Webinars From the Other Side - An Apology

I'm a bit of a critic when it comes to webinars. I think I've attended more than 100 webinars in the last five years and only one or two of them spring to mind. I don't know what that says about my memory (or lack thereof), but I do think it says something about the state of webinars currently.

Having recently been on the other side of a full-length webinar as a presenter, I see how challenging it can be to juggle all the aspects of making a great webinar and keeping your audience engaged. On that note, I apologize to the webinars presenters that I have critiqued harshly in the past.

When you're in the saddle presenting a webinar, there are so many things that you have to keep track of:

• Is the video running?

• Can the participants hear my audio?

• Is it my turn to be running the webinar?

• Is the right window or application being shared?

• Are the comments piling up in Chat?

• Did we remember to share the link to the participants?

• Are the participants still paying attention?

• Am I talking too fast?

• Is that how much time we have left?!?

You get the idea.

On the participant side, it's easy to focus on what's going wrong and then start disengaging and checking out the latest cute kitten videos on YouTube. You've got the easy part. All you need to do is watch and (hopefully) learn something. On the presenter side, you've got to manage the list I shared above PLUS about a few dozen other considerations.

Now I'm not saying that I'm not going to pass judgment on webinars in the future. I will, mainly because webinars still need to deliver on quality and substance. I will, however, me more aware of what the presenters are dealing with on the back end and try not to judge them as harshly when they have technical difficulties.