This online seminar was recorded and can be accessed by clicking on the link to the right. You'll also see a link to the PowerPoint presentation. If you have additional questions about graphic design software, please post them to our Software Forum.
49. Thank you! For more information contact: Emily Inlow-Hood [email_address] twitter.com/emnica Kami Griffiths [email_address] 415-633-9392
Editor's Notes
Can you tell me about the webinars you offered for WebJunction? WebJunction is an online learning community for library staff. We host courses, and online articles and discussions, much like TechSoup, that are tailored to the staff development needs of libraries. Theyoperate as a social enterprise. This means that they develop for-fee (subscription) services for library service organizations on behalf of their members or the communities they serve. Many of these library service organizations operate as Community Partners, and have their own co-branded portals on the WJ website. These subscriptions help us provide free services to all our members, regardless of their ability to pay. One of these free services was our webinars. The webinars were free events, ½ hour to 1 ½ hour FREE online, interactive presentations from library leaders and practioners on topics relevant to libraries . Opportunities for library staff from across the country (and world) to interact via chat and voice in a virtual environment.
Why did you decide to offer them? In the beginning, we saw these as fulfilling our mission, which was to serve libraries with few resources with free and low-cost learning and training opportunities. And also, since we were an online community, we saw this as an opportunity to attract new members, and strengthen the relationship with our existing members. The research in online communities shows that having live synchronous events is a good tool for building relationships between community members. So we began to develop ways to incorporate information about our organization (marketing information) as well as a way to gather leads for further contact by our partner development team. As one of our strategic goals was also to build more membership, we included information on the benefits of membership, and started tracking how many of the participants were members. We discovered that many people came to the webinars (often as repeat participants), but were not actual members of WebJunction. We didn't require you be a member to attend, and there was no technical requirement to be logged into the community to attend. So as a tool to build membership, we realized we had a lot more to accomplish. Talk about different projects an challenge of working with different players with different goals, strengths, and challenges: Spanish Language Outreach Webinars Rural Webinars Learning Webinars TechAtlas Webinars Community Webinars WebJunction in Practice Webinars Open house or fundraising event. This is the same, except you are repeatedly investing in a relationship Form of social media My job was to develop guidelines, best practices, and templates so we could create consistent quality user experiences for all our webinars. How did webinars help WebJunction accomplish it’s mission? Talk about the continuum. The reason I put this up here is because I want to show you where webinars live on this continuum. Webinars gave us a tool for accomplishing two of the goals of our organization: engage people with our online community, and build knowledge in the library field. Our vision is to see relevant, vibrant, and sustainable libraries in every community. We also see library staff as the greatest asset a library has. So, building knowledge in the library field contributes to that vision of relevant, vibrant and sustainable libraries in every community. You get lists of people who you can contact with more information about your organization. Privacy was something we really valued, however, at WJ b/c of our audience which was librarians. The different ways people could engage with our community. Attend a webinar – consume Present a webinar - facilitate
We also wanted to continue our own learning, and developing our own skills.
And finally, the other way we learned was from our own mistakes. The devil’s in the details. Time zone, daylight savings – it was quite embarrassing but what it taught us was to always include all the time zones in our communications. Despite the best-laid plans, things happen.
Can you walk us through the process you’d take in organizing and offering a webinar? (registration, promotion, format/presenters, follow up I ntroduce who’s in t he picture A dvocate for space
Recruitment of presenter and/or selection of topic – recruit, offer incentive. In surveys, it was most often topic or presenter that drew people to the session. Less often it was the often it was the format or the price. Communication between presenter and support team. Communication between organizer and attendees. Templates. Preparation and training of presenter and support team. Preparation of equipment and space. Invisible process Publicity – talk about leveraging networks. S omeone in registration said that they wanted to know how to attract people or make people go to webinars – cultivating a culture of learning Share results (lead generation, attendee stats, comments from attendees, survey results, etc.) with your organization -share with management. M ake sure there is a webinar corner in that newsletter. W ebinars can be listening tools. E ven if people are not talking about your organization, you can listen to what they are passionate about, which may help you plan future services Organizational Buy-in: ROI, social media, Beth Kanter Essential components: - Webinars are like radio in some ways. You need a good production area. - It doesn't need to be expensive. - Advocate in your organization for a dedicated space
Steps to developing a webinar (sample process) notes: Important to document your organization's process b/c: 1) ensures consistency of user experience 2) especially if you have multiple staff people or programs or departments conducting webinars 3) realize that a user will see only your organization's name when attending a webinar, not the different departments or staff people. So, when they attend three webinars from your organization, and have three different user experiences, they will think you don't have your act together (and it makes it harder for them to concentrate on the content if they are having to relearn the process every time).
This is different from that other checklist. This is the day of the session checklist. Double-check your slides, equipment, space, etc. to make sure everything is ready (have a checklist that is documented so you don't forget something)
Display a default welcome slide that ensures people know they are in the right place Ask a provocative question to get people thinking about the content of the presentation (and to give those who have used the tool before and who are not having technical difficulties something to do while you are helping others troubleshoot)
This is a huge topic, an I only have three things here. If you want to learn more about being an effective online trainer or presenter, go here ….
Follow up – transactional emails
Follow up – transactional emails
Concepts or skills that can easily be taught in 30-45 minutes Very narrowly focused topics – prison library Topics that generate discussion - controversy Case studies and stories – athens library Ira Glass – radio is more intimate because it sounds like someone is talking directly to you. stories help us practice empathy. Ask your community! - surveys
Competencies for a webinar program admin Eager to learn new technology Excellent attention to detail Grace under pressure and able to troubleshoot on the fly Excellent time management skills Event planning experience Instruction experience Presentation skills Online learning and meeting facilitation experience What else?