Archive for the ‘Web Conferencing Best Practices’ Category

Live application sharing versus playing a video?

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Many of our customers are moving away from doing a “live demonstration” portion of a webinar and instead play a video that was “pre-recorded”. There are definite pros and cons to each approach.

flexibilityA live demonstration (application sharing) gives you FLEXIBILITY.

Flexibility to meet the needs/questions of the lives audience.

Flexibility to manage time allotment – being able to demonstrate more or less depending on what time is available.

Flexibility to “go back” and show it again or go in more depth if needed.

Flexibility to application share anything on your desktop.

peace_of_mindA recorded demonstration gives you PEACE OF MIND.

Peace of mind that the presenter does not need to be on a “great internet connection” or even logged into the “network” during the live webinar.

Peace of mind that there is no “delay” in the “refresh rate” and thus the video will appear to run smoother.

Peace of mind that you know how long the demo takes, covered everything, and didn’t make any “mistakes”.

Feel free to post your comments and let us know your preference!

“I can’t see the slides….” – PC fixes that will help

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

I found the following article very useful in making PC fixes that improve the attendee experience instead of hearing “it’s your internet connection” or it’s a “bandwidth issue”.

Tweaks to Speed Up Internet Streaming Video
By Gaelim Holland

YouTubeThe birth of “Guerilla Video” sites, such as Peekvid.com, Alluc.org and Youtube.com have given users instant access to a plethora of free media files. Although streaming video technology offers instant access to video files, zero loading time is not always possible. There are many factors that attribute to your computer’s ability to start videos immediately. Other factors such as choppy PC video playback and slow video streaming also hinder your viewing experience. There are easy fixes to these problems. Sometimes choosing another site for the source of the video streaming or a lower quality version of the video can award you with instant play. These alternatives are not always available. However, there are a number of tweaks that help speed up your streaming video startup times, eliminate choppy PC video play and stop slow streaming video.

MultimediaBefore we start with the tweaks to speed up slow streaming video, lets get a basic understanding of streaming video technology in order to stop choppy video. Streaming video is a prerecorded video files that can be distributed as part of a live broadcast “feed.” The video signal is converted into a compressed digital signal and transmitted from a Web server. This server is able to be multicast the same file to multiple users at the same time. When you click on the on the video it is partially loaded before you can access it. This is known as “buffering”. This helps you to load and play the video instantaneously. Now lets take a look on how to cut down on buffering time, stop slow streaming video and eliminate choppy PC video playback .

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“Secrets of Webinar Production and Management”

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

I attended a webinar hosted on Adobe Connect and presented by Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success and author of The Webinar Blog. He had some very useful information and broke down Webinar production into 9 key steps/segments.  He estimated that typically a new event set-up takes 22-38 person hours to manage and 6-7 weeks to fully prepare.

Here are my quick notes to share (hour estimates in parentheses are based on brand new events/presenters, etc):

  1. Plan Your Event (2 hours)
    1. Based on what you are trying to accomplish – this may change your selection and evaluation process
      Ken Molay

      Ken Molay

    2. Roles – Determine Event Staff
      1. Coordinator/Administrator
      2. Moderator
        1. Answering questions
        2. Technical Support
        3. Presenter does not split their attention
      3. Presenters
      4. Marketer
    3. Pick your Dates/Times
      1. Look at time zones
      2. Unlimited events in a certain time period
    4. Create Timelines and Responsibilities
      1. Description/Target Date/Responsible Party/Status
    5. Other Decisions

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Webinar Techniques – “You had me at Hello…”

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

I attended a free Adobe eSeminar the other day and learned some good techniques to use when presenting a seminar on a web-conferencing platform.

Some good techniques included using:

Anticipation is created with phrases such as “At last…”, “Imagine…”, “…new…”, or offer and award at the end.
Incongruity with a question and a off the wall answer, or surprising facts.
Participation by asking questions, getting attendee involved in polls, unique answers.
Visuals are understood faster by the brain then words, thus saving time. Visuals are more memorable and keep attendees focused. Select graphics that have a lot of details, are abstract, and show contrast.
Vocal Variety by changing melody and pitch at adjectives and adverbs. Use different presenters. Use different emotions.

Bad techniques include:

Starting an introduction about yourself seems self-indulgent (have someone else introduce you, or put the focus on the attendees)
Bulleted slides
Monotone Voice