A growing application of web conferencing these days is in “webcasting” live events. Organizations, trade shows, hotels and other AV (Audio Video) providers are slowly but surely getting accustomed with the idea of showing their events online in live and recorded formats. There is, of course, significant cost savings associated with this practice since a part of the audience no longer needs to travel to the physical event. It can also be regarded as a much “greener” solution for the same reason.

The latest and greatest example of such webcasting is Wells Fargo’s webcast of their Recognition event in Minneapolis, MN. A week earlier a paper had reported on Wells Fargo’s extravagant expenses in a Las Vegas event allegedly using government bailout money. This resulted in Wells Fargo cancelling some of the live events (read more… ) or reducing physical attendance by leveraging web conferencing. Note that Wells Fargo has denied some of the rumors and has defended the events (read more … ). Wells Fargo decided to use omNovia Technologies for its webcasting. On average, it costs over $700 ro send an employee to an event of this size. With more than 300 online viewers, Wells Fargo saved themselves a whopping $210,000 using this technology.

Webcasting live events or live-casting, as I call it, however, presents many challenges and should be distinguished from the typical web conferencing. Many webcasting solutions do not provide a true interactive environment. They simply provide a one-way communication, usually through video, with seconds of delay. Live-casting refers to a more complete experience in which online attendees can interact with the physical audience. In a Live-cast session, online attendees may ask questions via chat, voice or video. They may respond to questions or polls. They may download documents from the virtual room to their computers…

Differences between web conferencing and live-casting

• In a Live-cast session, the system needs to work with professional microphone and camera devices. Many heavy-duty devices do not work as PC microphone or webcams. For instance, a professional HD camera often used at live events produces very high resolution (in numbers of pixels) images that many web conferencing software cannot handle.
• While moderators of a webinar or web conferencing session can focus on the online session, live-cast sessions present almost 2 simultaneous presentations. You have to handle the live audience, audio, music, lighting or “workflow” in short at the same time as the online attendees’ experience. This can be a daunting task and at times contradicting to one another.

In future blogs, I will discuss points to consider when you want to perform a live-cast.

Can you name other applications of live-casting?

Cost and Price are not Interchangeable

In every day speaking, there is often confusion in the understanding of the difference between price and cost. What is the difference between cost and price?

According to the Oxford English dictionary, price is the amount of money expected, required or given in payment for something, while cost is the total spent to acquire a good or a service including money, time and labor. By definition, cost is the sum of all the resources, including but not limited to monetary resources, spent to possess a good or to receive a service.

Although cost is the most accurate indicator of what we need to give up to acquire a good or service, most of the time we find ourselves focused on the price. We focus on price because it can explicitly tell what we need to give up; 20$, 100 € or 50£. To have a clear understanding of real cost may require complicated tracking and assessments since it does not only require the monetary calculations but also time, labor, opportunity and risk related calculations.

For instance, to buy a can of soup all we need could be looking at the price tag and not worry about time, labor, opportunity and risk involved with purchasing a specific brand versus another. For businesses, on the other hand, to implement successful cost management process and procurement strategies could be the key to gain competitive advantage.

What is the cost of Web Conferencing?

If you pay x amount of dollars to your web conferencing vendor, it means the price, not the cost, is $x. So, how about the cost? Well, we said cost also includes time, labor and risk. Time in web conferencing could mean software installations prior to the meetings or trainings on how to use the meeting platform. Labor could mean how deeply the IT department should be involved. And risk could mean delivering less interactive and less engaging presentations due to the technical limitations of the web conferencing platform.

You may know the price of your web conferencing but do you really know the cost of your web conferencing?

According to a market research by Wainhouse Research, more than 90% of sales managers plan to use webinars in 2009. Moreover, it is widely believed that today’s difficult economic situation will only accelerate the use and acceptance of sales webinars. So, what makes webinars such an important tool in sales executives’ eyes?

There are four main reasons that make webinars very suitable for sales teams. Those reasons are:

1. Cost Effectiveness

2. Targeted Reach

3. Interactivity

4. Actionable Insights

Cost effectiveness: Cost effectiveness is the most obvious reason for marketers to move towards webinars. Webinars represent a much more efficient way to reach your target. Production costs associated with sales webinars are very low compared to traditional lead generation techniques such as direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing. In a down economy when companies are striving to cut back on travel expenses, face-to-face meetings, and expensive conventions, webinars offer a highly cost-effective alternative.

Targeted Reach: Unlike direct mailing or cold-calling, you can exactly know to whom you will be addressing in a webinar. You can even get more information about your leads by simply adding some questions on the registration page. This information help you to better understand the needs and the wants of your audience. Sales executives can utilize the information to increase their closing rates.

Interactivity: The interactive webinar tools, such as movie player, application sharing, integrated video and voice sharing allow sales represents to better illustrate their products and services, which yields to a higher ROI.

Actionable Insights: The advantages of webinar continues even after the webinar. Thanks  to event reporting, you can get detailed information about your events such as where your attendees came from, how long they stayed in the room, what questions they asked and much more. Sales managers can easily analyze these reports to make more informed decisions about their targets as well as identifying new segments.

In conclusion, webinars are great marketing tools to efficiently communicate with your prospects. If your organization has not used webinars as a sales tool yet, you may have some learning curve disadvantages. However, it is the best interest of your company to join the wast majority of sales people who utilize webinars as a sales tool. And finally, if you are a sales person who is looking for a new job, do not be surprised to be asked about your webinar skills instead of telephone skills in your next interview.

Today we are celebrating omNovia Technologies’ 5^th year anniversary!

omNovia Technologies was founded in 2003 by Shawn Shadfar, my boss. He comes from a strong back ground of education and work experience. His experience with being a co-founder of the Information Security group at Schlumbreger is the mind frame he brought with him when developing a secure based product. omNovia Technologies provides high quality audio, fast image transmission, and innovative presentation tools in its web conference product. We also provide a solution for webcasting live events and seminars. The omNovia Secure Viewer is a customizable web browser that allows you to present to any presenter. We are constant growing company with a great innovative team.

Every employee at omNovia technologies plays a very important role in ensuring the success of this company. We work in a very friendly, social, and relaxed work environment. The one thing that keeps us together is that we always work in a team and if one person can’t help we always know someone else will be right around the corner to help. Today omNovia Technologies has a great team of individuals who work together on a daily basis to create new ideas and better solutions for our customers. We have many loyal customers who we maintain ongoing relationships with and we hope to continue to develop more relationships.

In celebration of our 5^th year anniversary the omNovia team will be dining together at Mo’s Steakhouse for a fabulous time.

A special thanks to all of omNovia’s customers for keeping us your number one web conferencing tool and to everyone at omNovia for their hard work and continuous dedication to making us the best at what we do.

This is not another scary blog entry on how bad Swine Flu could turn out. While the debates on whether it would turn out to be a catastrophic outbreak can be seen on every national t.v network every night, one thing we know for sure is its terrible impact on local economies, especially in Mexico (as if global credit crisis was not enough).
No micro-economic analysis is needed to see the correlation. Simply, people are rightfully afraid to leave their houses (or sometimes forced to stay by curfew) to go to work and no economy can survive without labor, the most important factor of production. While physical presence is required for many jobs, telecommuting, especially Web Conferencing, can be an important alternative to lessen these terrible consequences. According to omNovia’s web analytics reports, hundreds of people from Mexico used omNovia web conference in April. Most of those online meetings were held by international companies with participants from all over the world. That was very convenient for participants to hold their meetings online instead of traveling to or from Mexico.

Of course, the most import thing is to be able to prevent a possible catastrophic outbreak of swine flu and I think health officers, media, local and federal administration are all doing their part. But human history is full of examples where bad situations produce or promote better and more effective practices. Can Swine Flu help companies, and therefore global economy, though forcing them to use web conferencing that would bring important cost savings and improve global work force collaboration?

As a person dealing with a variety of web conferencing users, I would split web conferences into 2 categories:

1. Remote “traditional” meetings
2. New business opportunities

The first category refers to web conference sessions that actualy replace meetings that used to involve travelling. Online sales presentations to prospect customers or online collaboration between a small group of participants are perfect examples of such sessions. Essentially if there was no web conferencing technology available, the participants would actually drive or fly to gather in a physical environment and hold their meetings. It is evident this usage of web conferencing is as green as the good old amazon. It is well known that cars and planes are the principal causes behind air polution and reducing travel results in significant cost savings and pollution decrease.

The impact of web conferencing on environment is not yet visible for the simple reason that despite the buzz organizations are not utilizing web conferencing the way they could and should. The technology was not as reliable and easy-to-use in the past, which explains many companies rarely use their webex systems. When it comes to really working together on some important documents, people still drive across town or take the plane. However there are today more advanced technologies and given a faster and more reliable Internet coverage, it is possible to hold small to large remote meetings without any restrictions. Frost and Sullivans evaluated the penetration of web conferencing technology at around 5% only until last year. With the current economic downturn and the new available technologies, things are about to change! And once CFOs and more importantly individuals experience the efficiency of web conferencing they are going to keep it even beyond the current crisis.

I define the second category of web conference sessions as brand new business opportunities enabled by the technology. There are sessions held these days that do not really replace traditonal meetings. If web conferencing technology did not exist, people simply would not have any of those activities. As such, this category does not really bring any environment savings. Let’s take a few examples: New form of live online trainings have thrived over the last few years. Stock market traders, for instance, now follow trader gurus on a daily basis from across the globe. Some of omNovia clients have hundreds of “students” following their “courses” for 10 hours a day from Mexico, China, South Africa and even the North Pole. Are they saving the planet from CO2 increase? I don’t think people would travel every day thousands of miles to take a course and then return to their homes. Similarly we see new “Marketinars” (Marketing Webinars) that gather, sometimes, thousands of viewers in a web conference room and present their solutions in an interactive environment. Without the web conferencing technologies, these opportunities and businesses would simply not exist. They do not replace physical meetings but create new business openings.

What are your usage of web conferencing? Is it category 1 or 2?

The most popular feature outside of the actual conference I believe is the Event Manager.  Using this, you can have prospective attendees register for an event before they actually attend.  With this tool, you can create reminders and a registration confirmation to direct those interested participants into your conference.

Event Manager Summary Page

Over time, you can review the event reports and analyze what session topics were the most successful.  If you give 1 event per week for three months, you will defiantly begin to see a trend of what topics resonated with your audience the most.

The event manager allows you to completely customize the entire experience your attendees will follow.  To start using, log into the Manage Account section at http://www.omnovia.com/members and click on Event Manager.  Setup a couple of events and try the entire process.

A growing application of web conferencing these days is in “webcasting” live events. Organizations, trade shows, hotels and other AV (Audio Video) providers are slowly but surely getting accustomed with the idea of showing their events online in live and recorded formats. There is, of course, significant cost savings associated with this practice since a part of the audience no longer needs to travel to the physical event. It can also be regarded as a much “greener” solution for the same reason.

The latest and greatest example of such webcasting is Wells Fargo’s webcast of their Recognition event in Minneapolis, MN. A week earlier a paper had reported on Wells Fargo’s extravagant expenses in a Las Vegas event allegedly using government bailout money. This resulted in Wells Fargo cancelling some of the live events (read more… ) or reducing physical attendance by leveraging web conferencing. Note that Wells Fargo has denied some of the rumors and has defended the events (read more … ). Wells Fargo decided to use omNovia Technologies for its webcasting. On average, it costs over $700 ro send an employee to an event of this size. With more than 300 online viewers, Wells Fargo saved themselves a whopping $210,000 using this technology.

Webcasting live events or live-casting, as I call it, however, presents many challenges and should be distinguished from the typical web conferencing. Many webcasting solutions do not provide a true interactive environment. They simply provide a one-way communication, usually through video, with seconds of delay. Live-casting refers to a more complete experience in which online attendees can interact with the physical audience. In a Live-cast session, online attendees may ask questions via chat, voice or video. They may respond to questions or polls. They may download documents from the virtual room to their computers…

Differences between web conferencing and live-casting

• In a Live-cast session, the system needs to work with professional microphone and camera devices. Many heavy-duty devices do not work as PC microphone or webcams. For instance, a professional HD camera often used at live events produces very high resolution (in numbers of pixels) images that many web conferencing software cannot handle.
• While moderators of a webinar or web conferencing session can focus on the online session, live-cast sessions present almost 2 simultaneous presentations. You have to handle the live audience, audio, music, lighting or “workflow” in short at the same time as the online attendees’ experience. This can be a daunting task and at times contradicting to one another.

In future blogs, I will discuss points to consider when you want to perform a live-cast.

Can you name other applications of live-casting?

Shawn Shadfar

CEO omNovia Technologies

www.omnovia.com

Increasing attendance in your web conference can result in higher sales, better retention of customers, and more effective trainings.  However, increasing attendance does not mean generating new leads and new invites, but also having your existing audience return for future sessions.  Building upon an audience can be a key aspect to growing your webinars.

This biggest effort I see Presenters undergo is generating an invite that will bring more potential customers in front for their sessions.  While it is important to inject new attendees into your sessions, far too often, little is done to ensure return visitors.  This article will describe some of the aspects that are easy to perform to ensure your audience returns for future sessions.

Connect Your Audience

One of the biggest differences between an online conference and an in-person conference is the disconnect that exists between the conference players.  The audience connects from a home or office, the presenter is remote, and the moderators may all be on different continents.  This presents a loss of community that is automatically generated when everyone is in the same room.  Some of the most interesting discussions occur before and after the session.  Use the Public/Private chat feature as a tool to direct your discussions.  As people enter, encourage discussion about the topic at hand, where they are from, or other engaging responses.  Once the session begins, you can privatize the chat to focus their attention to the information being presented.  During the question and answer period, open the chat back up, and allow for each other to see the questions being asked.  Finally, allow for post conference discussion between the attendees so everyone can leave at their discretion.  Take note how the most involved participants will translate into loyal attendees.

Personalize Your Presentations

Many times, your most loyal listeners are those who are mentioned during the course of a broadcast.  This is one reason why you will see viewer mail read after many cable news programs.  This adheres the audience to viewing in and hoping for their chance to be nationalized on a large stage.  The same can be true for web conferencing.  When reading your attendees queries, it is always a good idea to mention at least the first name of the person who asked the question.  Find out how to personalize your audience, you will have a friend for life.

Record Your Sessions

Most presenters view their webinar success based on the percentage of registered attendees.  Online conferences are more convenient, so attendees are less pressured to attend.  However, adding to the convenience will encourage future participation.  Recording and providing your sessions can be one of the most important aspects of a webinar success.  The archive should recreate the live session as close as possible, providing links interactively, Instant Poll participation, and file download can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your archive sessions and will encourage participation in future events.

Follow Up Reminders 

Although the session is over, the work is not.  Some of the most successful series I have seen were due largely to a follow up email that is sent after the session is complete.  Being able to communicate future events, archive links, and other resources are just a few ways to encourage attendance to your next session.  For sessions that span multiple webcasts, this is vital to keeping your audience coming back to each successive session.

The platform you choose should allow you to discern between those Who Registered, Those Who Attended, and those who were not able to make it.  Creating a custom follow up to these groups allows you to personalize your message to your audience and welcomes reminds them of more to follow.

Keep It Fresh

Your attendees will drop very quickly if you do not keep the information fresh.  While the topic may itself repeat, the delivery and details do not have to.  Audience interaction is the best way I have seen to keep new details from coming in.  An industry leader has more information to give compared to the audience attention span.  This can be used to keep your audience coming back for new but related information.  Also, the ability to ask a question to the speaker, is a far bigger advantage than having someone ask the question.  Encourage follow up questions and treat it like an press conference.  The more engaged your audience becomes the more benefit you will see from your sessions.