Management is operating on the assumption that webinars offer all the benefits of live instruction along with all the
efficiencies of online communication. The reality is
something different.
A special class of the click-and-read learning experience is the online webinar, which seems to present a number of advantages to organizations:
• Webinars are cheaper than holding meetings.
• Attendees merely need to be at a PC.
• The only development required is a PowerPoint
presentation.
• Attendees can interact live with the presenter.
• Anyone can access a recording of the webcast afterwards.
The two advantages mentioned most often are low cost and interaction. Webinar fees are only a few cents per minute per attendee, and the technology lets attendees communicate with presenters in real time through a conference phone call, a chat window, and click interactions. This is an attractive combination for Training departments, which have driven the widespread adoption of webinars across organizations of all sizes.
Once again, though, the focus of this solution is on the organization itself, not on learners. Management is operating on the assumption that webinars offer all the
benefits of live instruction along with all the efficiencies of online communication. The reality is something different.
Learning analyst Elliott Masie wrote about one of the “dirty” secrets of the
learning world—the high rate of no-shows for live virtual events such as webinars. Organizations report no-show rates as high as 40% to 60%.1 Search the Internet for tips on effective webinars and you’ll find that most of the articles start with a discussion of all the bad webcasts the authors have encountered. So what’s going on?
An unattractive learning experience
It starts with the basic premise of the webinar itself—that people want to watch static content while listening to a disembodied voice. It is just not a great learning environment.
Imagine if a trainer told prospective students:
Webinars inherit many of the worst elements of click-and-read e-learning, and they omit the best elements of classroom training
.
questions before that, please write them down and give them to my assistant, and I’ll answer them if I have time. If there aren’t too many attendees, I may open things up for a live discussion. Oh, and I also might give you some multiple choice questions to answer.”
How eager would you be to attend this class? Not excited? Who would be?
Unique presenter skills required
For many trainers, webinars are well outside their comfort zone and skill set. Many of the classroom presentation skills that make trainers successful don’t work in webinars because there is no face-to-face communication and no attendee feedback.
In fact, the skill set that is the most helpful for webcasting is broadcasting. Radio hosts are used to talking to an invisible distant audience, interacting with co-hosts, keeping the topic moving, speaking clearly, staying vocally
energized, dealing with callers over the phone, and handling a lot of production inputs at once.
Getting the worst and missing the best
Webinars inherit many of the worst elements of click-and-read e-learning, and they omit the best elements of classroom training. Webinars are often long, boring, visually unexciting, impersonal narrations of some SME’s slide deck, just like a click-and-read course.
Then both the presenter and the attendees miss out on true personal interaction. Attendees can’t watch for verbal cues as the trainer presents, and the trainer can’t observe attendees’ reactions to the content. At best, the trainer might have a real-time matrix of colored dots indicating how satisfied attendees are with the webinar, but that’s about it for feedback.
Real-time limitations
The real-time nature of webinars creates an either-or convenience versus
interaction dilemma. If attendees want the opportunity to ask questions, then they have to be in front of their PC at a certain time. By definition, this makes webinars standard “anticipation learning” with all the issues that entails.
A learner can certainly view a recording of the program after the webinar. But this eliminates the opportunity for interaction with the presenter, which is one of the primary reasons to do a webcast in the first place. For post-viewers, the webinar
essentially becomes a standard e-learning course. In that case, why not create a real e-learning program with the right instructional design to begin with?
Webinars face a difficult attendee environment where it’s easy to be interrupted or to focus attention on something else.
Interruption friendly
Have you ever answered your e-mail during a webcast? Sure, we all have.
Webinars face a difficult attendee environment where it’s easy to be interrupted or to focus attention on something else. In a webinar, learners merely need to stay logged in. They can be doing other work or talking to co-workers and nobody knows the difference.
Interactions, but no engagement
Despite the capability for interaction, communication is often one-way from the presenter to attendees. This can happen due to a variety of reasons. There may be too much content for the time allowed, so there’s no opportunity for questions. The presenter may not be able to deal with questions coming in and continue
teaching at the same time. The presenter may not be comfortable with the technology.
As a result, the live communication capability is often little used. And when it is utilized, it may be more to confirm attendees’ involvement (i.e., making them do something that tells the presenter they’re still there and awake), rather than to provide practice or to test learning.
No move-the-needle measures
For many organizations, attending the webinar is itself the completion event.
Students are assumed to have learned from having been logged in throughout the entire session.
In terms of business results, there is little research addressing how webinars compare with other learning events. Most discussions of webcast effectiveness point out their value in generating sales leads.
Summary
Now all those no-shows begin to make sense. Webinars present trainers with a learning environment that looks simple on the surface—just give your PowerPoint
presentation over the Web instead of in front of an audience. Yet the skills required are quite unique and sophisticated. Still, even when everything is done right, the learning environment is not one that students would prefer, if given the choice.
Conducting a successful webinar is not much different than delivering a live classroom seminar where presentation equipment is involved. Trainers need to work to get the most out of a difficult learning situation.
Webinars are not going away … but they’re all too often
perfect examples of the Terrible Too’s
of training.
Use the right instructional design rules for content. You can’t ignore design just because this is a live event.
Slides for a webinar are different than slides for a presentation. You may need more or less slide detail for a webinar, depending on the topic. It all depends on the pace of the presentation and how long each slide will be on-screen. You want to engage your attendees’ eyes without overloading their visual sketchpad.
Presenters need to develop your webinar presentation skills. This means focusing
specifically on vocal skills for speaking clarity, pace, inflection, range, and so on. For example, there are certain vocal traits that make you more credible or more
persuasive.2
You can record yourself and compare your vocal performance to broadcast radio hosts. They are whom your attendees listen to and are comparing you with.
You need to develop standards for your webinars. It isn’t a simple task. For example, we’ve identified 47 rules in seven categories required to conduct
effective webinars.3
Webinars are not going away. They are a cheap way to provide live training without having to gather everyone in one place, but they’re all too often perfect examples of the Terrible Too’s of training.4
About the author
Ken Cooper is the founder of VideofyPro, LLC, a St. Louis-based productivity improvement firm. He has conducted over 2,500 training seminars and appeared in over 300 live and recorded video-based e-learning programs. Ken has written for Training, Trainer’s Workshop, Chief Learning Officer, and The Corporate Board, and is co-author of Taming the Terrible Too’s of Training (TotalComm Press) and author of Effective Competency Modeling & Reporting (AMACOM).
References
1. Masie, E. (2011). Webinar No-Show Rates? Learning Trends. No. 680: August 30. 2. Cooper, K. (1979). BodyBusiness: The Sender’s and Receiver’s Guide to Nonverbal
Communication. New York, NY: AMACOM. 162-178.
3. Cooper, K. (2012). How to Conduct an Effective Webinar, White paper. St. Louis: Performance Improvement Results.
4. Cooper, D. & Cooper, K. (2012). Taming the Terrible Too’s of Training: How to
improve workplace performance in the digital age, St. Louis: TotalComm Press.
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Information in this paper was obtained from sources VideofyPro believes to be reliable.
VideofyPro disclaims any and all warranties as to the reliability, accuracy and adequacy of such information, and VideofyPro shall have no liability for the inclusion or exclusion of information. VideofyPro may, without notice, change expressed opinions. Use of this paper to achieve desired
