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Web Conference & Teleconference Tips For Excellence by B.L. Walther
#6 - 2 - 0 - Web Conference & Teleconference Tips For Excellence by B.L. Walther
[ 2006-06-07 20:59:22 ] - kishan
# I spend a large part of my work days web conferencing with team members
around the world and many evenings I conference call with colleagues
involved in Internet marketing and other online business ventures. My
main corporate job is a product developer for a high-tech company and
my personal time is spent developing web sites and writing articles.
Since I spend so much time conference calling and have been doing so
for at least ten years now, I know what works, what doesn't work, what
needs improvement and how anyone can be an excellent host or guest
presenter with most any conference call service.
First I'll address how best to utilize the audio or voice component
when using teleconferencing services. Think landline with a quality
headset as the solution when talking on the phone. Please do not under
any circumstances use a bluetooth headset when on a conference call.
The equipment used by a conference call provider is highly sensitive to
the frequencies used by bluetooth equipment and words and sentences
will be chopped off abruptly and is extremely annoying to the audience
on the call. This is especially important for the call host or guest
presenter since this person will be the dominant speaker during the
call.
The next worst offender is a cell phone in interrupting the conference
call equipment. If you've ever been on a conference call and heard high
pitched squeals and squawking coming over the line you can be certain
that there are folks on the call using cell phones. Cell phones are
perfectly fine to use on a conference call if you're not going to be
speaking and the cell phone has a mute function. If you're the host or
a presenter, please revert to a landline with a headset connected
directly to the telephone.
Voice over IP (VoIP) or digital phone service works fine, as that's
what I use in my home office. If you use WiFi or Apples Airport gear
anywhere in close proximity to your cordless telephone equipment, be
certain to upgrade your cordless phones to a current 5.8Ghz model. The
previous generation of 2.4Ghz cordless phones will interfere with the
WiFi or Airport frequencies and knock your WiFi gear off the air. The
much older 900Mhz equipment still works and won't interfere with WiFi,
it just doesn't have the range of distance from the base station that's
available with the 5.8Ghz gear.
Hosting and managing the teleconference or web conference call is of
the utmost importance. I've hosted calls for up to 50-people and I've
participated on calls that had close to 3000-people on the conference
bridge. When the call is in open mode, anyone can speak and everyone on
the call can hear everyone else on the call. Think multiple
conversations going on at once, each person speaking over every other
person speaking at the same time, kids shouting or babies crying in the
background, television noise coming through the line, dogs barking,
doors slamming, husbands or wives talking to the person who's on the
phone, cell phones squealing and you have a cacophonous wall of noise
coming through to everyone that's on the conference call. I've even
heard the sounds of someone in a bathroom with flushing noise on an
open conference call. Not what anyone else on the call particularly
wants to hear. The solution is obviously to keep the call in host mode
so that only the host and any presenters are on the line that connects
to the host function of the conference call. This isn't much of a
problem in a daytime business environment, yet it's a real big problem
when a large portion of the participants are dialing into the call from
home.
A rule of thumb I use whether to keep the conference call in host or
open mode is the number of people dialing in and whether it's a daytime
or evening call. Daytime and fewer than about 25-callers I keep the
call open. Daytime and more than 25, I keep it in host mode. Evening
calls with more than about 12-callers, host mode only.
A tactic that's used on marketing focused calls is to keep the call
open while people are signing on and announcing where they're from to
generate excitement and enthusiasm. As more and more people join the
call, the noise problem described above rapidly escalates and the call
starts out with almost everyone on the call annoyed and agitated by the
noise factor. Here's a simple solution: when the call is advertised,
send a throw-away email address along with the invite and ask people to
send an email when they've joined the call. This way the host can keep
the call in host mode and announce and welcome people as they join the
conference. The host can switch to open mode for a few seconds just
before the call agenda starts and let everyone say "Hi" to provide that
desired feeling of excitement, community and participation, and this
should last no longer than about 5-seconds. Anything longer and the
noise agitation factor comes back into play.
This same approach should be used for fielding questions from the call
participants for the host or guest presenter. If the conference call is
opened up for questions, typically more than one person attempts to ask
a question at the same time resulting in cross talk and uncomfortable
silences when everyone waits for everyone else to ask their question
first. Also the wall noise factor comes into play and the questions are
usually unable to be heard clearly by the audience. Again, the simple
solution is to have questions submitted via email. They can be sent to
the host and if the questions are for a guest presenter in another
location, the host can screen the questions and only send those that
are pertinent to the topic being discussed on the call. If the
questions are sent to the guest as they arrive while they're speaking,
the guest speaker or host will have an opportunity to see the questions
that need to be answered and a bit of mental preparation can be done in
the back of their mind before answering. This avoids someone being
blind-sided by an off-topic or inappropriate question.
All of these suggestions apply equally to a web conferencing call. The
obvious caveat for a web based conference call is that everyone needs
to be on a high-speed DSL or cable modem, especially if there's a web
based visual presentation taking place during the call. Anyone on
dial-up even for a simple audio only conference call is at an extreme
disadvantage and will be certainly frustrated by the poor results they
experience.
An excellent feature that could provide an information product to
either give away or sell is to capture a recording of the call. This is
very important if the host or guest presenter is well known or is a
rising expert in the topic of the call. There are software solutions
that will capture audio from either a teleconference or a web
conference and the audio file can be edited for clarity and made
available for download. Another option is to make the call available as
a podcast, either in whole or broken up into a series.
Once an mp3 file of the call is captured, then another option is to
have a transcription of the call made and published as an Adobe Acrobat
eBook. There are services that will transcribe from mp3 files or
alternatively, process the file through voice recognition software to
create a word document or text file that can then be published in
Acrobat. This can then be made available for free or for sale via a
download link or distributed by a file transmission solution such as
YouSendIt.
There are numerous web conferencing solutions and teleconferencing
services available ranging in price from free to cheap and affordable.
Keep in mind the suggestions I've made here and apply them to your next
conference call and you'll be pleased with the results and the call
participants will be grateful and happy. Any you may just have the
beginnings of a web based business with these suggestions as well.
About the Author
B.L. Walther is an entrepeneur and author of Success Digest. Please visit Success Digest
for timely news, information and articles on personal and professional
development for those actively seeking greater financial success.
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