View From the BLVD

Best Practices for Web Conference Presenters

Have you ever been in a web meeting and the "weakest link" was the presenter? If you use web conferencing technology, don't be the weakest link in a web meeting. A bad online meeting can cost you and your business money — either in lost sales, lost productivity, or lost self-esteem.

 

1. Establish Clear Objectives

When you establish a clear objective, your audience is able to focus its energy and attention. Once set, the activities you undertake in your web meeting should all support the achievement of your chosen goals.

 

When you set an objective, you send an image to the subconscious mind of your attendees. It remains there until the objective becomes reality.  This is how all creative people work - they transform the images they seed in their subconscious minds into a concrete form.

 

Henceforth, only items in support of your objectives are brought up in the meeting. Examples of objectives that can be established are: "Discovery session of how our widget can solve the problem of... ", or "Exploration of the various uses of the widget", etc.

 

2. Prepare

Today's modern web conferencing systems allow the presenter to easily invite and accept attendees. But that's just the beginning. Make sure you are familiar with the functions that you'll need to have a great web meeting.

 

The basic 8 functions you'll need are: desktop sharing, participant list/control, drawing tools, remote keyboard and mouse control, text chat, session recording, VoIP (for sending sound from your PC to the attendees), and polling/surveys.  (These are the absolute minimum requirements - if you don't have these functions you'll need to find another vendor). Read on to discover how you'll use these tools.

 

3. Provide Visuals (a.k.a. channeling your "inner Steve Jobs")

Does this sound familiar? You're interested in a new widget and get invited to a web demo by the Widget Company. The presenter at WidgetCo opens up his stock PowerPoint presentation, goes through it slide by boring slide, then asks you for your P.O. or credit card number.

 

P-L-E-A-S-E. Take advantage of this powerful technology. Make your presentation incredibly compelling. There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint - but don't "kill them" with it. Use a handful of visually appealing PowerPoint slides to establish and interactively highlight the key points. Then, bring out the widget. Pass the controls to the audience so they can "touch", "smell", and "taste" the widget. Start the fog machine. Mix in some audio and video. Go to your web site to show them where to learn more. Are you getting the idea?

 

4. Interact with your audience

Solicit questions from your attendees. Check in often to gauge the interest level.  Unlike a physical meeting you can't read the body language of your participants.  Pay attention to little things, like the breathing (or snoring) on the other end. Remember your established objective and stay focused. Fail to do so at your peril - you may have lost the sale before you even realize it.

 

5. Follow up

Offer attendees a meeting summary consisting of the presentation slides, documents, session recording for later review, and chat logs. Afterwards - conduct polls, evaluations, and even quizzes. Finally - send thank-you notes, solicit additional questions and establish the next steps.

 

In summary, your next online web meeting can be a success, as long as it's carefully planned, properly executed, compelling, and focused. Stay in contact with your participants even after your session has ended, and your web meeting will have proven to be a success.

eBLVD Online Meetings and Web Demos

Announcing the new eBLVD FireFox/Mozilla browser plug-in.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to develop our new FireFox/Mozilla browser plug-in.

Today, we're happy to announce the release of the eBLVD Cross-browser plug-in. The FireFox/Mozilla plug-in is available immediately and can be installed by signing in to your account at http://eBLVD.com .

The design goal of the version 4.0 plug-in was to develop on an open standards platform. We took advantage of new cross-browser standards that provide a better way for all Web browsers and plug-ins to interact with each other.

While the former plug-in standards had served the industry well, it lacked the flexibility and power to support the pace of innovation that we see ahead. The new plug-in will offer some distinct benefits over the previous one. In addition to a more secure browsing experience, the new technology should minimize the chance of inconsistent behavior across platforms.

We welcome and encourage your participation, as we work together to provide innovative, leading-edge solutions to our customers.

5 Dumb Mistakes That Will KILL Your Web Conference

When using an interactive web conferencing service, make sure to avoid these common mistakes to make yourself look like a pro. Don't break the cardinal rule of hosting a web conference, distance training seminar, or sales presentation.

1. Starting late
Don't break the cardinal rule of hosting a web conference, distance training seminar, or sales presentation. Be at your desktop and on the phone at least 10 minutes prior to your pre-arranged meeting time. Use the time to 'get in the zone', put on your 'game face', and organize your online presentation physically and mentally.

2. Technical problems
When done well, a properly executed web demo will impress your prospects, 'wow' your colleagues, and make rain fall from the sky. When you spend 20 minutes trying to debug somebody's home network, firewall, or 3G connection, you look like a schmutz -- and Mr. Opportunity has already left the building.

Here's a tip: stay away from smaller or newer web conference providers - especially the ones that are Java or Adobe Flash based. If your user doesn't have Flash or the right version of Java already pre-installed, your sunk. Use a 'name brand' service that doesn't require 3rd-party software and has been around for a few years to smooth out the kinks. A good online meetings and web conference service guarantees connectivity through any firewall and doesn't require third-party add-ons to make it work.

3. Getting an email or instant message interruption
We've already established that you're a technically savvy rain-maker - so you're using online web conferencing to display your nifty PowerPoint slides, brag about the re-designed web site, and show off your cool software widget right from your desktop. Desktop sharing is a great feature to 'virtually' connect everybody to the same desktop in the same room - whether your attendees are a cubicle or a continent away. But don't risk getting interrupted by an embarrassing Instant Message from a colleague that gets broadcast to everybody in your meeting. Prior to all of your online web demos, make sure you close your IM, email, and other social-network programs.

4. Boring content
Don't limit your spiel to a 20-page canned PowerPoint presentation. Your goal is to keep your participant's attention. Keep it interactive with discussion, surveys, or pass control to your prospect and let them "Drive" to see for themselves. We recommend just a few introductory slides, then a quick interactive tour of your product or web site.

5. Boring pace
Respect everyone's time and keep your presentation flowing and interesting. Don't get side tracked and leave individual discussions and scenarios until after the meeting. And I'll end the article here, or risk myself being boring and disrespectful of your time.

Owner to Owner: 5 Things Your Staff Told You Absolutely Needed (But Do You?)

As an entrepreneur, I truly believe in the goodness and ingenuity of the human spirit. Your staff wants to do the right thing, and shares in each success of the enterprise. A view from the top, however, holds that to ensure the survival of the enterprise in tough economic times -- every business decision should be made with an eye towards recent technological innovations.

Satellite Office(s)

According to Colliers International, 2009 rates for office space per square foot are ranging between $27.37 and $41.15 in U.S. suburban and downtown office markets. Even if your satellite office space is cramped and modest, rents are a sunk cost that doesn't really increase sales.

For small remote operations, consider setting up employees, sales personnel, and consultants with home offices. Equipped with a PC and Internet connection, a VoIP phone, and web meeting and web conferencing technologies like Web Conferencing and Web Demos, you can 'virtually' meet on a regular basis as if in the same room.

Additionally, remote employees can gain secure access to the corporate network's files, intranet, and devices using remote technologies built into Online Remote Access and Online Remote Desktop services. Leading edge organizations recognize that telecommuting is a trend that has benefits for both employer and employee. Today, more than 30 million US adults telecommute and that number is expected to double within the next 6 years. Besides the obvious cost benefits, studies have shown that productivity actually improves when your employees work at home.

Email and Web Server(s)

Everything that happens on the internet is through the client - server communication model. A client is a device connected to the internet through a unique internet protocol (IP) address. A server is another device connected to the internet with its own IP address and does the task of serving web pages and email messages. But the server can be located anywhere on the Internet - remember this key point for later.

It's a given that companies will equip an employee's desktop with the client piece of the equation, i.e. a PC, Mac, laptop, etc. But is it possible that your web site and email servers could run more reliably, securely and cost-effectively if the server devices were to reside somewhere other than the home office?

Remember, servers are simply computer programs that run on high speed machines. Third party providers such as Google, Network Solutions, RackSpace, and others offer business class email, cloud and web hosting for a modest fee. These providers use machines designed to accurately handle the concurrent requests of millions of clients who need access and delivery of a webpage or email. These services are self-managed, secure, reliable, and flexible - with the ability to rapidly scale up or down.

Phones and Phone System(s)

Now that you've got so many employees at disparate locations, how do you manage to (economically) stay in contact with them, and keep them in contact with customers and associates? The answer is found within another Internet technology known as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This technology is used to make telephone calls via the Internet.

With a VoIP phone, your remote employees can have an 'extension' on the home office PBX by using a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connection. This is a service offered by an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) that will 'virtually' connect any number of remote VoIP phones to your company's main PBX, and to the existing telephone system infrastructure via the Internet. Inbound calls are routed through the main office toll or toll-free phone number, and outbound calls have the Caller ID of the same number.

And my favorite part is that the SIP connection typically will use the same Internet connection that is used for web and email access - so the cost is virtually zero.

Large Help Desk Department / IT Staff

Nothing irks me more than when I analyze cost-per-call and call volume data of our 'Help Desk' to find large holes of nothingness where this staff is basically being paid to breathe air.

What is needed is  a tool that allowed internal and external customers to report a problem online, instantly alerting an IT staff member to alter the rules of physics and jump on the customer's desktop - while controlling the keyboard and mouse to diagnose and fix the problem - thereby restoring everything to perfect harmony.

Web-based remote support and remote access  tools can restore order to cost-per-call numbers, and can help any business owner who has one or more computers in his/her organization that occasionally under-performs. These tools are also a great way to economically support your remote satellite locations, as well as remote web, email, and phone servers.

Large Travel Budget or The 'Million Dollar' Video Conferencing System

We can all agree that connecting with prospects, customers, associates, and vendors is important in the business world. But does every contact require a road or plane trip, with one or more hotel stays, countless meals, time away from family, etc. etc. etc.?

With a technology called web conferencing, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is 'virtually' connected to the other participants via the internet. With web conferencing, your organization can easily provide web demos, webcasts, webinars, online sales presentations, and live online meetings to customers and prospects. Additionally, web conferencing can be used for conducting online training, collaboration, and online meetings with associates, simply from each other's desktop.