Category — Tools and Tips

We each have our own presentation style, and that’s true online as well.

I confess, I prefer to stand up when I present, so I use a minimum of annotations afforded by a web conferencing solution.

Recently, though, I found myself in a situation that needed an annotation AND fumbling to find the annotation tool(s).  Fortunately sometimes we are struck with an old, old memory when we’re stuck, and that’s what happened to me.  I thought I’d pass it along.

When you’re in presentation mode, to turn your mouse pointer into a drawing tool use “control-P” (”command-P” for my Mac friends).

To turn it back into a regular mouse pointer, “control/command-U” will get the job done.

Need web conferencing, an LMS, and an e-marketing/contact management tool all-in-one?  Meet eLearningZoom.

I had the pleasure yesterday of speaking with Matt Fok, CEO of eLearningZoom ~ and getting an on-the-spot demo of his new service.  Matt’s got a long history in high tech, including seven years at IBM, and I think he’s on to something with his approach to the market.

Targeting smaller and medium enterprises, eLearningZoom has focused on making learning management – both synchronous and asynchronous – an easy-to-use proposition at a very affordable price.

I won’t write an exhaustive review here (deferring you to learning more from Matt and his company’s web site), but there were a couple things that caught my eye.

One, developing a course is simple, containing the essentials you’d want.  You define the steps in the learning process, attaching the media type you want to each step.  That media type could be a PDF, a Flash file, etc.  An integrated testing option allows you to assess at each step and redirect or allow permission to proceed based on pass/fail scoring.

Two, the emeeting platform is based on DimDim (who I introduced you to a couple months back) in part, according to Matt, their open-source approach to their platform.

Third, integrating a contact manager I think would be quite useful for many SMBs – especially when working with customers and partners external to the organization.  A potential use case I didn’t think to ask Matt at the time was how one might synchronize that data with an existing CRM/contact manager – but it’s unlikely this is a showstopper.

Finally, integrated e-commerce!  This is a fast-growing need for many companies who don’t wish to undertake the pain of setting up their own credit card clearing and bank relationships.

It was unclear to me how seamless it was to integrate the on-demand content/modules with live web seminars in terms of testing and permissions to complete the course, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from investigating the options eLearningZoom provides.  Know your use case, and more importantly, evaluate the offering relative to its affordable price.

If you’ve ever wanted to explore an LMS and the price tag was offputting, eLearningZoom is worth investigation.

As the tools of the virtual presenter’s trade become more familiar to you, here’s a tactic that can open up some new possibilities.

Sometimes you need to offer an audience a multiple choice option (like a poll), but you face the problem of there 1) being way too many options to fit into the limit of answers the web conferencing tool offers you or 2) you need to give the audience a chance to comment or qualify their vote.

Here’s an example I recently used:

I did an exercise where I asked participants to choose among four options.  In reality, there were a couple dozen ways to answer the question, so I took the four most common answers and turned those into a poll (which automagically labelled them A, B, C, and D).  Then I asked the audience to choose which of the four options (on the poll) was most like the answer they’d written down during the exercise.  And you guessed it, I also offered via verbal instruction the option for them to submit their own description of what they’d written via the Q&A panel.

As I often quip, the virtual presenter must learn to “fly by their instruments” meaning, like a pilot must both learn to fly by sight and their gear, so must virtual presenters learn new ways of doing old things.

Add a trick to your bag.  Consider using polls and Q&A at the same time.

Just found a long list of sources for stock images.  I can’t say as I’ve checked them out (and I’m a big fan of iStockPhoto whose prices I find quite reasonable), but thought I’d pass it along.

I had lunch yesterday with a true pioneer in the conferencing industry, Bruce Frydenlund, COO at EventBuilder.  Bruce was the founder of EnvoyGlobal, which was acquired by PlaceWare (later acquired by Microsoft becoming Microsoft Office LiveMeeting).  He then founded Encounter Collaborative, now renamed EventBuilder, and continues to provide some innovative solutions.

If you need an easy-to-use registration system that includes e-commerce and simplifies how you take your web seminar recording and get it posted (again with e-commerce), EventBuilder should be on your list to investigate.

Separately, EventBuilder has a system for broadcasting video of local sports events (that could easily apply to many other types of events) that is truly intriguing…and within reach of average budgets.  Worth a peek.

By and large, 1080 Group and TheVirtualPresenter are about soft skills… “Microsoft Word doesn’t make you a writer, and a web conferencing tool doesn’t make you a great presenter, promoter, or producer.”

BUT, we have hearts of teachers and servants, so when it becomes easy to point you toward a resource that would be useful, I’m not going to hold back.

In this case I bumped into a blog post – details below – about how to edit a Citrix GoToMeeting/Webinar recording using a third party tool.  And the reason I’ve chosen to share is this:

Web conferencing tools are optimized for collaborating and presenting live.  NOT for content authoring.  And while it’s easy to make recordings with web conferencing tools, if for any reason you want to edit the recording, well, they just don’t do that.

Some (like Webex) allow you to truncate the beginning or end to cut off the welcome script or end-of-event Q&A, but there’s no cutting out the f-bomb that the veep dropped in the middle (true story).  Others (Microsoft LiveMeeting, Citrix GoToMeeting, et al) allow you to download a standard .wmv file that’s editable in a tool capable of editing video.  And when you’re shopping, don’t forget to ALSO ask the vendor about how you then host the edited video…

Which brings us to a useful blog post about editing GoToMeeting recordings using Camtasia.  I don’t know Sam, but this useful even if you aren’t a GTM customer, and I thought I’d share.  Why?

Every day I get asked about free or cheap conferencing, often in relation to Webex or other premium service.  The pre-supposition is that they’re all the same, and something else is cheaper.

ALL conferencing is inexpensive when compared to the cost of labor – and unless you figure out how labor and process is impacted in your organization, you’re not asking pro-level questions.

Get clear on your use-case and your process.  A pickup and minivan can both haul gravel or kids, but…

I admit:  I forgot to ask.

Just where did “DimDim” come from?

I don’t know, but next time I talk to Kevin Micalizzi (kevin-at sign-dimdim.com or on Twitter @meetdimdim), the Community Manager at DimDim I’ll find out.

Truthfully, I don’t spend a lot of time talking about tools (vendors are happy to do that), but I’m often asked about free or affordable web conferencing options.  And most of the time I remind folks that NOTHING is free.

Like many vendors, DimDim offers a free option with premium goodies available for an affordable fee.  And it sounds like they’ve got some noteworthy announcements coming in the near future.

One value worth noting:  you can have up to 20 participants on the free version.  I only know of one other vendor that gives you that much (and I’ll post on them another time).

Selfishly, this means it’s as easy as ever for anybody and everybody to experience the power of presenting virtually…and some portion of them are going to figure out that mastering the medium is part of connecting, engaging, persuading.

Meet DimDim.  And stay tuned.

One quick reminder for users of Microsoft’s LiveMeeting…  F5 will toggle you into and out of full screen mode.

And a tip for presenters… repeat this to your attendees several times during your presentation.

Don’t assume the audience heard, remembers, or was even present for the welcome speech when instructions were given.