Adobe Connect Blog

A blog posting by Roger Courville, The Virtual Presenter
Based on the book The Unbreakable Rules of Marketing: 9 1/2 Ways to Get People to Love You by Cathey Armillas

I could not help sharing Roger’s inspiration on webinar best practices that he received from the above mentioned book by Cathey Armillas. After reading the book The Unbreakable Rules of Marketing, Roger has applied these principles to webinars.

From his blog:

The webinar angle? Too often webinars and webcasts are used as publishing platforms which, while not wrong, often miss out on the opportunity to use them to “get people to love us.”

Visit his blog site to find out more about the following unbreakable rules as they relate to producing webinars that will get people to love you:

• Consistency beats ability
• Perception is reality
• Be creative or die
• The medium is not the message
• Work hard to keep it simple
• Give love to get love
• Emotions rule the world
• Go big or go home
• Everything is marketing
• Know the rules, and know when to break them

Sign up to receive more best practices and tips for running webinars at http://blogtrottr.com/.  Just use the link http://blogs.adobe.com/adobeconnect/tag/webinar-best-practices

Hopefully a warning bell is going off in your head right now. Unfortunately, I often run into speakers and webinar producers that treat large webinars with hundreds of attendees like a small internal company meeting.  I can’t blame them really. If your technology platform has lots of cool features, it’s tempting to use them all, and sometimes all at once – kind of like piling your ice cream sundae with every delicious topping available at the condiment counter. Unfortunately, that typically leads to a terrible stomach ache.

While you can get away with cool, and very appropriate, features like multiple live streaming webcams and screen sharing in your team meeting of 10 staffers, the 500 attendees in your webinar likely will not have the same pleasant experience.

Here are 6 tips on how to have an engaging and interactive webinar without hoarding bandwidth and frustrating your attendees.

-  Trade in the live webcam for a nice headshot of your speaker

• Streaming webcams are bandwidth hogs. Simply upload a jpg picture of your speaker into a Share pod. Besides, many speakers are camera shy or do not know how to perform for the ‘tv’ – some speakers tend to look down at their notes the majority of the time instead of into the camera or they like to move around the room (neither translates well on camera).

- Upload your PPT slide deck or PDF into the room instead of screen sharing

• Using a Share pod to upload your PPT or PDF into the room will reduce bandwidth stress and ensure everyone is on the same page as a delay with screen share can occur for some attendees.

- Consider using Q&A instead of Open Chat

• Using the moderated Q&A option reduces the volume of chat and therefore the bandwidth strain. In addition, open chat in large webinars can distract from the content both visually (with hundreds of chats flying by on the screen) and mentally (taking up mindshare). Not to mention that the audience will sometimes hijack your event and start having their own conversations with each other! However, open chat is a great interactive tool for gathering feedback, brainstorming or asking an open-ended question. For this, it is recommended you bring the Open Chat into the participant area and cover the Q&A until the exercise is over and then take it away.

- Disable raise hands option

• Unless you have a very specific reason for using this feature during your webinar, we recommend you disable this feature for the duration of your event. Several other emoticons will remain at your disposal throughout the event, such as agree or disagree.

- Close polls when you’re done

• Polling is a great interactive feature that is perfect for a webinar setting. To ensure your polls don’t continue eating up bandwidth when you are done collecting answers, be sure to close the poll as this will keep the poll(s) from continuing to use up bandwidth.

- Move the Attendee pod into the Presenter Only Area

• Use this backstage option to move the Attendee pod into the POA. This not only keeps the attendee list private while allowing the hosts and presenters to view and manage the Attendee pod, but also conserves bandwidth and cpu load.

As you prepare for your next webinar, keep your audience size in mind while you come up with creative ways to engage your audience in a bandwidth neutral way.

Sign up to receive more best practices and tips for running webinars.

Creating a fun and NOISY lobby for your webinar attendees to ‘sit’ in while they wait for your webinar to begin will reduce the panic and allow your attendees to relax and eagerly await your presentation.

First, create a unique layout that you’ll use as your webinar lobby when you open your room. Labeling it ‘Lobby’ makes it easy to find later. Then start adding fun and interesting elements to it.

Here are some ideas:

- Play music in your lobby

• Simply upload an MP3 into a Share pod just as you would do with a PPT. You’ll want to make sure it’s long enough (for example, if you typically open your webinar room to attendees 15 minutes prior to the event start time, you’ll want your music to be 15 minutes long – or just pay attention and press play again when the music runs out). Don’t forget to keep music royalty laws in mind – check with your legal department if you are unsure about what songs you can play.

- Upload a welcome slide(s)

• Use a Share pod to upload one slide with the title and associated image for your webinar or create a deck of rotating slides. Use Adobe Presenter to set a welcome lobby slide deck to rotate and loop continuously.  This deck could include the title side, a sponsor(s) slide, announcements, instructions, etc – the sky is the limit!

- Add instructions on how to join the audio portion of the conference

• Using a simple Note pod to let attendees know how they can join the audio portion of your webinar should do the trick.

- Include a Q&A pod

• A Q&A pod will allow attendees to submit technical questions as needed while they get ready for the event to begin. Re-labeling it Technical Questions will help attendees understand where they can go to receive help (especially if you have a Chat pod open for another reason). Just remember to re-label it when you switch layouts if you have the Q&A pod in other layouts for a different purpose.

- Provide an open Chat pod

• A Chat pod that allows for free flowing conversation among the attendees is a great way to break the ice before the event beings, warm up the audience for interaction and let everyone know they are not alone in the virtual world. Kicking things off with a simple question like ‘what is the weather like where you are?’ or ‘tell us where you are joining us from’ is a nice way to get the audience started.

- Consider incorporating a custom pod or game

• There are several games and custom pods available on the Adobe Connect Extensions page that you can download for free and upload into your room using a Share pod. In particular, there is a countdown timer you might consider that visually indicates how much time is left before you begin. Keep bandwidth and expected audience size in mind before selecting this option.

- Display your company logo

• Upload your company logo (jpg or png) into a Share pod and place it somewhere on your layout. Or perhaps you’d like to display a sponsor or partner logo.

- Make the slides or handouts available for download

• Use a File Share pod to make your slides or a handout available for attendees to download prior to the event. This is useful for those attendees that would like to follow along with the speaker and take notes.

Be creative and have fun with your Lobby.  You will appreciate the experience as much as your attendees! I promise.

Sign up to receive more best practices and tips for running webinars at http://blogtrottr.com/.  Just use the link http://blogs.adobe.com/adobeconnect/tag/webinar-best-practices

Adobe Connect has won the “Silver” and “Excellence” awards in the webcasting category of TopTenREVIEWS, an online publication that conducts side-by-side comparisons of products and makes them publicly available.

The review begins by calling Adobe Connect 9 “a vibrant new version that invites considerable attendee participation, offers helpful and sophisticated tools to build webcasts, and gives presenters the option of hosting a webcast completely from a mobile device.” Among the features highlighted are the ability to integrate various extensions into meeting rooms, to completely host meetings from a mobile device, and the ways Adobe Connect lets users promote webinars and measure audience engagement.

The review concludes by stating, “Whether you want to generate interest in a new product, drum up new customers, meet privately with fellow employees scattered around the globe or conduct continuing education, Adobe Connect 9 is certain to have the tools and capabilities you need.”

It is terrific to see this kind of validation of our webinar solution, enabling our customers with the tools, services, and support they need to drive successful events including webcasts across large audiences.

Read the full review here: http://webcasting-services-review.toptenreviews.com/adobe-connect-review.html

There is no such thing as an instant webinar.

In the age of instant gratification and technology, I have run across many a webinar producer that has made the mistake of assuming their webinar technology platform will read their mind, set itself up according to their requirements, and instantly produce a flawless event to a virtual audience of hundreds or thousands.

This is a dangerous assumption.

A mission critical event to a large audience should never be left to the last minute. For example, a producer of a live in-person event will visit the physical event venue for a site inspection in advance of the event and then show up early for the event to make sure everything is correctly set up according to specifications before the event begins.

The same is true with a virtual event.

At a minimum a virtual event producer should spend time in the virtual room setting it up ahead of time, hold a rehearsal with all speakers, moderators and hosts, and, finally, build in a 30 minute pre-conference for speakers and hosts immediately prior to the event.

Take some time to avoid virtual event disasters.

8 Reasons to Prepare, ‘Site Inspect’ and Rehearse your Virtual Event

- Test audio integration

• There are many audio options for your webinar, including universal audio integration. You can simulcast both the phone audio conference and VoIP, use the phone only, or use VoIP only. The universal integration needs to be done well in advance of the event. For audio options and integration how-to tips, please see.

- Check the speaker’s audio quality

• There are many things that can reduce audio quality. Be sure to have all speakers use the exact same equipment during the rehearsal as they will use during the live event – this includes the computer and the actual phone or headset. Wireless is not recommended for either computer or phone and, of course, using a speakerphone is a big no-no.

- Ensure speaker understands how to use the platform

• If your speaker is new to the particular webinar platform technology you are using, take the time to give him a tutorial, even if he is experienced at webinars in general. Just like it’s always awkward to drive someone else’s car, it can be equally awkward finding all the right buttons to push in a webinar room that is unfamiliar.

- Upload and flip through all slides

• Uploading slides 15 minutes prior to your event is risky to say the least (especially if it’s a big file that may take some time to upload). Take the time to upload them during the rehearsal and flip through all of them to check for any misaligned text or images. Make any necessary changes to the deck and re-upload them before the pre-conference and re-check.

- Confirm all parties know how to get to your event

• The rehearsal will give all your speakers, hosts and moderators a chance to ‘find’ the location – locating their login info, practice logging in, download the presenter add-in, and overcome any other technical issues related to browsers, etc. The last thing you need on the day-of is a missing speaker!

- Review the flow of the event and room set up

• Prepare any polls, chats, quizzes or multiple slide decks you’ll be using ahead of time using the layout functionally and arrange the layouts in order of your agenda. This will ensure a smooth flow and avoid having to ‘fish’ for polls during the live event.

- Prep your backstage and familiarize all hosts, speakers and moderators with it

• Your Presenter Only Area is your private backstage area for hosts and presenters. This is a great place for the Attendee pod, a Presenter chat (so you can coordinate amongst yourselves without interrupting the event flow), the Presenter view of the Q&A pod and any notes or reminders you might have for your speakers or moderators. Remind your speakers to keep an eye on the backstage in case you need to communicate with them while they are presenting.

- Have an emergency plan and communicate it to all hosts, speakers and moderators

• Virtual events are subject to things going wrong just like physical events. Think through what you will do if… your audio conferencing provider experiences an outage… if your speaker’s computer crashes… if your speaker accidently hangs up on herself… if you lose your internet connection… etc, etc. And, yes, with 7 years of experience running upwards of 30 webinars a quarter, I have run into all of these and more!

So, don’t leave the details of producing your mission critical virtual event to the last 15 minutes, because treating webinars casually will get you into big trouble.

Good luck and may your next webinar run flawlessly!

During a recent Adobe Connect webinar titled ‘Virtual Conferences for Government’, Dean Pianta of Envolve Media discussed how the Adobe Connect platform is being used within government organizations for virtual classrooms, online meetings and seminars. He reviewed several benefits of moving meetings, conferences, trainings and events online, such as cost savings and archived recordings. The benefit of having the recordings of these sessions to view after an event is for those that may have missed the event, or for those that would like to review the session for reference.

Adobe Connect has advantages like the event management tool that can be utilized to design landing pages using a template or built from scratch. With this feature organizations can setup registration for an event with custom landing pages and forms. The advantage of a powerful registration system is also the tracking of attendee information pre- and post-event.

Watch this recording to learn more details on how virtual conferences are being created and used across the board by government agencies and organizations: http://onlineevents.adobeconnect.com/p2d3iegluqo/

Last week, Adobe announced the availability of a new release of Adobe Presenter 8. The release is specifically for customers on Adobe Software Assurance plans for Adobe Presenter and the eLearning Suite – though all of the features will eventually make it into the next major release of Adobe Presenter.

There are a significant number of new features included in the new release.

Windows 8 & Microsoft Office 2013 Support
The latest update adds official support for both Windows 8 as well as Microsoft Powerpoint 2013. Newer Powerpoint objects like SmartArt and animations are also supported.

A new audio workflow.
The team has worked to simplify and improve the experience around recording audio and synchronizing it to your Powerpoint slides. The new interface is looks much more modern and makes the functionality easier than ever to use.

Closed Captions
Captions can now be generated automatically for your audio track in the video creator tool. Adobe Presenter translates your narration into text using cloud based computing. Captions are delivered back to the user who can make further edits. It’s very impressive functionality – and you can see it in action below:

Improved Interactions Library
Adobe Presenter 8.0 launched with a new feature that enables customers to add interactive elements to their on-demand courses. In this update, additional interactions have been added – including games like Hangman and Jigsaw.

Improved mobile app for Adobe Presenter.
The team has updated Adobe Presenter Mobile for iOS to incorporate tracking via Adobe Connect.

If you’re not familiar with Adobe Presenter, I’ve embedded a quick overview video below. Note that this overview doens’t include the great new features added to Adobe Presenter 8.1.

The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) recently announced the 25 finalists for its 12th annual 2013 Excellence.gov Awards Program. Established by ACT-IAC in 2001, the Excellence.gov Awards Program recognizes exceptional government programs and projects that fuel government efficiency, interagency collaboration, and the delivery of impactful citizen services through innovative technologies.

Defense Connect Online (DCO) has been chosen as a finalist in the category of Excellence in Intergovernmental Collaboration. DCO is a deployment of Adobe Connect for the Department of Defense managed by DISA. In addition to DCO, other very prominent programs highlighted in this category include:

• North American Day Public Health Alerts Pilot Project 2012 – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) Website – Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), DOD
• Utah OneStop Business Registration (OSBR) – Utah Department of Technology Services, State of Utah
• Veterans Job Bank – U.S Department of Veteran Affairs

The Awards luncheon is being held at the Grand Hyatt in Washington DC on March 5, 2013, where the winners will be announced in each of the five categories and honoring all finalists.

To read more about this outstanding accomplishment, you can find the press release located here: http://www.actgov.org/about/pressroom/Documents/ACT-IAC%20Announces%202013%20Excellence.gov%20Awards%20Finalists.pdf

The Adobe Digital Marketing Summit is taking place in Salt Lake City, March 4 – 8.  It is the premium event to explore the latest tools and trends in the digital marketing arena.

Webinars, or digital events, are fast becoming a critical tool used by marketers to find prospects, nurture leads or educate customers.  Budget once reserved to live tradeshows or live events is shifting towards online webinars.  Yet, marketers find it hard to measure the effectiveness of their webinars because the analytics they get is completely siloed.

Producing a webinar can be broken down into three parts:

• Getting prospects / customers to register for the event and attend
• Engage the audience during the actual events (or post the event with a recording)
• Forward the leads generated to sales

Each part generate its own set of analytics which is not integrated.  For example, for the first part, marketers typically get insight on how many people came to the registration site set-up from the different marketing campaigns that they have run (do they come from banner ads, google ads, social media engagement). For the last part, they get an overall idea of how many total leads they generated for sales.   But it is very hard for them to answer one very simple question:  which campaign actually generated the most qualified leads? was it the banner ads, the google ads or the social media engagement?

Adobe Connect 9 provides out of the box the close loop analytics required to answer this question.  But it can do much more.  Come to the Adobe Summit to learn how you can leverage other tools from the Adobe Marketing Tools to optimize your webinar programs and integrate them within your digital marketing strategy:

• Learn how to test multiple registration form to identify which ones drives the most registration with Test and Target
• Learn how to incorporate registration within your social media strategy with Adobe Experience Manager
• Learn how to add behavioral information from webinars into your lead scoring strategy with Adobe Analytics

There are many more reason to attend the Summit.  Black Keys will be performing; Keynotes from Felix Baumgartner, or Sal Khan (from Khan Academy), and the slopes are nearby if you are a skier or snowboarder !  Register here.

The use of videoconferencing in business has been on the rise over the last few years, but it wasn’t until recently that the Department of Defense (DOD) started heavily pushing for its use in its day-to-day operations. In the past, the DOD’s enterprise collaboration tool, Defense Connect Online (DCO), which is powered by Adobe Connect, had been used primarily to supplement physical conferences.

Recently, Federal Computer Week magazine sat down with our Mike Murtha, who manages the DCO program here at Adobe to discuss the DCO program. Mike reiterated the increased demand by the DOD to use videoconferencing to replace physical meetings and conferences. “Over the past three months, we have gotten a lot of inquiries [saying]: ‘We want to run an entire conference virtually,’” Murtha said.

FCW also discussed barriers that were in place that discouraged the use of videoconferencing such as costs, security concerns, and infrastructure requirements. The article noted that an advantage that Adobe Connect offers is that its services also provide videoconferencing capabilities for both desktops and mobile devices. Mike mentioned that the DCO system wasn’t initially built for videoconferencing, but that the customers are pushing it in that direction.

To read more about how federal agencies are promoting the use of videoconferencing, click here.