You have most likely been to a seminar of some sort, where you go to learn something new or or find out about the latest offering from some organization. You go to a conference room at a hotel, or maybe it’s a multiple day conference with several seminars sprinkled in the agenda.
Once you get there, you step into a large room with several people there. At the front of the room is someone putting the final connections together from their laptop to the projector which is sitting in front of a large movie screen along the front wall. As the time for the seminar approaches, the presenter will talk while using PowerPoint slides to highlight important points, or perhaps showing a website, or at least something visual.
At this point, you have already spent at least 1/2 to 1 hour in travel time. That’s if your lucky enough to be attending a local venue. Perhaps you have spent hours, or even a day, traveling to another distant seminar.
Along comes the webinar. One of the biggest benefits of a webinar is convenience: no travel time, no travel costs.
Webinars are online seminars or meetings. Webinars have a presenter, but everything is seen on your own computer screen via the internet. Audio for a webinar is either by phone or through microphone and/or camera, attached to your computer (also known as voice over internet, or VoIP), along with some speakers for receiving sound. The phone method is the most common for interactive webinars.
Like live seminars, webinars offer interaction between the presenter and the audience. This can be done by typing questions or comments into the “chat†portion of the webinar on your screen (usually a portion of the screen is dedicated to something such as chat and showing the list of attendees), or you may just verbally ask a question like you would in a regular seminar.
As I said earlier, the tool, or service, used for a webinar is also designed for meetings. If you have employees or associates in remote places, nobody has to travel for the meeting. All discussion, presentations, and collaboration can be done via the internet. Control of the session can be shared so that all of those involved in the meeting can show anything from their computer that may be necessary for the meeting.
With the click of a mouse button, you can be on to the rest of your work day, rather than taking the time needed to get back to your office.
