test" and should be almost impossible for any conferencing product to transmit to participants on all device types or network connections without degradation. The point of the exercise is to isolate the worst case scenarios so that vendors can devote additional development efforts to them and so presenters know what things are best to avoid. If the product you use doesn't achieve a perfect score, it doesn't mean you should cancel your subscription!

You should also be aware that unless your local copy of PowerPoint 2016 includes a subscription to Office 365, you won't see the Morph Transitions when you run the slideshow locally. I tried to make the morphs particularly complex. The elements change size, orientation, color, and edge effects (such as glow) with each transition. That's a lot of interpolation and a lot of pixel updates to manage. There's a reason I call this a Torture Test.

 

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

Should Web Conferencing Vendors Chase Presentation Features?

Yesterday I wrote a rather long post about how users should expect more faithful representation of sophisticated presentation content in their webinars, webcasts, and web meetings. I concentrated on the reproduction of animated movements on slides, and I called attention to new slide transition features in the latest release of Microsoft PowerPoint.

I recognize that the entire subject begs another question… Should a web conferencing product be required to support everything that Microsoft (or another third-party vendor) dreams up?

Each release of PowerPoint adds new effects in object animation and slide transitions. PowerPoint 2013, for instance, added "Glitter" and "Origami" as transition effects. Office 365 subscribers with PowerPoint 2016 get the addition of the "Morph" transition. These animations are not built in to the slides you create. The command to initiate the transition is embedded in the file and then the software performs the requested movement algorithm when the slide is displayed in Slideshow Mode.

Slide designers need to be aware of this playback-dependent software requirement. Your presentation may look great when you test it on your computer with the latest release. But if you send it to another person or show it on a different computer at a client meeting or conference, you may not see the effects you designed in. They would have to be running the same version of PowerPoint you used in order to guarantee similar behavior.

Which brings us back to web conferencing. We have two common scenarios to consider:

1) The software displays what the presenter sees on her/his screen via screen sharing.

This is the easiest way to deal with the issue. It absolves the conferencing vendor from all responsibility for version matching and feature support. It allows the use of different products like Keynote or Prezi if desired. But for this to work as an acceptable solution, the screen sharing performance must be very high - even for participants with limited bandwidth. It's no use saying "We'll show your attendees everything you see on your screen" if they actually end up seeing jerky discontinuities in movement effects that ruin the illusion the designer intended.

2) The software converts the uploaded PowerPoint slides to an internal format for display.

When it works, this is my favorite approach (acknowledging that I only know of PowerPoint support, leaving Prezi and Keynote users in the dark). But this is the scenario in which vendors have to play catch up every time Microsoft adds a new feature. If Microsoft says "Morph is available only to Office 365 subscribers," should we have any right to expect the conferencing software to support that specialized niche feature? The answer from such licensed users is "Yes. You said you support PowerPoint. I have PowerPoint and this is what I created. Show it!" Is it reasonable for users to keep track of every feature in PowerPoint and to know which have support limited to different releases and subscriptions?

I hope web conferencing vendors will continue development efforts to support everything that PowerPoint is capable of. I think there is a market for specialized web conferencing support for Prezi and Keynote as well, since these users are not being served with current conversion algorithms. And the entire question of smooth, fast display through screen sharing is critical. I would like to see the kind of reliable reproduction of screen pixels in full motion that we already see in the best video conferencing applications. Maybe the engineers need to work on a "middle-out compression" algorithm for better real time performance?

 

Technorati Tags: web conference,web conferencing,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,online seminar,online meeting,web meetings,online conference,screen sharing,application sharing

Web Conferencing Needs To Morph To Better Slide Display

I recently saw a sample presentation from a PowerPoint design company called INSCALE. The presentation showed off the power of a new feature introduced in PowerPoint 2016 and available only to users with an Office 365 subscription. The feature is known as "Morph Transitions" and it attempts to interpolate animated movement from elements as they look on one slide to how they look on the following slide. Follow the link in that first sentence above to watch the example. Or for a more complete explanation and example, visit the official Microsoft page.

If the new feature catches on, it should make a lot of web conferencing companies nervous. Let me explain why.

There are several ways a web conferencing product may choose to display slide content. If you aren't familiar with differences between screen sharing, static image conversion, and full-motion conversion you should read a backgrounder I wrote on the subject.

Screen sharing is the easiest way for web conferencing providers to wash their hands of responsibility. "You run the slide show on your computer and we'll show attendees whatever you see." This lets them bypass issues of compatibility with products such as Keynote or Prezi. It also removes the need to keep chasing new features in PowerPoint. Cisco WebEx has gone this route. As I reported earlier this year, the WebEx slide conversion algorithm simply stopped being developed and now throws away support for animations and transitions after PowerPoint 2010. This means different users see different behaviors based on which version of PowerPoint happens to be installed on their computer. WebEx recommends just using screen share to show animated presentations.

Animations and slide transitions have always been problematic in web conferencing. If your product uses screen sharing, transmitting and redrawing pixels fast enough to simulate smooth motion for everyone can be almost impossible. Attendees may see visual content jump and jerk rather than smoothly update as elements move from point to point. If your conferencing product uses slide upload and conversion, the conversion algorithms have to support new features as they are added to PowerPoint (I still don't know of any web conferencing products that can upload and convert Keynote or Prezi).

Which brings us back to the new Morph Transition in PowerPoint. The conversion-based web conferencing products now have a new feature to support. I know several companies that rely on a product called iSpring to convert slides to Flash content that can be displayed in the online session. I just tried out the new Morph feature in my free version of iSpring and it failed to convert the new Morph Transition effects. Which didn't surprise me, but points to a need for a product update that will then have to be integrated, tested, and rolled out in the web conferencing products.

Screen share products don't have to worry about this from a technical standpoint. They still show whatever appears on the desktop. But making smooth animation movements has traditionally been difficult and time consuming for the average PowerPoint user, so showing smooth animations has not had to be a high priority for the conferencing vendors. If the new Morph feature makes it easy and convenient for users to add these kinds of effects, there is going to be higher demand for quality reproduction of those effects in webinars and webcasts.

The underlying issue is not a new one. Presentation products have been able to show animated effects since before web conferencing was developed. But we may be reaching a new tipping point on user incorporation of animated content. Web conferencing vendors need to step up the performance of their products to accommodate more content sources and content sophistication while acknowledging the reality of mobile connections that are slower and less stable than office broadband networks. I've said it before, and I'll say it again… I'm glad I'm not a webinar software vendor!

 

Technorati Tags: INSCALE,morph,PowerPoint,iSpring,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting,online seminar,online conference

Interactive And Engaging Webinars

I hope you'll join me this Wednesday, June 29, for the last educational webinar in my summer series sponsored by BigMarker. I'll be giving examples (and actively demonstrating) ways to make your web seminars more engaging for attendees and more conducive to interaction and involvement in your topic.

You can register at this link:

https://www.bigmarker.com/webinar-success/Making-Your-Webinars-More-Engaging-and-Interactive

We'll begin at noon California or 3pm New York time. The webinar is scheduled for one hour including time to answer your questions live on the air.

If you think that webinar engagement and interaction is just a matter of adding more polls during your lecture, this topic is for you. I'll explore things you can do with the way you structure your content, the way you talk, and the way you encourage active participation in your subject matter.

As with all of these sessions, admission is free. Looking forward to seeing you in the webinar!

 

Technorati Tags: BigMarker,webinar,web seminar,web meetings,online seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,presentation tips

WebEx Events Might Not Be Sending Reminders

I have an open ticket with Cisco WebEx support regarding reminder emails for scheduled webinars in Event Center. On a recent client event, we noticed that emails weren't being received on some of our test accounts.

I went back and double-checked to make sure the "send reminders" checkboxes were clicked and that the date and time for sending was right. I then updated the second reminder date/time, since I still had time to get it sent. Nothing came through.

My support rep of course went through the ways I could have messed up the settings, since these types of problems are almost always user error. We also looked for the emails in spam or junk mail folders. No luck.

Today I got another message saying that my support rep has not received reminder emails over multiple test events he has set up. So it looks like a real bug.

Any software can have a temporary bug, and I am sure Cisco will get this fixed. But it's an important feature and you might not even be aware of the problem, so I thought I would highlight it for WebEx hosts and administrators.

This also points out a useful best practice. ALWAYS register a test account as an attendee for your webinars so you can check that everything is working from the attendee perspective.

Have you held a webinar in WebEx Event Center over the past couple of days? Can you verify whether reminder emails were received by attendees? Comments in the positive or negative may prove helpful in tracking down whether this is widespread or only happening for a subset of users. Thanks!

UPDATE JULY 11 2016: The issue is resolved. You need to make sure your master account administration options are set to allow reminders to go out. See my update post for details:
http://wsuccess.typepad.com/webinarblog/2016/07/update-getting-webex-reminder-emails-to-work.html 

 

Technorati Tags: WebEx,Cisco WebEx,WebEx Event Center,webinar,web seminar,web event,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,online event,online seminar

Webinar Marketing: Keep It Specific

I'm giving a webinar tomorrow, June 21. I'll be covering ways to improve ongoing ROI from your webinars after the live event is over. I hope you'll come. It's free and it's quick… Just 30 minutes of jam-packed tips followed by 15 minutes for live Q&A.

Do you see what I did there? I promoted a single webinar, very specifically. I didn't even bother with the full, official title. I highlighted the main topic as a value proposition for yourself, and overcame two objections before you could formalize them (I can't afford it / I don't have the time).

What is harder for you to see is what I didn't do. I didn't direct you to a page of upcoming webinars. These pages exist… I have one on my company website and BrightTALK has several versions on their company website (by date across all topics, and segmented according to business interests).

Many marketers and business executives make the mistake of thinking that their promotional efforts will be more effective if they use a generic message to drive prospects to a selection list that offers many different options. That way, there must be at least one webinar that will engage them - right? The single promotional piece (ad, email, newsletter mention…) serves multiple audiences and creates a "larger funnel opening" in that classic marketing concept of capturing as many views as possible at the beginning of the process, because there is a fixed percentage loss as the funnel gets narrower.

I say thee nay. Directing people to a selection list is usually less effective than directing them to a specific event. You fall prey to three potential problems:

1) The promotional value proposition is weak. "We have a lot of good content… You should look it over and find something that appeals to you." There is no mention of a specific value to taking the action, nor is there any guarantee that they will find something of value. All you have done is ask them to spend additional time and mental effort on a task that may or may not pay off. That's an easy request to ignore.

2) The promotion does not match the click-through destination. This happens when your promotional copy is specific to a single webinar, but you drive people to an "upcoming events" page instead of to the page specific to the promoted event. At worst it feels like a bait-and-switch. You promised them specific value from a single event, but drove them to a page asking them to look over many other offerings as well. They were willing to register for the one thing they thought they would get value from, but they aren't interested in looking over everything you are creating.

3) The prospect abandons the selection process. The shorthand for this problem is "options paralysis." If you interest someone in a particular topic and drive them directly to that webinar's registration page, they only have two choices: Complete the registration or abandon it. Since they were interested enough to click through in the first place, abandonment should be a relatively rare choice. But if you present prospects with a list of webinars to choose from, their options expand exponentially with the number of choices. "I can choose webinar A or webinar B or webinar C or webinars A and B or webinars A and C or webinars B and C or webinars A, B, and C." They are unsure which single event or combination is most likely to provide maximum value for their limited availability of time and interest. The safest option is to choose none. That way they know they haven't wasted time in the selection process and in trying out multiple webinars that clog up their calendar.

In tomorrow's webinar I'll be linking this same concept to my topic of improving ROI after the live webinar. Just as you should promote a single upcoming webinar and drive people to its individual landing page, you should promote a single recording and drive people directly to its playback page. Everything I mentioned for upcoming webinars holds true for recorded content. Don't force people to make a second choice after their click-through action. Give them the specific content you promised.

By the way, if you are reading this post AFTER my live webinar (Tuesday, June 21 at 10am California / 1pm New York) you can view the recording using the same specific link you use to sign up for the live webinar: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/1166/210519 

That's a nice feature of BrightTALK… The original link serves double-duty both before and after the live webinar. And it always takes you directly to the event of interest.

 

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

WebEx Participant Control Is A Mute Point

Wait… wait… It's a pun! Misusing "moot" and "mute" is a pet peeve of mine. But this post really is all about muting.

One of my clients just had their hosted WebEx Meeting Center account updated to build WBS31 (specifically 31.3.1.11 in their case). I logged in and found that user interface cosmetics had changed a bit… No big deal, really. The UI design team squared off the icon for the Chat box. There are new icons for audio status in the Participant List. And participant names now show initials in a circle that also acts as a quick-swap to change Presenter control. Fine.

But when I started using the audio controls in a session to mute and unmute participant microphones, I noticed that I was getting confused over current status of the microphone and what action I was initiating. That is strange, as I have used WebEx through every iteration of the software over more than 15 years. I know those basic operations like the back of my hand. What was going on?

I decided to really study the new control visualization in action. I logged in as a host and as two sample attendees in a test meeting. For all tests, Attendee 1 had a muted microphone and Attendee 2 had an open (unmuted) microphone. Let's look at the different visualizations in the Participant List as I move my mouse back and forth…

 

1) First we see the list in its most basic form, with nothing highlighted and the mouse nowhere near the names:

A1 shows a red microphone with a line through it. That is a good indicator for a muted microphone. I like it. It also shows a tiny red X next to the computer audio indicator on the left. Seems redundant and easy to miss. But okay. A2 shows the computer audio indicator on the left, but nothing on the right. It feels asymmetrical.

 

2) Now I move my mouse up to the Attendee 1 line. No click, just a hover over the middle of that line:

Notice that the microphone icon on the right changes to a new circled control. I wonder why? I haven't done anything. Just moving the mouse past each name makes icons change shape and change back again!

 

3) Here I move the mouse to hover over Attendee 2. Still no click, just a hover:

I've gone from no icon to a gray microphone with a line through it. I might have thought that a line through the mike meant it is muted, but no… The universal symbol for "NO" actually carries no meaning! And again, I have symbols appearing and disappearing as I move my mouse up and down the list.

 

4) Here I click once on Attendee 1 to highlight that row. I have not clicked on the microphone control, just once in the center of the row to put focus on it.

Ooh, my right-hand microphone icon has changed again! It went from red to white. I wonder what information THAT conveys? Notice that the tiny dark red X on the left is almost impossible to see against the dark blue background. But that X is the only valid status indicator I actually have. Bad designer! Bad! Bad!

 

5) Might as well click on Attendee 2 to highlight that row:

Unlike the highlighted A1, the microphone symbol now appears in a circle.

 

6) Now I move my mouse to hover on the microphone icon itself for Attendee 1. They couldn't possibly introduce ANOTHER variation, could they?

They sure could! Now the control shows a white microphone in a red filled circle. Remember, I STILL HAVEN'T CLICKED ANYTHING. This is all the result of just moving my mouse up and down, left and right.

 

7) Might as well finish things off by doing the same hover while pointing at the microphone icon for Attendee 2:

Look familiar? IT'S THE SAME ICON THAT WAS USED FOR ATTENDEE 1 BACK IN SCENARIO #2!!! So a red microphone with a line through it in a white circle might mean "This is on and you are about to turn it off" or "The attendee you are pointing at but haven't clicked has an inactive microphone."

 

In seven scenarios, the UI team has introduced the following iconography:

• No mike on a white background
• Red mike on a white background
• Red mike in a white circle on a gray background
• Gray mike in a gray circle on a gray background
• White mike on a blue background
• Gray mike in a white circle on blue background
• White mike in a red circle on gray background
• Red mike in a white circle on gray background

And those variations come and go as you move your mouse up and down, right and left. It's like a kaleidoscope. There is no other way to put this… The design is inexcusable. It really doesn't matter at all what the team was thinking. In practice, no user has time to figure out what the differences mean (if indeed, they mean anything at all). I must be able to instantly figure out at a glance whether a participant's mike is on or off, and what is about to happen if I click a control. This design update fails that test miserably.

Shame. Shame. Shame on you, WebEx design team. Fix this. Do it now.

 

Technorati Tags: WebEx,WebEx Meeting Center,web conference,web conferencing,web meetings,online meeting,web seminar,webinar,Cisco WebEx,user interface,interface design

June Is A Month Of Webinar Education

This month I will be presenting three separate educational sessions on the subject of better webinars. All three are free. You can find detailed descriptions and links to registration pages on my "Upcoming Events" page at www.effectivewebinars.com

Wednesday, June 15, I will continue my recent mini-series of sessions sponsored by BigMarker. The topic is "How to Drive Webinar Registrations and Conversions." If you came to my last webinar on "Secrets of B2B Marketing Webinars," you will definitely see some overlap on a few of the basics. But I'll be extending and expanding those concepts to get into more detail about lead scoring and attrition as well as promotional best practices.

Tuesday, June 21, I will appear as a guest with the BrightTALK Academy. We'll look very specifically at how to continue getting returns from your webinars AFTER the live broadcast. I asked them to keep the session short and focused… I'm going to do a rapid-fire 30 minutes of best practices presentation followed by 15 minutes for live Q&A. We'll get you out of there with time to prep for your next meeting on the hour!

I'll wrap up the month and my BigMarker series on Wednesday, June 29 with "Making Your Webinars More Engaging and Interactive." This is a perennial favorite with webinar presenters. I'll share a wide variety of tips and considerations for amping up the level of interaction between presenters and attendees.

Pick a favorite topic or come to all three. I love talking webinars and it's much more fun when we have big audiences to share and stimulate discussion. I promise it will be worth your time.

By the way, those who know me or have attended my webinars know this already… I hate bait-and-switch webinars. If you attend, you'll get real tips, guidelines, and advice. You will NOT get a pitch to buy a course, a book, or additional consulting services. Each webinar stands on its own. The sponsoring companies pay me to come speak as an outside, impartial expert on the topic. Not to market myself to you or try to sell you something.

Hope to see you online this month!

 

Technorati Tags: BigMarker,BrightTALK,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting,presentation tips,speaking tips,online seminar,online conference,web meetings

When Your Webinar Goes Wrong

On Monday I watched a global webinar showcasing the launch of a new webinar technology. The technology is called Webinar JEO. I am not reviewing the software itself, as I haven't used it. Instead, I would like to use the experience of the launch webinar itself as a learning experience. Things did not go well for the presenter, Walt Bayliss - the founder and owner of Universal Media-Online. There were technical difficulties that were compounded with suboptimal presentation techniques, making the launch much less effective than it could have been.

Hopefully, this will come across as I intend it… a constructive case study analysis rather than an exercise in smug superiority and schadenfreude.

Problems started immediately at the announced start time for the webinar. Many people reported difficulties in accessing the conference. I was one of those people. Who knows what might have gone wrong? It happens. This was a major stress test for a new collaborative product. According to Mr. Bayliss, there were more than 630 attendees, and the public chat featured people giving their locations around the world. Kudos to Mr. Bayliss' promotion and marketing efforts, as that is a great turnout for a new product launch.

It took quite a while for the technical team at Webinar JEO to figure out what was happening and to get things working. Mr. Bayliss did a nice job under the circumstances. He was upbeat, kept smiling, and engaged the attendees who had managed to make it into the conference. He was trying to run a separate communications stream with his technical staff on a second computer, which is tricky at best! So I have no problems with any of that. When all was said and done, the formal presentation really got started about 30 or 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. I give all of that a pass… The team and the presenter did what they could. But once we were in the webinar proper, I became less tolerant of what I saw. This is where we can pick up technique tips.

 

1) There was no attempt to compensate for the time loss. Mr. Bayliss had a set of preparatory slides that he wanted to go through before getting to the demonstration of his new product. Quite honestly, they were a bad idea anyway… They concentrated on why webinars are useful, why GoToWebinar has deficiencies, how people make money with webinar marketing, and other background information. Those topics were not the reason people had signed up for this webinar. We were promised a look at exciting new webinar software. The people who would register for that would know what a webinar is and why it is useful. They want to see the product. Mr. Bayliss did not acknowledge or adapt to the significant delay in starting. He went through every introductory slide in excruciating detail, often reading bullet points to us, one by one. He could have easily jumped ahead to the slide that introduced Webinar JEO and gone straight into the product demo, instead of finally getting to it a full hour past the scheduled session start time.

Lesson: Quickly get to the reason people showed up. Deliver on the promises made in your promotional materials. Be prepared to skip ahead to "the good stuff" in a time crunch and follow up with additional materials later as a handout or a recording for people who want more information.

2) The presenter interrupted his own flow for asides to the chat stream. I am 100% in favor of interacting with your attendees and acknowledging their questions and contributions in the chat. But with an open, public chat stream and 600 people, the messages were flowing very quickly. Mr. Bayliss would sometimes spot something as it flew by and would stop himself in mid-sentence to answer it. Worse, he wouldn't repeat the question or comment. So his monologue would proceed something along these lines…

"The importance of a webinar is that it can - Oh, that's a good point, Carl. - It can be used to reach people - No, we haven't built that in yet, Dinah, but it's something we're working on - used to reach people internationally."

That kind of speech pattern is hard to follow, is less persuasive, and can make a presenter appear less organized and professional.

Lesson: Keep an eye on the chat stream, but choose your break points. Stay in control of your presentation at all times. Finish an entire concept, then stop to reference a comment or question. Never assume that the attendees have read it or know what you're answering; Repeat or paraphrase the message you are addressing. With large audiences, it is usually best to have a moderator help you by monitoring the chat. They can pick out some good questions and read them off to you when you stop for a break. They can even interrupt you when you pause (if you are comfortable with that and expecting it as a dynamic you have worked out ahead of time).

 

3) The presenter couldn't seem to end the session. Mr. Bayliss announced the end of the session, took another question, announced the end again, mentioned something else, and kept it up in a stream of ever-diminishing returns. Eventually it just sort of petered out rather indefinitely.

Lesson: Plan how you will end your webinar and stick to that plan. Know the final take-away point you want to leave the audience with and the single, explicit action item you want to point them to. Once you have delivered those… STOP!

 

4) The final couple of words were cut off. The last thing I heard was something like: "Okay, I think that's about it. I'm going to stop the reco - "

It had a tiny negative psychological impact, as the last thing I heard sounded like an error.

Lesson: Always include a few seconds of "dead air" before you begin speaking at the start of your webinar and after you finish your last words. Assume that your webcast stream or recording software or audio bridge takes a few seconds to spin up and wind down. Give it a chance to stabilize when you turn it on, and give it some grace room before you shut it off.

 

Sometimes a tangible example is the best learning device. I hope Mr. Bayliss won't be too upset with me for taking advantage of the stressful situation he had to deal with as my springboard for making some points. It's a great way to help make the improvement process more concrete for webinar presenters everywhere.

 

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