In today's cash strapped marketplace, companies with
branches around the country – and around the world – are finding that the
regular ‘get-togethers’ under the guise of sales meetings, training sessions
and business development seminars, are simply too expensive. Is there an
another way to bring company executives and even regular staff members in dispersed
geographic locations together for regular meetings without blowing the travel
budget? Jack
Ward, chairman of the SI Group investigates.
In today’s economic climate, it is becoming
increasingly expensive for executives to travel around the country or around
the world to attend meetings, training sessions and product presentations. The
most viable solution to this problem is Web seminars.
Web seminars - also called ‘Webinars’ or
Web conferences - replicate large group presentations, training sessions and face-to-face
meetings online without losing the immediacy and interactivity of the experiences.
In essence, a Web seminar is an on-line
meeting between two or (many) more participants. All that’s needed is a trusted
organiser to coordinate the event.
Using special Web-conferencing software,
Web seminars are easy to set up. Using this software, the organiser sends an
invitation by e-mail or SMS. The invitation contains a link and an access code
for logging into the meeting. The calendar program reminds both attendees and
organiser when it’s time to join the group.
Using common applications such as Microsoft
Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Flash, presenters can create dynamic
graphic presentations enhanced by audio or even streaming video.
During the seminar, desktop sharing allows
the presenter to display items on his or her computer. Attendees can then see
what the presenter sees, and the presenter can hand over his desktop to any
other attendee.
Whiteboards are shared virtual workspaces
where presenters can cut and paste documents, graphs and images. By sharing
control of the whiteboard, presenters can draw, annotate and edit in the same
way they would scrawl on a real-world whiteboard.
For greater interactivity, presenters can
give attendees chat capabilities or the option of instant messaging questions
to the presenters.
An important benefit of Web seminars is
they can be recorded for later use in presentations or training sessions or
downloaded for on-demand playback.
One of the biggest challenges associated
with the implementation of Web seminar systems is security. To ward off industrial
spies and other online eavesdroppers, audience management is key. Closed
user-group Webinars must be done over a secure network.
Here an important decision needs to be
taken up front. Do you opt for an in-house Web seminar solution – assuming your
network is deemed to be secure - or do you turn the security problems over to a
third party host and outsource your Web conference?
Many companies believe that relying on
equipment and software owned and operated by another company is not an ideal
answer – from both reliability and security perspectives.
If your company subscribes to this theory,
then it’s important to set up a secure connection between your organisation and
all authorised conference participants, encrypting any data that's transferred.
Encryption keeps confidential information
from being stolen or changed by someone outside the firm.
During the online meeting, you should
nominate one person who must monitor the participants and look for possible
intruders. Anyone who isn't invited, including employees who haven't been
specifically authorised to attend, must be disconnected.
To gain access, each participant should
receive a conference password that's been sent to them on a secure email
server. For additional protection, you may want to assign everyone an
individual access code that they must use to verify their identity.
Secure web conferencing also means limiting
participants' ability to save data or print out copies of documents and
diagrams. The conference software should give you the power to control any data
access.
If the seminar is recorded – in either
audio or video formats – make sure the data is held securely so that it might not
fall in to the wrong hands. In fact, a good rule is not to record proceedings
in the first place – unless content is targeted at the general public and you
plan to distribute content at a later time or need record for archive purposes.