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Virtual meetings in your pocket?

August 11, 2009 By 1 Comment

We all know that setting up the environment for virtual meetings or training sessions involves a commitment in terms of hardware, software or both. Or does it? Genius Room hope to persuade us otherwise, with the launch of their new PocketMeeting service.

desktop_sharing_step_3

The premise is pretty simple. You go to their website, enter your credit card details and for $5.00 you get 24 hours of access to your own screen sharing environment. It doesn’t feature voice or chat, or in fact anything other than screensharing, but that’s the beauty of it really. No big learning curve, no complex tool to remember, no vendor specific plug ins (although it does rely on you having Java installed).

If you occasionally have the need to share presentations or other desktop materials, and are happy to use conference calling or VoIP for the audio, PocketMeeting is certainly worth investigating.

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Increasing use of web conferencing for sales training

August 8, 2009 By 1 Comment

Increasing sales effectiveness with online training, a new report from Citrix Online, highlights just what an important role web conferencing is playing in sales training. Using data from a recent Manasco Marketing Group survey, the report shows there is a significant rise in the number of sales organisations that rely on online training to stay competitive:

  • “The survey data reveals a considerable jump in the number of sales organizations that are conducting online training (54 percent last year compared to 70 percent this year).”
  • “56 percent report that they have integrated onsite and online training for sales development.”
  • “Online training is more frequently utilized for product updates and refresher sales training.”
  • “Organisations are more than twice as likely to hold sales development activities more often when they utilise online training. A full 20 percent of respondents report that they conduct online training sessions once a week or once every two weeks.”
  • “The survey results presented a nearly universal consensus – with 94 percent of respondents in agreement – that limiting disruptions to the sales process is an important consideration when designing a sales training program. And for 78 percent of respondents, travel costs also play a significant role in making sales training decisions.”
With most sales staff based away from a central office, it’s easy to see why online training is likely to be popular for this audience. Nevertheless, in my experience, this is a tough and demanding audience to work with, so it’s encouraging to see how successfully this change has been implemented.
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Exploring the arguments for online meetings

August 7, 2009 By 1 Comment

I’ve been collecting my arguments for and against face-to-face and live online communication, in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. I’m making no distinction between meetings, webinars and training sessions. Here goes:

Which medium is more effective, i.e. is more likely to help you achieve your goals?
 
Face-to-face communication can be more effective than online communication because:
  • discussions can be more freeform and spontaneous;
  • on the rare occasions when a lengthy meeting really is needed, this is likely to be more comfortably achieved face-to-face;
  • you can engage in activities that require participants to be in the same physical space.
Live online communication can be more effective than face-to-face communication because:
  • meetings can be held as soon as the need arises, without waiting for participants to travel to a central location;
  • it will be easier to attract the participation of experts who are geographically dispersed;
  • a greater degree of anonymity makes it easier for more retiring participants to contribute;
  • the text chat ‘back channel’ enables networking and collaboration to take place even during other activities (especially presentations);
  • the ability to record sessions makes it possible for those who miss the live event to still gain some benefit.
Which medium is more efficient, i.e. will use less of your resources?
 
Face-to-face communication can be more efficient than online communication because:
  • it does not depend on the availability of technology – connectivity, devices, etc.;
  • the skills in facilitating face-to-face meetings are more widely available.
Live online communication canl be more efficient than face-to-face communication because:
  • it is cheaper in terms of travel, subsistence, etc.;
  • it takes less time in terms of travel, etc.;
  • it is more environmentally friendly;
  • it encourages shorter meetings;
  • if some element of a meeting is not relevant, you can easily do something else.

I’m bound to have missed something important here, so comments please.

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Sometimes you can try too hard

August 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Last week I mused on the difference between a webinar and a virtual classroom session (see So what exactly is a webinar?). It became clear that a webinar was essentially a presentation by an expert on a specialist topic, much like the sessions you’ll experience at any conference. Although a webinar is, more often than not, a learning event, it is quite different in character – and in the expectations of participants – to a workshop or typical small group classroom session.
 
I’m reminded of a friend who attended an Open University summer school a few years back. Although this person was a trainer by background, and used to facilitating highly-interactive workshops, they were frustrated with the ‘time wasted’ on collaborative activities during lectures by eminent academics. What this person wanted was to sit and listen, to reflect, and perhaps take a few notes. Interaction could come later, in informal discussion with other participants.
 
For this reason, I was particularly interested in what Ken Molay had to say in Must your webinar be interactive? on The Webinar Blog:
 
“You have to disassociate yourself from your own predefined concept of what indicates success or failure of your presentation and associate yourself instead with the way your audience wants to take in the information. So instead of vainly trying more and more interaction techniques on unwilling subjects, eliminate the remainder of your polls. Stop urging the audience to answer questions via the chat window. Instead, concentrate on supplying detailed and valuable information in more of a straightforward discourse. The important thing is not to sound disappointed or to make an indication that this isn’t your preferred method of presentation. If they want to hear a lecture, then by golly you’re going to give them a great lecture!”
 
Sometimes you really can try too hard.
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