Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 - (Page 46)

What Stinks About Webinars? BY ALLISON ROSSETT The webinar is an undeniably popular tool for disseminating ideas and techniques in the world of business. Yet, for all its popularity, this modality often falls short of participants’ expectations. Where do webinars go wrong, and how can they be improved? ot a day goes by without webinar offerings popping up in my e-mail. At ﬁrst I thought it a fad, a ﬂeeting passion for a cheap way of distributing marketing messages. Could this go on? Would it touch learning professionals? The answer to both questions is a resounding “yes.” Antonia Chan and Colleen Cunningham, 2007 alumnae from San Diego State University’s Department of Educational Technology, told me they were attending many webinars — in fact, several each week. As I have offered webinars and will do so CLO WEBINARS again, I inquired about the best Learning leaders who want to and worst they had seen. We ﬁnd out more about the key then talked at length about what trends and tools in the industry characterizes webinar quality. can attend live Chief Learning I asked them to keep track of Ofﬁcer magazine webinars or their experiences to help the rest download past webinars from of us do this better. our archives. For more inforChan and Cunningham mation, go to www.clomedia. were top-notch graduate stucom/events/webinars. dents. Both have good jobs and are launching what I expect will be wonderful careers. Both are measured in judgment, tending more to enthusiasm than nastiness. They’re also webinar “addicts.” In other words, they were great for this project. I asked these young women why they were addicted to webinars. Chan said, “Webinars have become a lowrisk, easy, quick and cheap way to stay current about the state of the ﬁeld — research, trends and tools.” Cunningham agreed. “What a great way to stay up-to-date, which is my biggest fear after leaving N the SDSU nest,” she said. “In 60 minutes, you get enough of a taste to either pursue it yourself or have it in your mind as a current trend. For example, I had not heard of machinima before attending this webinar, and then I was out to dinner with a current student, and guess what? She was working on a machinima project in her class with [Educational Technology Professor] Bernie Dodge at SDSU.” (“Machinima” refers to the “the making of animated movies in real time through the use of computer game technology,” as deﬁned by Henry Lowood, a science and technology historian at Stanford University.) Given all the choices, what webinars do they attend? Their choices reﬂected individual tastes, with Chan favoring software and research and Cunningham giving the nod to “presentation methods for online meetings/ classes, e-learning approaches, topics such as storytelling, manga [comics], machinima, generations in the workforce [and] career contentment.” Chan looked speciﬁcally for programs that would advance her work projects. Cunningham admitted she was not particularly selective. “If it seems interesting, I’ll check it out. That’s the great thing about webinars; if you don’t like it, you can stop watching, get up and leave.” Unlike classes, online or face-to-face, webinars cost nothing, demand nothing and are easily exited. That is why so many are willing to venture beyond the familiar to take a look at ideas, products and services. That makes them popular with students and teachers, practitioners and executives, buyers and suppliers. What is sad is that only a few webinars earned kudos from Cunningham and Chan. The purpose here is to encourage greatness in webinars by identifying some of the unsuccessful ap- 46 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • August 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com/events/webinars http://www.clomedia.com/events/webinars http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Trends Best Practices Effectiveness High-Octane Leadership Development Leadership and Personality CLO Profile Discussion Groups: Harvesting Value from Real-World Experiences Kimpton 2.0: Discussion on the Web Learning Olympics: Development Through Competition Bypassing the Obstacles to Change Listen Up: A How-To-Guide for Podcasting University of Toyota: A Success Story in Podcast Implementation What Stinks About Webinars? Webinars for Learning Professionals Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

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