the smart pms blog http://thesmartpms.posterous.com Most recent posts at the smart pms blog posterous.com Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:45:00 -0700 9 Important Things to Do Before Conducting a Webinar http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/9-important-things-to-do-before-conducting-a http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/9-important-things-to-do-before-conducting-a

Conrado Morlan, EzineArticles.com Basic Author

Your company assigned you to conduct a webinar and you do not know where to start. Let's first understand what a webinar is. According to Merriam-Webster definition a webinar is a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments.

That's a good start! Now you know that a virtual presentation will be delivered by you and you will have to answer questions. Before you conduct the webinar, you will need to do some preparation work.

The 9 important things you need to do before conducting a webinar are:

1) Select the webinar title. The title should be appealing and it must be tailored to address the audience perspective

2) Webinar promotion. Design an advertisement that will describe the benefits of attending your webinar and select the notification media: email, social media or periodicals. Include the registration link or telephone number where the attendees can register

3) Registration. This will be your first contact with the potential attendee. Define a registration form and only request the data that is needed, make sure that the attendee will receive a confirmation email with the webinar details

4) Prepare you presentation material. This will be your "face" to the audience, it needs to be powerful to attract and retain the audience attention. Include slides in which you can interact with the audience (i.e. pools). In addition to your presentation include lobby slides that will be displayed during the minutes before the webinar start

5) Select your webinar team. Your team should include a host, moderator, and technical staff. Your host will introduce you and close the webinar. The moderator will take care of interaction with the audience (i.e. collecting questions, ask questions, read pool results). The technical staff will ensure audio, video, and webinar platform are working OK. With the support of the team you will be able to focus on the webinar

6) Event Schedule. Schedule each component of the presentation. Plan for a 60-minute presentation and identify who from the team will take care of each component. Consider forty-five minutes for your presentation, thirteen for Q&A and two minutes for closing

7) Rehearsal. Preparation is king for any kind of presentation. Consider several individual rehearsals before having the group rehearsals. The event schedule should be followed during the group rehearsal

8) Define a back-up plan. It is better to be prepared in case of human or technological issues. Identify the potential points of failure and define a mitigation plan so you can maximize the delivery of your webinar

9) Mark your calendar. Block the webinar date and time. Make sure you will be available at least one hour before the webinar for the final checking

Fulfilling this preparation work will ensure that your webinar will be a successful one. Get ready to engage your audience and share your knowledge.

You are now ready to rock & roll!

 

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Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:26:00 -0700 Networking Tips http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/networking-tips http://thesmartpms.posterous.com/networking-tips

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Networking is one of the most useful ways to get references or contacts. For some people represent a challenge to meet another people and have an informal conversation, for others it may be natural to interact with others in any environment.

In general, I feel comfortable networking with people in live and virtual environments. I personally consider myself as an open virtual networker. Last month I have the opportunity to attend two congresses, one as a delegate and another one as presenter Taking advantage of this opportunity I was looking for new ways to network with the congress attendees. In both events, I was able to “break the ice” in several ways. Here are some of the techniques that worked out for me:

-       From virtual to personal. First, I checked if any of the members of my virtual networks would be attending the events and make the arrangements to meet and greet. This was a good start and is always good to “put a face to the name” or “put a real face to the avatar”. This technique led me to meet in person around five members of my LinkedIn network and a couple of followers in twitter.

-       Ask/Answer questions!!  This technique was spontaneous. During one of the presentations I attended, the presenter pooled the audience about who wrote articles about project management and I raise my hand. At the end of the presentation and during the questions and answers section I asked a question related to what publications he would recommend to approach to submit articles. When the presentation finished two delegates approached me and told me that they share the interest of writing articles and asked for recommendations and references. We exchange ideas and business cards and now we are members of our respective virtual networks and looking forward for the next article to be publish.

-       Differentiation. In both congresses credential ribbons were available for both presenters and delegates. The delegates attached the ribbons to their badges and it showed the different credentials the individual holds, if was member of a group of specific interest, first timer, presenter, etc. The Presenter ribbon makes the individual to stand out from the crowd. People usually approached to me to ask about the topic of the presentation, the time and the day of the presentation, asking for references about the topic or just to wish me luck.. Credentials are great differentiators. I am one of the few 500+ credential holders of the Program Management Professional (PgMP) PMI’s credential. The PgMP black ribbon created a lot of attention. The interest of program managers in this credential has increased in the last 12 months and many of them are pursuing it and looking for advice. The PgMP black ribbon led me to start a mentoring group for project management professionals from Argentina and Costa Rica.

-       Mistake as an ice-breaker. My congress badge included my name, company name, city and state. When I printed the badge, I did not realize that the city was incorrect. The city of the billing address was printed instead of the city of my home address. The final result Plantation, TX. This mistake gave me the opportunity to meet many Texan project management professionals who asked where in the great state of Texas was Plantation.

 Planning to use networking techniques or creating new one on-the-spot are good ways to start your professional network and meet other people that share your same profession or common interest.

When attending any event do not forget to bring business cards. If you do not have a company business card you can design and order your own personal/networking cards. During the event and at the end of each day send a follow-up email to the people you meet that day, this will keep your network warm and will let you remember later the topics or common interest of the people you met.

 

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