Back on March 16 2009 I posted a link to Andy Goodman's and The Goodman Center's survey on teleconferences, videoconferences & webinars. The results are in their new report: Dialing In, Logging On, Nodding Off: The True Costs of Teleconferences, Videoconferences and Webinars.
Over the course of about 22 days last spring, 1218 people took the survey (representing Non-profit 58%; Government 14%; Foundations 13%; Education 7%; Other 9%) The top 5 issues the respondents represented were: Education, Health, Children/Youth, Environment. Click here for a full report.
There are lots of ways to slice and dice the data. I'll focus on the items that jumped out at me the most. Below is the gist of the webinar section, with a few comments.
First, usage rates:
- 25% (about 300) of respondents participate frequently or very frequently in Webinars
- 56% (about 700) believe usage will increase
- 72% (about 800-900) have no training in how to use (when conducting) a webinar effectively.
The next issue noted was a report card. It's worth looking at the results from all of the types of meetings because it shows that even with 72% of respondents having no training in how to conduct an effective webinar, it's clearly a better medium for communicating a meeting or training. I found these results very encouraging for webinar usage.
Telecon | Videocon | Webinar | |
Accomplish objective of meeting (or training) | B - | B - | B |
Involve all the participants | C + | C + | B |
Skill of Meeting (or training) leader | B - | B - | B |
The survey listed common webinar problems ranked by FREQUENCY of occurrence:
- Boring visuals (see my blog posts on Engaging Webinars and Creating a Great Presentation: Nancy Duarte's approach for some tips to combat this)
- Lack of participant participation
- Poor leadership/facilitation
Common webinar problems ranked by SIGNIFICANCE of negative impact:
- Poor leadership/facilitation
- Lack of agenda or clear objective
- Boring visuals
So, boring visuals happen more often but are not as big of a problem as poor leadership/facilitation. I found some of the comments about creating interactive webinars noteworthy. There is a clear link between the leadership/facilitation issue and the participant interaction component.
Overall, when asked to respond in an open-ended format, the respondents listed the issues of poor leadership/facilitation (24%); technical problems/background noise (20%); Misleading description of topic (18%); Too much information for allotted time (16%) and Boring/uninteresting/irrelevant topic (14%) This just echoes previous sentiment.
The webinar section closed with the following 'Meetings are meetings no matter what kind' and that "If you don't know how to run a good meeting in person, adding the prefix tele-isn't going to help you and, in fact, will probably make life even more difficult." --'nuf said!
I was encouraged for the webinar consulting prospects of Potomac Webinars. As you can tell from the title of his report, there is definitely a need for webinar training and help in developing effective webinars. With growth expected in this medium (56% expected slight to significant increases that they would be logging on for more webinars in the future) the future looks bright.
Stay tuned for blog posts with suggestions on how to combat the issues listed. Additionally, The Goodman Center will be will be offering a free webinar based on this study on July 17th.
Andy, thanks for the shout out in the acknowledgements section. I was (and am) grateful for the opportunity to speak with you regarding my experience with webinars and hope that I was able to help you spread the word.
