Web Design
Friday, February 08, 2008
Webinar Best Practices
A reporter at the Kansas City Star wanted some technical background about webinars for an article. I provided this information, but the content was not used for the article. I’m posting it here for those people inquiring about the broad set of best practices for effective online seminars.
Webinars share qualities of other presentations, and should be treated as any other business event. Moreover, preparation for a webinar is no different than for a presentation taking place in front of an audience.
Most presentations are scripted to varying degrees. Attention to the content and flow is as critical to online presentations as in face-to-face presentations. In addition, the technology required to deliver a webinar is more complex, and rehearsal may be more critical for webinars to find weak spots in the technology framework to deliver the content. IT staff that are conversant with web server loads, internet connections to and from the webinar location, as well as hardware including audio and video, will be critical.
Webinars need a producer in addition to a presenter. A producer may need to handle attendee technical problems, connection issues, audio or video quality issues, as well as handling attendee arrival in the webinar environment as well as managing Q&A;sessions during the webinar.
In addition, a producer may need to handle polling during the webinar. Most webinar packages allow questions to be presented to the attendees, with responses being tallied for the attendees as the presentation continues. The webinar venue can put attendees at arms-length from the presenter, as well as each other, and using polls during the webinar helps establish stronger connections between the audience, the presenter, and the organization.
Allowing and encouraging questions from the audience during a Q&A;segment is best handled by a producer. Questions may come from the audience using their own microphone and headset equipment, or the questions may come through a chat feature built into the webinar software. The producer must prioritize those questions for the presenter, as well as motivate the audience to participate.
The webinar is seen by participants as an educational event, rather than a sales event. Assuring that the webinar content answers an audience need will help move the audience from prospects to buyers.
Webinars are also different from face-to-face presentations.
Audience members are typically listening to an audio feed on their computer. Unless the content is engaging, the audience will be tempted to do other computer work while “in attendance,” such as dealing with email. Without content that is engaging, or using tools to promote engagement, such as polling and chat, the audience will not give their full attention to the presentation.
Video feeds of the presenter may be appropriate. Attention should be given to production values, lighting that is flattering to the presenter, and a video feed that is robust enough to avoid lags, dropouts, and slow response.
Another difference is access. While registering for a webinar may take place online with a simple form, the audience members will attend more readily if the access to the webinar itself is easy. Requiring the audience to download and install a player or other software to participate may discourage some attendees. Some audience members may be prevented from installing software on their desktop computer, particularly in a corporate environment where desktops are managed.
Third-party software packages and hosting, such as Adobe Acrobat Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze), provide much of the framework and tools for delivering a webinar in an easily administered software package. These packages excel in larger organizations where content will be reused, and tracking of attendees and their responses is important.
Posted by Keith on 02/08 at 04:58 PM
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Hey Kent, I posted the links
Here are more of the links used in the Dreamweaver classes:
Testing your pages in many different environments using BrowserCam
Jeff Zeldman’s excellent blog covering web standards.
Pixy’s Color Scheme Generator to generate color schemes and testing them for different conditions.
Search engine resources:
Search engine education from Search Engine Watch. Follow the link in the left-hand navigation labeled Search 101 with a great deal of good information.
Understanding Google’s approach to search is critical to getting exposure for your sites. Their fine set of Webmaster tools
Make a search engine for own site with Rollyo
CSS resources:
Jason Santa Maria’sblog about CSS, web design, tools, and design.
Mezzoblueabout design and CSS. From the creator of the CSS Zen Garden
Nicely done site using multiple, user-specified style sheets from the Tulsa Preservation Commission. I really like this. And I like Tulsa. And I like their old buildings.
Images for your site:
Inexpensive, high quality stock images from iStockPhoto.
Your don’t want your site to end up on Vincent Flanders’ site
Posted by Keith on 02/08 at 09:46 AM
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Adobe apps phone home; tin foil hats on, everyone!
Anyone using Macromedia applications over the past few years, and was also paying attention, and was also a bit paranoid, realized that Dreamweaver, Flash, et.al., connected to Macromedia at startup. The “navigation page” or “startup page” that appeared in the MX2004 versions contained a section in the lower right corner that notified you if a new update or version was available, or if new content was available in the product line Exchanges. The only way that behavior could happen is if you had an active internet connection when starting the application, and if the application, Dreamweaver, for example, sent version identification back to Macromedia (otherwise, how would the application know if an update was available for *your* installed version?).
A blog post over the holidays at Uneasy Silence revealed details about the process. On January 9, 2008, Adobe posted a Technote describing the behavior and the steps to disable the connection.
The issue seems to be that we have chosen to ignore the data mining occurring on the web, and the tracking behavior of applications falls into the same category. Part of being connected in a digital world also entails leaving a path through that world. Gathering our tracks by data mining companies is not only simple, but built into most any connection we make to the net. Whether this data gathering is a problem depends on the level of trust we have for the people gathering and using this data. Transparency was cited by many posters to the article at Uneasy Silence. The problem is that many, many organizations with a web presence gather tracking information. And deleting cookies is no guarantee of fixing the problem.
So, what to do? We may have crossed a line, and there is no way to get the data removed, cleansed, or deleted. For better or worse, our digital lives may be better documented than our physical lives. The problem is that we don’t own the digital, personal data. The web analytics companies own it, and they’re not making it easy to control it. Simply unplugging won’t fix the problem. Eliminating computers from our lives is probably impossible without radical change that would be worse than living with a digital shadow.
Posted by Keith on 01/11 at 12:36 PM
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
“Does My Business Need a Blog?” Notes from a presentation for the Center for Business
These links and notes for the attendees at the Johnson County Community College Center for Business Lunch and Learn presentation on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, provide background and resources for the topics touched on during the presentation.
The presentation for the Lunch and Learn at Johnson County Community College Center for Business revolved around the question of whether a business needs a blog. If we consider that a blog is simply one more method of connecting to our audience, customers, or colleagues. We considered five topics: We defined the term blog; we examined some examples of business blogs; we looked at methods to create them; we discussed best practices for putting material online; and I pointed out resources for further study. This post provides pointers to the sites examined, best practices, and other documentation as you consider building a blog for yourself, your business, or your community.
Who’s blogging in the business world?
SocialText provides the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.
Bob Lutz’s Fastlane blog at GM
Jonathan Schwartz’s blog as CEO of Sun Microsystems, has a long-running blog.
How to find bloggers and what they’re talking about
Blog search at Technorati
Trend tracking at Blogpulse
Blogging tools
Fast, simple, easy blog creation at
Blogger
Fast, easy, more customization using WordPress
TypePad and Movable Type from sixapart
Expression Engine from Ellis Labs
Best practices and guidelines:
IBM
Sun Microsystems best practices
Posted by Keith on 01/10 at 10:26 AM
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