Webinars-Cost Effective Training Tool

I used to always wonder about the fact that why companies spend millions of valuable revenue earned on travel expenses for getting key people together to update them on a new product or service.


Presenting a revolutionary concept in training deliveries.


WEBINARS

Conducting training using Webinars is a new way to avoid such expenses and the setup of the same is actually very simple without IT support. If your company has an IT department it would makes things better. 

Let me take you through the concept of a Webinar

1. What is a Webinar -Short for Web-based seminar, a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web.

2. Key features of a Webinar - A key feature of a Webinar is its interactive elements -- the ability to give, receive and discuss information.

I tried to explore a few website which can facilitate a webinar.

I came across websites such as www.clickmeeting.com and www.gotowebinar.com


On the latter website, I had to furnish my credit card details, which I was not comfortable with and then I chose to use www.clickmeeting.com for experimenting on the Webinar concept. 


The following are the screen shots of my webinar experience.

You have options of starting a webinar immediately if you have a ready audience and also if your presentation tools are ready.


Alternatively, you may also prepare for a webinar in advance and schedule a webinar at a later date.

As shown in the screen shot below, the following tools are available for the presenter.


a. Presentation- a Power point presentation can be uploaded and the slides can be shown.


b. Whiteboard - This allows the presenter and the participants to share their thoughts/illustrations on the canvas.(Truly interactive) 


c.  Desktop display - This feature allows the presenter to show a demonstration of a software live to its participants.


d. YouTube Videos - Relevent Youtube videos can be shown to the participants to keep the participants interested. 


e. Polls - Polls can also be conducted to find out the preferences.


f. Browser - Live Internet website can be shown to the audience. 


g. Webinar recording feature- The entire webinar can be recorded which can be later accessed by those people who were unable to participate in the live webinar.


h. Camera and Voice - An option of showing live video and audio of all the participants is possible.    
   

Power Point Presentation broadcast in progress

White Board  broadcast in progress

Cost of setting up a webinar


The cost ranges from $10 to 30$ per month depending on the number of participants. Visit http://www.clickmeeting.com/pricing.html for further details.


Webinars are here to stay. With the Internet experience becoming better by the day with the cost of Internet bandwidth, the Webinar experience is only going to get better.