Tomorrow I'm giving a training session via web conference to a group of 16 people gathered in a room. They'll watch me on a projected screen and listen through a conference phone. I know I'll have to work extra hard to keep them actively engaged and interacting with me and with the content.
The process would be easier if I had known about a feature in TalkPoint Convey that was introduced this summer. Called "Meeting Room View," it allows participants to join a web conference without audio or video broadcast elements. They simply retain the ability to type questions and answer interactive polls. You can see a short video explanation of the feature below (or if the clip doesn't play in your feed reader, you can visit https://youtu.be/bAM6WKFDeMA).
The implementation is simplicity itself. Participants don't need a separate "limited access" link… Everyone uses the same web conference link and chooses at login time whether to view and hear the full content stream or just have interaction controls handy. It doesn't require a separate app download (all interactions are handled through HTML5 and JavaScript inside a web browser). People in the room are less likely to create problems with audio feedback and create less bandwidth-suck on the room's wifi connection. Participant screens are less cluttered, leading to an easier ability to interact with the presenter. And unlike third-party smartphone polling solutions, in-room votes and questions are part of the main conference data, combined seamlessly with responses from other users at individual computers in other locations. There is no need for the host to switch between multiple applications to see participant contributions.
I love this idea and I love the way TalkPoint implemented it. As far as I know, it's a unique approach. But I'll bet other vendors start adding it to their products now that they've been introduced to the concept. It's just too easy an enhancement to make.
TalkPoint was purchased by PGi two years ago, but it still operates as a self-contained business operation. The basic Convey web conferencing application is offered in the usual tiered-capacity levels (100, 300, 500, 1000, 3000, or more). Optional purpose-specific add-on packages allow customers to create marketing portals, impose additional layers of security for web conferences, run prerecorded content as live webinars, run multicasting/unicasting behind a corporate firewall, or conduct training and hybrid (local/remote) meetings. The Meeting Room View feature is included in the "Continuing Education/Hybrid Meeting" package. I hope TalkPoint expands availability across all their licensing packages, as I see it offering value for many different web conference applications.
