Video power - or not

About a year ago at work I was looking into the way webinars function. We were thinking in terms of using a webinar conference to host some people from the world of missional thinking rather than bringing them all the way to New Zealand. That was one of our thoughts. Like some other bright ideas, it only went so far as getting the background on webinars and how to use the systems and so on. Still it gave me the chance to actually 'attend' a webinar on a couple of occasions - one very early in the morning our time - and learn how frustrating the process can be for someone who's never done it before.

I also discovered that some webinars can be very boring to watch - because nothing happens on screen. It's rather like listening to the radio while watching the same picture for an hour. Other webinars are more interesting - a PowerPoint is presented, so at least you get some visual interest. However, since PowerPoints are becoming old hat in some quarters - see the amusing PowerPoint presentation Matt Blaze sent to the RSA Conference in 2011, for example. (It was originally laid out in only three pages...)

My PowerPoint slides for the RSA Conference 2011
Matt Blaze
University of Pennsylvania

I’m not using PowerPoint in my presentation.
• I hate PowerPoint
– I avoid using it whenever possible
– It is usually a terrible way to convey information.
• … and they presumably invited me to speak because they think I’m good at conveying information
• But the conference organizers just sent me email “reminding” me that sending a PowerPoint presentation “… is a contractual requirement for speakers this year.”
– what contract is that?
– they’re not even paying me.

End of PowerPoint Presentation for RSA-2011
Matt Blaze
University of Pennsylvania

See also Seth Godin's comments on PowerPoint.

However, webinars also come in more interesting formats, with live speakers visible on screen (a bit like Skype, but usually more effective in its speed). And you can access video conferencing software to sort out your own webinar process, if you're of a mind.

I'm not sure that broadband in New Zealand is up to watching streaming video: at least not in my neck of the woods. At the office - where I'll only be for one more day! - the broadband speed is pretty good. It's rare to see a video in bits, as sometimes happens at home. And when the various TV stations advertise that I can go to my computer and catch up with programmes I've missed, I raise my eyes - it would take me about three times the normal length of the programme to 'catch up'. Watching TV in this way just isn't on as yet.

When the Government finally gets around to contracting Telecom or one of its subsidiaries to provide high-speed broadband everywhere in the country, things may be different. In the meantime, I might have to stick with the sort of webinars that provide one flickering image and do something else while I'm listening.

Flying car doors

Reached the tidy sum of 1200 posts on here yesterday with my piece on webinars. And my fun piece on Grandparents' Rules that I posted on Gomestic yesterday has taken off; for some reason it appeals to other grandparents, who seem to like the idea of a bit of anarchy amongst us older bods.

I was reading on Facebook a few minutes ago about a well-known church leader in Australia who was just opening his car door when someone drove past and blew it off its hinges. I saw this happen in town once, many years ago. A woman opened her door to get out of the car and a passing truck struck it and sent it flying way down the road. You have to be driving close to a car to do that. And hopefully not still holding onto the handle.

You might not mind such an event if your car was a cheap and nasty little vehicle, full of rust and about to be sent to the tip. But if you had something a bit more classy, a Lamborghini, Maserati and Ferrari, then the thought of replacing the door would be very upsetting. Ferrari parts, I imagine, ain't cheap - nor are those for Lamborghinis or Maseratis - though I guess it would be your insurance company that would be upset more than you.

I suppose most Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati owners would have insurance - unless the car had cost them so much they had nothing left over to cover the car.

Photo of the Ferrari by Bob Henry

First Webinar Status

This morning I rose at 5.45 am in order to have the experience of going on a webinar. A webinar is a web-based seminar, as the link says, and "a key feature of a webinar is its interactive elements - the ability to give, receive and discuss information. Contrast with Webcast, in which the data transmission is one way and does not allow interaction between the presenter and the audience."

So there you have it. This was free webinar, which was just as well in view of what happened. And it was on a subject which I wasn't anxious to know more about; I was happy to listen to the seminar, but wouldn't have been cast down if I'd missed it. Which was just as well.

I'd booked the webinar about a week ago, and worked out from their little dinky linky thing that if it was 3 pm on Wednesday at the place where the webinar was coming from, it was 6 am on Thursday here in New Zealand. It was very kind of them to tell me so.

I gave myself a bit of time to sit down and get set up and discovered the first issue. I had to download a little programme in order to participate. Okay, not such a hassle.

I then realised, of course, that webinars require you to use a phone line, and so I rang the number (in the States) and was told that my access code was invalid, in spite of it being the one they'd sent me. Nothing would persuade the machine voice otherwise.

And then I realised that even if I'd got on the phone, it was going to cost me the price of an international toll call - for the hour I was on there. A change of plan was required (by this time the webinar had well started). I went and got the Skype earphones, and then realised (it was one of those mornings) that the plugs for these earphones are in the back of the computer - not the most accessible of places.

My wife - listening to my pacing back and forth from bed - got up and told me the sensible thing would be to use the laptop, which has a plug in the side. Went and got the laptop from the other room, carefully leaving the earphones behind as I did so.

Got Skype set up, found the earphones after some bewilderment as to how they could have wandered off on their own, and then found that we couldn't ring Skype to Skype, we had to ring a telephone number.

This required topping up the Skype account - in Euros. (Don't ask me why NZ has to use Euros.) Topped up the Skype account, and then discovered that I couldn't just copy and paste the phone number into the Skype box because it was one of those on-screen key pads. Had to go and check the number again. Type it in. Finally hear the sound of the seminar coming to an end and the question time beginning.

Had the joy of listening to questions about a topic I hadn't heard.

Nevertheless, I achieved first webinar status. At the end, when it was all over (it went from 6 to 7 our time) the person hosting the webinar forgot to turn off the connection at their end, and I had the joy of listening to her discussing with one of her colleagues how the thing had gone, how many people had joined in (180) and how few had 'put up their hands' to ask a question. They may be connected still, but I had to go to work.

Photo of a lady in red listening into a webinar by Pete Gray.