Comments on: Why webinars are generally bad and how they could be better

By: admin

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:13:59 +0000

Hi Bruce and Ari! Bruce, I agree that in-person lectures can be pretty terrible. A skilled communicator can read her crowd and adjust accordingly, but you’re right that this doesn’t always happen. Ari, thanks for the info. Let’s do think about how to share some lessons about what works well and what to avoid when doing webinars.

By: Ari

Ari — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:11:48 +0000

Hi Juliette!

I posted a follow-up to the CSS Summit here. I wish Twitter search didn’t die after a couple of weeks, otherwise you could see how strong the backchannel was during the Summit. It was actually stronger than a lot of other conferences I’ve attended.

We are still learning a great deal, actually. I am excited to step into the breach here, and work to make this the best experience possible for everyone involved. Your insights here are an affirmation of what we’re doing right and a reminder of what we’d like to avoid.

By: Bruce Floyd

Bruce Floyd — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:43:03 +0000

I appreciated your thoughts regarding webinar presentations and their efficacy. I have seen (and perhaps given) webinars that had just the negative aspects you’ve spelled out. Unfortunately, I’ve also witnessed plenty of powerpoint slide slog from face-to-face presentations.

Unfortunately, in our case, the webinar is the only way to go, as our travel budgets have dried up.

On a side note, I’ve been really pleased with the series of web summits put on by Christopher Schmitt. Although they don’t do all of the things you suggest, they’re reasonably close. Hopefully, they’ll pick up on your advice!

By: admin

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:12:34 +0000

Hey Christopher, I’m happy that there are really good webinar experiences out there — let’s define some best practices so that people doing unsuccessful ones can improve them! Could you share what you’ve learned? Though it isn’t rocket science, most folks aren’t doing it well.

By: Christopher Schmitt

Christopher Schmitt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:56:12 +0000

Your tips are what we follow with our online conferences at Environments for Humans where we do our online Summit Series.

Most of the tips were learned from going through Aral’s head conference in October 2008, but some of them are just common sense if you’ve been to a web design conference in the last few years.