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The T4T staff joined over 2,000 other nonprofit staff members at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, DC, from March 16-19, 2011. We look forward to sharing some of our learnings in our upcoming newsletters.

In one of my favorite breakout sessions, Laura Quinn (Idealware) provided an overview of the features, tools, and tips needed to conduct meetings or seminars over the Web. Her presentation started with general tips for those of us new to online seminars, then got into information specific to several vendors, and concluded with tips on presenting and running online sessions. If you’re interested in more detail, Laura teaches this same information in a webinar at Idealware.

So you’re considering creating a webinar? Before you even begin to consider specific software, consider this:

• Each piece of software will have general system requirements for all presentations. Many will need recent versions of Flash.
• Do yourself and your participants a favor: Don’t pick a system that requires a software download. That’ll just frustrate everyone.
• If you’re going to use video, your participants will need a high bandwidth connection.

Audio

With the above entry-level barriers out of the way, let’s review how your participants actually hear you during a webinar. There are typically three audio options:

1. Phone Line owned by you – This is easy, but not integrated (so it won’t be included in a recording). May be expensive for some to call (if long distance).
2. Phone Line from Conference Provider – Toll is free for participants, but prices rise quickly on the trainer’s end. This option is the most predictable and easiest for an audience.
3. VOIP – It’s cheap (often free), often integrated into a recording. Quality can be sketchy and participants would need microphones if they want to talk to you. They would also need sound and speakers on their computers (and know how to use them). The consensus on this option: Cheap among friends, troublesome for public seminars.

Interactive Features Common to Online Conferencing Tools

There are several features available in online conferencing tools. The features you select will depend on your audience, the effect you’re going for, and your budget. Some options:

• Chat - Think instant messaging
• Participant status – Ability to for participants to click options for things like raise hand, speak louder, speed up, etc
• Polls – To get your audience's opinions. Useful to “check-in” with your participants
• Shared controls – Ability to hand-off to different presenters
• Drawing and Markup – To share a whiteboard feature, but Laura mentioned that other programs do this better

Vendors

Now to some details. This is by no means an exhaustive list of vendors, but they’re ones that were either shared by Laura or other audience members.

Under the “more powerful, inexpensive, unproven” category:

Yugma – desktop sharing only. Free with ads with up to 20 participants. Great for internal use.

WebHuddle – Useful features. Free. Still in beta version and a bit geeky.

Join.me – Free screen sharing.

Under the “more established” category (all of these start about about $500-$600/year):

GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar – solid, but stripped down. There may still be a deal at TechSoup.

WebEx – Polished and full of features. Pricing is complex and audio is extra.

ReadyTalk – Reliable and nonprofit friendly. Integrated phone line only. Deals at TechSoup.

Adobe Connect – Reliable and robust. Serious eLearning platform used at many universities. Audio extra.

Elluminate – Not as polished, but great eLearning platform for recurring classes.

Tips on Presenting

Presenting and running an online session is quite a bit different than in front of a live audience. Some things to keep in mind:

1. Prepare for the deafening silence – This is often frightening and distracting to first-time presenters. Use your software’s polling or chat features to create a feeling of connectedness, though.
2. Assume many have never done this before – Give them as many details as possible, set ground rules, expect technical issues.
3. Good visuals are critical
4. Interactivity is hard – Try chat exercises, polls, brainstorming, chat questions, etc.
5. Set the tone early – Start with some sort of interactivity. Just like a live group, energy levels will obviously vary.
6. Keep it meaty and fast paced – Lots of visuals and slides
7. Expect multi-tasking anyway! – About 25-50% check their emails during an webinar and 10-20% actually step away from their computers. This means you may have to say things multiple times.

Idealware is a fantastic resource to nonprofit organizations. I highly recommend visiting their website for extremely useful reports on just about every sort of software system you may be considering.