e3datasolutions company blog

If you could do 3 things to improve your online training sessions...

1. Prepare
2. Prepare
3. Prepare

Remember the old adage about the three most important things to remember in real estate - location, location, and location. You can have the most beautiful of house designs, the best craftsmanship, the highest quality materials, but if you build the house in the middle of an industrial park it just won't sell.

It sounds simple enough, but it can't be over stressed. Preparation on the part of the trainer and moderator is the most important part of online training. It is easy to get wrapped up in the technology and excitement of broadcasting and forget the fundamentals. The training topic can be of the highest importance, the trainer can be the best communicator, and the need may be most urgent, but if you can't find an internet connection because you did not speak with the Network Admin in advance to ensure the meeting room wall jack is "live" then you can't broadcast.

For a successful online presentation it is a great idea to have a checklist to aid in preparation. The first item on the list will not be the setup of the camera, but in the research of the topic. Preparation of the presentation materials should be done well in advance. A site survey of the facility at the proposed broadcasting time is a good idea. If you are presenting online from you home office and the lawn crew usually shows up at 2 pm on Thursday then don't plan to give your presentation at that time. Leaf blowers make for terrible background noise.

At least one, if not several, dress rehearsals are absolutely required. Not just to check for lighting, etc. but to get a feel for the follow of the presentation. Even if you are taking a training session that has been given numerous times to an onsite audience, you will still want to check to see how it flows when presented online. Not every nuance of the presenter will necessarily translate to an online audience.

The checklist will evolve over time. The basic tasks will be listed and should be in a simple, repeatable format. Everything from the setup of the equipment to reminding everyone to mute their cell phone prior to starting should be addressed. Remember, the technology is only 10% of a successful presentation with production tasks (preparation, rehearsal, setup, etc.) being the other 90%. Technology is not perfect, so you must have a manual contingency plan for even a complete failure such as a rescheduling / refund policy.

For a free trial of TwoPlus - our online meeting and training - solution please click here.

Hope to see you online soon!
Bill Cooey
www.e3datasolutions.com

Collaboration Tool for Freelancers Yields "Coopetition"

A new tool to assist the independent contractors and mom 'n' pop design businesses of the world just went into beta testing this week. Blellow, which opened up on March 3rd, combines a "Twitter like" messaging format with a "group" organizational structure to allow users to seek out help from other subject matter experts for their projects. Full roll out is targeted for SXSW where they are a sponsor at the Mashable + Blurb Bash. Think of it as a "Smart Twitter" that fosters the building of coopetitional relationships as opposed to a "slice of life" personal update.

Blellow seems to be a more serious candidate for supporting collaboration than Twitter. Additional features include a job board for hired positions, a freelance board for independent work, and a project board for posting "one time only" needs. Attaching files to Blellow posts is an extremely helpful feature and helps to reduce clutter in posts as well as possibly saving an additional trip to a wiki. For example, I attached a file called "samplecode.txt" with one of my posts for review which other users can access to help spot check for errors.

I tried out the project posing feature as I needed some help with some Flash customization for one of my customers. This morning when I checked I had 4 replies. Not bad given this is only in beta.

Blellow also provides a way to grade the quality of the help received from other users via a "kudos" system. If @mandi helps me through a problem I can award her a kudo in the form of points. These points accumulate providing an overall rating for that user. The more kudos the more help has been given. That total is displayed on my profile. I'm not sure if this will be a true gauge of quality, but moreover one of quantity of action since it is a total and not an average rating.

I am still in the process of working through the site and trying to learn how each feature works. As any beta version, there are a few small bugs that are being worked out. Blellow seems committed to this process and has a form for providing feedback on the site via an orange button displayed prominently on every page. The Blellow staff is also actively watching the posts and giving updates on their status. There is also the usual blog / forum to look for answers to questions related to use or post opinions.

The informational video below gives a good demonstration of how the freelance would utilize Blellow for help.

 

I think there is great promise in this tool and I look forward to full release. So far I haven't seen anyone post "I'm having my morning coffee" or "It's a beautiful day in sunny ATL" yet so I'm hoping that trend will continue. After all, I still have Twitter to feed my narcissism!

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com