The Webinar Blog

Myth: Casual Video Is Preferred

2012-01-27T16:58:59-05:00

Invodo put out a press release this week with statistics debunking some commonly-held beliefs about prerecorded videos as used on retail websites. We need to be VERY cautious about transferring their findings to the world of live webcasts, as that was not the context that they worked in, and they were not studying long live presentations, but very short clips used on web pages.

Still, one mythbuster in particular caught my eye. I quote from their press release:

Myth: More casual, "YouTube-style" videos produced in-house can be seen as authentic, and are effective in building credibility and demonstrating products.

What the research shows: Professionally-produced videos with quality lighting and sound matter a lot to shoppers. Consumers appreciate high quality video production, and professionally generated videos receive greater engagement and are seen as more reliable when making purchase decisions.

More than half of consumers (54%) cited a preference for watching more "polished" professionally produced videos.

While only 30% of respondents indicated they were inclined to buy a product as a result of watching user-generated videos from peers, more than 47% of consumers called professionally produced videos "more reliable" in helping make purchase decisions.

I maintain that the same psychological factors influence your live webcast/webinar audience. “Good enough” is not good enough for presenting a professional, reliable, trustworthy image to a mass business audience of strangers. If you want your marketing message, your customer training, your press/investor announcements, etc. to be taken seriously and give people a good impression of your products, people, and services then you better spend the necessary time, effort, and cash on production setup, sound, lighting, video, presenter training and rehearsal. [As a side note, that may be the longest single sentence I have ever written. Hemmingway would punch me in the face.]

You want to do a quick video meeting with an existing customer who knows you? You want to have a team meeting with your coworkers? Great… Dig out the webcam, sit under your fluorescent light, and use your speakerphone. But if you plan to introduce yourself and your company to a large target audience, it pays to do it right. Hie thee to a controlled environment with a video production team.

Technorati Tags: Invodo,video presentations,video production,video tips,webcast,webcasting,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,videocasting

How To Ruin A Video Webcast

2012-01-23T13:27:57-05:00

MediaPlatform has created a fun (and short!) video illustrating some of the best practices I laid out in a public webcast I did with them covering on-camera presentation. Their brave spokesperson shows how seemingly trivial details can add up to make a mess of your professional image in no time. If you are going to appear on camera before a public business audience, take the time and effort to do it right.

You can watch the video on YouTube, and no… you don’t have to register or give away any personal information.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/0YeTZS6GSI4

Nice job making my point, MediaPlatform!

Technorati Tags: MediaPlatform,webcast,webcasting,video presentations,video tips,videocasting,presentation tips,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web meeting,online meeting

Presentation Skills Webinar Jan 19

2012-01-18T10:23:09-05:00

Tomorrow, January 19, I will be presenting one of my most popular educational topics: Improving Your Online Presentation Skills. The session is free, thanks to sponsorship by Adobe Connect. It’s a 60-minute webinar that includes time for live Q&A. We already have well over 600 people registered, so it’s sure to be a rollicking free-for-all.

The webinar starts at 10am California time, 1pm New York time, 6pm London, and an immensely convenient 5am for Sydney.

See you online!

Reinvent The Webinar?

2012-01-16T12:46:32-05:00

Several people have sent me a link to a January 12 article by Michael Kolowich on the Content Marketing Institute’s website. The article is titled “How Content Marketers Can Reinvent the Webinar for 2012.” I’m not sure what my helpful correspondents want me to do… Challenge Michael to a cage match?

I’m delighted to see that webinars are being talked about in a general marketing context. Michael is absolutely right… We all need to think about ways to constantly improve our approach to webinars, our techniques for delivery, and our dedication to measuring goal-specific results. Right on, brother!

Michael starts with the contention that “traditional webinars just aren’t working as well as they once did.” He calls out a slow erosion in sign-up rates and attendance. Well, that’s certainly true as well when compared with years ago. When I first started using webinars as a product marketing manager, they were a novelty and our live attendance rates were sky-high. We’re not going to see those days again. But as Michael also says, webinars continue to be effective (and I will add “cost-effective”) as part of an overall marketing program.

I had to laugh when I saw him write “It’s certainly not time to pull the plug.” It certainly isn’t! LinkedIn groups and other marketing discussion sites are filled with people still asking “How do I get started with webinars?” Webinars are still in a growth and mass adoption phase, not a tail-end obsolete technology phase.

Michael’s article is long and well thought-out. Anybody who creates and delivers marketing webinars should use it as a springboard for re-evaluating what they are doing and how it is working. I will add a few additional thoughts and comments to his points as a way to extend the conversation.

1) Employ video to add personality and energy. This is the point I have the most problem with. The sad fact is that adding video does not automatically solve presentation problems. Many (if not most) times it compounds existing presentation weaknesses and makes the webinar even worse than the audio+slides approach Michael argues against.

The vast majority of people presenting on webinars are simply terrible. They may know their subject, but they are woefully undertrained, under-incented, and uncomfortable with mass presentation to an unseen audience. They read word for word off their slides or off a script in a monotonous voice. They pay no attention to questions, comments, or cues coming in from their audience.

Now we say to them “Hey! We’re going to put you on webcam so people can benefit from your facial expressions and gestures!” They’ll still be a lousy presenter, but now they’ll be distracted by their own image on the screen. They’ll be fixed rigidly in place to stay in the webcam frame. They’ll look shifty-eyed and untrustworthy as their gaze moves away from the camera. They’ll have awful lighting and an unprofessional setting behind them.

Yes, it is possible to overcome all these issues and create a fun, engaging, and compelling video presentation. It takes a lot of setup, a lot of training and practice, and a lot of additional support from people who know how to support a video broadcast. If you are willing to go that extra mile and use someone who can present a great image on camera, fantastic… You will indeed stand out from the rank and file competition. If you have a guest speaker coming in with minimal preparation, who views the webinar as an interruption to their “real job” you are probably much better off keeping them off camera.

2) Pair on-demand presentations with live and interactive sessions. This is a marvelous approach. Try it. And definitely experiment with cutting down your presentation time. Give a great 30-minute webinar and people will come back for more. Give a mediocre 60-minute webinar and people won’t waste their time with you in the future.

3) Use interactive engagement mechanisms. I like the main idea Michael promotes, but not necessarily some of his specific examples. Yes, you need to get people clicking and working with you. But I don’t think the way to do it (ESPECIALLY in a marketing context) is to give them worksheets to fill out with information on their businesses or handouts to read during your presentation. Instead, keep challenging them and inviting commentary as you talk. Keep constantly acknowledging their contributions and referring to their questions and comments. Use polls and other tools available in your conferencing product, but give people a reason to participate and make sure they see value from the poll (value for them, not for you).

In the end, I’m not sure we need to completely reinvent webinars. But I agree that we need to break out of the comfortable rut Michael mentions, where the marketing plan starts with “we will host 8 60-minute webinars this year on some topics, from which we hope to collect 1000 email addresses as leads.” Why not start with “What have our customers and prospects been asking about? What are their priority problems/issues? Do we have someone who is really interesting to listen to who can address those topics in an engaging manner? How can we put our knowledge out there in a way that people will want to take it in?”

Technorati Tags: Michael Kolowich,Content Marketing Institute,marketing,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting

Impressions Of ON24 Webcast Elite

2012-01-12T16:36:33-05:00

I am finally ready to follow through with a promise I made in November. At that time, I reported ON24’s announcement of their Webcast Elite webcasting software. You should go back and read the previous post to get the basics of ON24’s market strategy and target customers.

What with the holiday season and a rush of year-end activity, it took me till January to try out the new product on a trial basis. Here are my impressions. Please note that this is based only on quick testing. I have not used Webcast Elite for a real public-facing webinar.

My admiration is undiminished for the user experience that the new ON24 Webcasting Platform 10 allows. Pretty much everything that I reported as an attendee at a recent ON24 web event can be provided through the Webcasting Elite product.

But setting up and delivering a public webcast is a mixed bag. Some things are fancy, new, and exciting, full of configuration features. Others are waiting for enhancements that will obviously be coming later.

This is ON24’s first foray into letting their customers run the show themselves without extensive customization, setup, and support services from ON24. I was able to navigate my way through the process, but there are little rough spots that will be easily smoothed in future product revs with additional explanatory text and context-specific help. Help is currently provided through a single long scrolling help document in HTML format. I wanted more instances of tooltip popups and little notes right on the setup screens for things like telling me what size graphics I can import for logo customization and similar details.

My single biggest complaint is the lack of configuration allowed around registrant/attendee emails. ON24 has canned emails for registration confirmation, two reminders, thank you for attending, and sorry we missed you. You can choose to send or suppress any of those, but that’s all you can do. You cannot change when reminders go out (2 days and 2 hours before the event). You cannot change a word of text in the email. You cannot send one follow-up message to all registrants. This will definitely need to be opened up for customization.

The major new piece of functionality in Webcast Elite is the Console Builder. This runs as a web-based application, letting an administrator control the content and interactivity that will be available in the webcast. The best analogy I can use is that the attendee’s browser window becomes a little webcast operating system. They can open, resize, move, and shrink windows to do different tasks. They get a menu bar with icons that acts like the taskbar in Windows. So the administrator’s job is to layout the applications that will be available in the webcast world.

Obvious choices include a presentation area for slides and a Q&A window. You might choose to include a group chat window. And maybe a media player to show a presenter on webcam or to play back a canned video clip. But it gets much fancier than that.

Even in this early phase, there are 27 of these application widgets available. Some are excitingly novel. For instance you can display a brainstorming window that lets participants add ideas, comment on existing ideas, and vote them up or down. Or you can add a “Share This” window that lets attendees quickly post about your webinar on common social media sites. You can let them tweet inside an event using their own Twitter account and see a stream of tweets related to a hashtag or a keyword. You can add presenter biographies, contact links, additional resources, images, an RSS feed reader, and even an in-room access to Wikipedia! In fact it is easy to get carried away and add too many of those toys to an event, overwhelming your audience or giving them too many distractions from the real content.

The administrator can choose many customization features, such as replacing ON24’s default icons, changing the order of the icons on the menu bar, deciding whether to let attendees move or resize the widget window, etc. Unfortunately there is no “Big Brother” functionality to let the presenter dynamically turn on and turn off widget functionality for the audience during a webcast. Either it’s there and usable, or it’s not. So you can’t turn public group chat on and off based on audience behavior. You can’t remove distractions such as the brainstorming widget when you aren’t actively using it. Any attendee might choose to open any available widget window at any time. I would like to give the presenters more dynamic control over the active environment during a webcast.

Administrators lay out the size and position of each widget window when it first displays. Then you might let attendees move them around. But you have to be careful… If you have a big wide monitor running at high resolution and you place a widget’s initial display position to the far right or bottom of the display area, an attendee with a smaller screen might not be able to see the widget when they open it. There are no scroll bars… Information off the screen is lost. If none of the widget window is in the active screen area, there is no way to grab it and pull it back onto the screen. So it’s important to keep the initial layout compact. This will be more critical as ON24 moves towards greater support of attendees on mobile devices. I think they need to add a scrollable display area so every attendee can get to the entire console layout area.

As you can see, building a console and configuring everything is a serious administrative task for someone who understands the ramifications of each decision. It is not something that a casual presenter would do. But ON24 has added the ability for companies to create layout templates that can be used for new events. An administrator might have a standardized “marketing webcast” layout that any presenter could use for a new marketing event. It would be nice if ON24 provided one or two starter kit layouts for their customers so that a new administrator is not faced with a blank page the first time they see the system. But I think their account support team helps new customers get things set up initially, so customers are unlikely to come at the system completely cold like I did.

There are some other features that deserve special mention. One of my favorites is that each event comes with a reports link. The administrator can send the link to stakeholders on the event team who can use it to get an instantaneous update on registration and other aspects at any time. This takes a burden off admins having to run and forward reports on demand for team members.

Question handling also has some great functionality. Admins can set arbitrary status codes that the presentation team can use to mark questions for each other (such as “Ask Me This” and “Skip This”). Questions can be assigned to an individual for handling. The presenter can select a question and automatically show it in the slide presentation area to all attendees. This is a great feature for public Q&A sessions at the end of events, so attendees aren’t looking at a boring “Q&A” slide for 15 minutes.

While ON24 has been busy creating an exciting new model for webcast layout, functionality, and interaction, the same cannot be said for the presenter experience. Presenters use a Presentation Manager application that is separate from the fancy interactive console layout and has been used with the last several releases of ON24 webcasting. Oh, it does what you need, but it is definitely a generation behind the Flash-based interactions in the attendee console. Pushing slides, pushing polls, displaying poll results and so on feel kind of clunky by comparison. Mark Szelenyi, the Senior Director of Webcasting Product Management at ON24, confirmed that updating the presentation experience is next up on the roadmap. But that should not stop people from using Webcast Elite right now. The presentation controls are fully functional, just not pretty yet. Thousands of presenters have used them successfully over the years, so it’s nothing to worry about.

Although there are lots of other details I could write about, this is already too long for a simple blog post! Let’s sum it up…

ON24 Webcast Elite offers an exciting new way to provide more interactivity and user control during a webcast. Audiences should love it. Setup is more complex than with other fixed-display web conferencing consoles and someone at your company needs to take on the task of becoming the expert who understands option choices, widget functionality, and layout considerations. Presenter controls are the same as in previous ON24 products and don’t feel integrated with the fancy new display interface.

Major drawbacks at the moment include a lack of options and customization in registrant emails, and support that is limited to “Fill out a form and we’ll get back to you” except in the emergency case of something affecting an active web event.

Technorati Tags: ON24,Webcast Elite,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,webinar,web seminar,web event,online seminar,online event

You Can Beta The New Adobe Connect

2012-01-09T20:04:09-05:00

Adobe just put an announcement on their blog of a limited public beta program for the upcoming release of Adobe Connect for Webinars. Codenamed Maple, this release is designed to be targeted at the webinar lifecycle, including registration and some new interactivity features. The beta also includes their new mobile version of the software for Android devices.

They are only accepting 100 beta participants on a first-come, first-serve basis. But because I reach a rather specialized audience of people specifically interested in and experienced with webinars, they have given me 25 slots in the beta program exclusively for use by my readers.

If you would like to see what Adobe has in mind for the webinar market ahead of general release, you can register for the beta program using this link:

https://prerelease.adobe.com/callout/apply.html?callid={2170E912-2ABB-46D3-B09E-580DFC8AC801}

If you have never participated in a software beta program before, you should know some things before deciding to grab one of the few slots.

1) You are working with software that is not finalized. That means you may encounter bugs and you may see changes in small operational aspects from day to day. This is not the right thing to use for a big, public, mission-critical event!

2) You should be ready and willing to read the development team’s release notes and supply well-written feedback on bugs or things you think are difficult or frustrating. You are helping to influence software that will be used by many people. Try to do your part to contribute.

If you try to sign up on my link and get a message that all the slots are filled, please add a comment here to notify others.

Have fun!

Technorati Tags: Adobe Connect,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web conference,web conferencing,web meeting,online meeting

Web Conferencing And ADA 508 Compliance

2012-01-09T17:29:46-05:00

Joy sent me an email asking why I don’t often comment on universal accessibility in compliance with US Section 508 law and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) when I cover web conferencing products.

There are a few reasons. The first is that I don’t consider myself adequately knowledgeable about that aspect of the law and would probably make mistakes about what programming constructs satisfy it from a legal perspective and from a practicality perspective.

Secondly, it is very hard for me to determine what is reasonable in terms of access accommodations for a person with limitations in sight, hearing, or dexterity. Some things that I might find annoying and inconvenient from my privileged position as someone without constraints on those accessibility issues might be perfectly acceptable as tradeoffs for someone in that position who is willing to put up with the additional effort required just to be able to fully participate in a web seminar.

Thirdly, it can be frustratingly difficult to pin down vendors on whether their webinar products are fully government-approved for compliance, whether they can be thought of as compliant if the customer is willing to do some extra work or purchase additional options, or whether they have some nods to compliance in certain areas for certain disabilities but not others.

The only web conferencing product I ever saw that was built from the ground up to be a practical solution for people with varying types of access limitations was IDEAL Conference. I blogged about it way back in September 2009.

So let’s open this post to comment from web conference/webcast/webinar software vendors. If your product is Section 508 compliant and is approved for governmental use, please add a comment so people can include you in their supplier searches. I’m going to be much more lenient in my editorial policy on this one. You are allowed to be self-promotional and include contact or website links for people to find more information about your product. Just please include something specific and relevant to this compliance issue… Not just a generic advertisement saying your product is great.

Technorati Tags: Section 508,ADA compliance,Americans With Disabilities Act,IDEAL Conference,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting

Weekly Webinar Wrap: omNovia

2012-01-06T16:51:17-05:00

omNovia quietly added five little enhancements to their web conferencing product over the Christmas break. I haven’t tried them out, so I’ll just recap from the company’s page on product enhancements and new features.

There are new options for placement of the Chat area when using a split-screen view in the web conferencing console.

You now have the option to add a Closed Captioning text area to accompany your normal presentation content. Of course you can use this for announcements or anything else you want to type as well.

Webcam and microphone setup has been simplified.

Administrators can get to setup and reporting functions more easily from within a conference room.

Recording quality has been improved for H.264 format movies.

Technorati Tags: omNovia,webinar,web conference,web conferencing

Weekly Webinar Wrap: AnyMeeting

2012-01-06T16:43:53-05:00

Two quick tidbits on the wires from AnyMeeting around the new year…

They introduced a new widget that lets presenters see a small preview image of the audience’s view during screen sharing. This can potentially be helpful when checking on the lag between you doing something and your audience seeing it. Presenters should always remember that the internet is a finite-speed medium and bits take time to reassemble on the far end.

And they are sponsoring a drawing for a Kindle Fire to celebrate the AnyMeeting app in the Google Apps Marketplace. To enter, you have to write a review of the app on the Marketplace page and Tweet about it to AnyMeeting. The contest runs till January 20.

Technorati Tags: AnyMeeting,Google Apps,webinar,web conference,web conferencing

Copyrights And Fair Use In Presentations

2012-01-02T11:06:48-05:00

Fasten your seatbelts, gang, for we are about to delve into a topic so confusing, so contentious, and so inconclusive that almost nobody dares bring it up for discussion. This is likely to be a long post, so find some time when you can settle in and study. Take a deep breath and consider this question:

Can you use copyrighted materials in your presentations without permission?

The answer is a definite “maybe.” Or if you prefer, “sometimes.”

I need to point out that my discussion refers specifically to the United States of America only, as this is a question of US federal law. And it refers to copyrights rather than trademarks, which is an entirely different topic. And that I have absolutely ZERO legal training or background in law. Take NOTHING I say as legal advice or counseling. I’m just rummaging around the internet for information.

I will also point out right up front that there is an easy way to deal with the question in a categorical, never-fail solution strategy. Just don’t use other people’s copyrighted materials without explicit, written permission. That is the advice corporate legal counselors would give their clients.

So with all of those disclaimers up front, is there any reason to still explore the subject? I contend that there is. The Copyright Law has a marvelous section right there in black and white saying that there are valid, acceptable reasons to allow certain uses of copyrighted materials. But some of the biggest rightsholders regularly use strong-arm tactics and intimidation to suppress application of the Fair Use provision. We need to know our rights and be ready to exercise them, or else they might as well not exist at all.

If you want to read the section in the law straight off the page, it’s quick and easy to do. It’s not even written in “party of the first part” legalese. Go to http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf and scroll down to page 19. In a few short lines, Section 107 spells out an exception to copyright limitations that is so vague and ill-defined as to render it almost useless for planning and for predicting a legal decision.

Basically it says that inclusion of copyrighted materials in your work is sometimes acceptable, even without permission. It lays out four areas “to be considered” in determining whether the use is fair and does not constitute infringement. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say how they are to be considered. Do all have to apply? Just one? And to what extent? Here are the considerations, and the lack of quantifiability is breathtaking:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Does this mean that only nonprofits or schools have Fair Use? Or that they can use anything they want? No to both questions (based on past court cases). Does it mean that if you use only a few seconds of a movie clip from a full-length motion picture you are automatically okay? Again, no.

What it really means is that if a Fair Use case goes to court, the judge has a lot of personal discretion in making a decision and no sane lawyer would guarantee a finding one way or the other. It means that precedent is very hard to apply because you can argue lots of subtle small case-specific differences. And it means that the party with the deeper pockets can almost always afford to keep the case going long enough to make the other party fold from simple fiscal attrition.

On the plus side, I’ll mention something that no lawyer would ever choose to highlight. In the overwhelming majority of cases where the copyright owner chooses to contest a use, they start with a simple “cease and desist” letter. I am always amused by people warning me that Disney or Warner Bros. is going to sue me for every cent I have because I use a still image from a classic film on one slide in the middle of a presentation. Yes, they have the right to do so, but it is a pretty silly first course of action. Suing takes time and money on their side, and unless the use is particularly egregious and damaging to them, it probably isn’t worth it. So the worst case scenario is likely to be an inability to include that slide in your archived recording. [IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT using this as a justification or encouragement to knowingly violate real copyrights. I’m just saying that if you think you have an honest Fair Use situation but are afraid of potential financial downside, it is unlikely to be a problem in MOST common cases.]

Fair Use is definitely NOT going to help you if you use copyrighted material in your marketing and promotional materials. Don’t even try it. Don’t associate someone else’s property with your organizational identity. Don’t use it in a situation where it could seem like the rights owner or a pictured celebrity can be seen as approving or endorsing your ideas, products, or company.

In webinar presentations, you are most likely to hit one of four use cases:

Use of a copyrighted image on a slide
Use of a quotation from a copyrighted work such as a book or white paper
Use of a short clip from a motion picture
Use of a short audio clip (music or voice)

The basics are clear. If you use the clip, quote, or image just because you think it’s cute, that’s not Fair Use. If you use the image as part of your slide master or background or repeatedly associate it with your work, that’s not Fair Use. But if you use it once to illustrate a specific point you are making, particularly in an educational context, and you comment on particular aspects of the picture or clip or quote to identify what they did and how they did it… That’s probably Fair Use.

Are there resources to help you in your planning (and potential defense of your use?). Yes there are. First of all, even in a Fair Use case you should try to attribute the copyright holder. A nice little copyright statement at the bottom of your slide can help show that you weren’t trying to claim the content as your own.

Next, you should try to get permission for use. Here is a list of many common copyright permission contacts: http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/permission.html

And here is a more condensed list for movies/music: http://www.reelclassics.com/Buy/licensing.htm

Columbia University Libraries has a nice little checklist in PDF form that lets you tot up potential arguments for and against Fair Use in your context to see whether you are more or less likely to be covered: http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/fair-use-checklist/

There is a brand new book available from Amazon called Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright.

And the Center for Social Media has some interesting online discussions on the subject.

Fair Use is not a free pass to just steal other people’s creative work. But there are times when it is very helpful in letting you make a specific point in a way that has more impact and resonance than you otherwise could. Knowing your legal rights is the place to start.

Technorati Tags: Fair Use,copyright law,presentation design,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,PowerPoint,slide design