Laurie B.
Customer Service & Presentation Skills Trainer & Speaker | Author: The Greet Your Customer Manual & Teleprompter Manual
If you give webinars, or any sort of distance learning would you share the things that have gone wrong or could go wrong? thanks
I am looking to compile a "what to do if.." list for webinars and all live distance learning platforms. I will compile this list and send you a copy of all problems and answer if you want.
thanks for your help
Answers (10)
Kevin H.
Analyst at International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
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1. presenter doesn't show
2. internet connection is down
3. users have technical problems (no audio, no video, no chat)
4. internet bandwidth delays
5. users multitask and do not pay attention to lessons
6. adminstrators/tech support staff don't t show, don't know, or don't care about success of DL session.
7. users do not have material as backup (either mailed to them in advance, emailed to them in advance) or they cannot use them for technical reasons (wrong or missing application, corrupt files, not aware, not care)
8. language barriers
9. comprehension barriers
10. experience or lack thereof of the presenter giving distance learning...the rules and techniques and feedback mechanisms are very different between one-on-one, classroom, phone conference, and video, compared to DL.
11. distractions during session - feed goes down, phones ring, chat session distract the presenter, audio/video/slides don't sych....all of these remove richness from the experience.
....
In answer to your question re: what can go wrong with webinars: A colleague of mine just ran a webinar, and the mute function was not working. Despite her reminder to participants to mute their own phones, not everyone did -- including the gentleman who went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet! It wouldn't have been so bad were they not recording the webinar to sell as a product!!
People called 2 minutes into the webinar and couldn't access the session. The person I had running the phones could not answer their questions so she interrupted me in the webinar. I now know that I must have a competent person available to handle such issues.
Laurie,
Now there is a better way to learn. I think webinars and live sessions have a place, but best learning is when the learner and not the instructor is in control.
Just because people learn best they are not told, what to learn. And also learning needs to be On-Demand rather then pre-baked through lectures.
Best,
Monty
Links:
Laurie, The main challenge I had during my first few webinars was when I allowed participants to give input. As in face to face workshops, control is so important. This is a heads up for you!
Mike A.
Customer service, sales and management trainer
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Hi Laurie,
Here are some webinar challenges I've seen:
- How to balance interactivity versus sound quality issues. For instance, I saw one speaker spend the entire webinar on "Presenter mode" which muted all of the attendees. So no one could ask a question or make comments. It was like listening to a speech on CD. On the other hand, if the speaker doesn't mute the attendees, the background noise becomes very loud.
- Attendees who have pets barking in the background
- Attendees who are using a cordless phone and walk past electronic devices that cause static on the line (audible to all of the attendees on the webinar.)
- Some VOIP headsets that cause an echoing sound on webinars
- Being the presenter and having your computer freeze during the webinar.
- Dealing with people who can't get logged into the webinar. This is especially difficult if the webinar has already started i.e. trying to present, while also trying to answer this participant's urgent email about not being able to log in
- Being the presenter and having to deal with a fire alarm suddenly going off in your office building
- Finishing a webinar and realizing that it didn't record as planned.
Webinars are an effective way to reach people, without the need for travel, or meeting room space. But they do pose some interesting challenges. Thanks for offering to compile the problems and answers. I would be quite curious to see that list.
Take care,
Mike
Links:
Jim Z.
President, Ziegler corporations, - ZieglerSS@aol.com
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My new project is... http://www.ZieglerTV.com JIM
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Hi Laurie --
We do not deliver our products by Webinar. Many of us have atended one, I will ask around though our extended family.
Len
Terry "TJ" W.
Helping organizations and individuals with Leadership, Teamwork and Social Media...call me, 810.569.5858
Hi Laurie,
I have been using webinars since they began. Now that the bandwidth is here, many of the tech problems are gone. These ideas aren't earth shattering, and in no particular order. But most people fail to do them and get into trouble in webinars:
1) Have a tight agenda and stay on it.
2) Understand it is a better method for awareness and simple understanding. In other words...one way communication.
3) If you expect a bunch of strangers to ask questions...DON'T. There is nothing a quite as a webinar after thirty minutes of talk then open the lines for questions and nobody asks.
4) If you are going to ask for questions, consider planting a caller with a thought provoking question.
5) Good PPT rules are even more import in webinars, because if they get boring, people can be off in Twitterland.
6) Handle logistics upfront, don't wait ten minutes into the call to ask the "Person in the drive thru window, ordering their Sbux listening to XM Raw" to hit *6.
7) Use polls to keep them invoved.
8) Send out very brief pre-work ahead of time. This can get them involved early on.
9) Pre and Post testing is very valuable with webinars. Not just overall, but in various areas covered.
10) Webinars will never be as effective as face-to-face meetings and training. For true understanding and commitment that leads to improved performance, nothing works as well as highly effective, competency based training.
Enough for now, hope this helps. Thanks for the question: TJ
Christine G.
Associate Editor at National Underwriter and author of Personal Lines Unlocked: The Key to Personal Lines
Always practice, especially if you're using guest presenters. Make sure presenters know how to advance slides/work the mouse. Know how you're going to handle questions that come in via text - we mute our phones but take questions online, and it's tricky to be presenting and watching incoming questions and respond. Having two people present is helpful as well - breaks things up so you don't have just one speaker.
Be sure presenters have hard copy of slides so they can keep going if system goes down but audio still works - this is HUGE!
Send attendees slides in advance, and depending on your topic you may ask for questions in advance so you they can be addressed.
Surveys at the end help you know how you've done and what to fix for next time.
