Wonderful Webinars

To reach more ASBPE members,
some chapter and national events go virtual

By Warren S.Hersch
President, New York Chapter
Senior Editor, National Underwriter Life & Health

This is an example of the webinar interface from Arkadin. ASBPE’s New York and Washington, D.C. chapters recently used Arkadin in a trial run for their first webinar. The interface above is similar to those of other service providers: You see the main images or talking points in the larger pane. Smaller panes let attendees ask questions. This image is from a Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

For those who can’t afford the time and expense of traveling to local ASBPE chapter events, here’s good news: The next gathering may be coming to a desktop near you.

Webinars on many useful topics are being developed and are expected to come online throughout 2007.

One scenario calls for all webinars to be available nationally to members for a nominal fee and to non-members at a higher fee.

ASBPE will also be looking for sponsors to help keeps costs down for both the Society and attendees.

First webinar a success

If you live in the Big Apple or Washington, D.C., area, you may know that one ASBPE trial webinar has already been held. On Dec. 14, ASBPE’s New York and D.C. chapters co-hosted “Spreadsheeting Your Way to a Scoop,” the first of three virtual meetings on a financial reporting theme that ASBPE plans to hold early this year.

The 90-minute webinar presented by Steve Ross, editor-in-chief of Broadband Properties magazine and a professor of business writing at Harvard Extension School in Boston, explored Microsoft Excel’s uses in financial reporting.

Ross detailed the software’s powerful number-crunching capabilities to derive such key business indicators as profit margin, earnings per share, price-earnings ratio and market value.

He also wove in anecdotes about how stories can arise from analyzing the numbers, and how to convey to one’s audience the significance of business indicators when reporting on financial issues (a separate story on this presentation will be published in an upcoming issue).

The conference call secured some 20 participants, most of them business-to-business editors from the New York and D.C. metro areas. Also on the call was a contingent of journalists and students from Jamaica whom Ross met while in the island-nation to develop a CD and online course for new media under a grant from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The technology

ASBPE employed advanced webinar features behind the scenes, including a web conferencing and collaboration tool that permits the sharing of documents and presentations within a standard Web browser. Because of the method of instruction, however, the tool’s functionality was limited to recording and archiving the event on a CD. Only Ross and three moderators had access to the Web-enabled presentation of the Excel calculations that Ross executed on his computer. (See sidebar for more on how Excel was used in the teleconference.)

ASBPE also used a Web console that allowed for monitoring participants on the conference call and handling questions. When a listener dialed “01” on a desktop phone, an icon appearing adjacent to the individual’s name in the moderator’s console changed from a mute symbol to a megaphone, signaling a desire to ask a question. The Q&A moderator then conveyed this information to Ross through a private discussion (or instant messaging) window, obviating the need to interrupt Ross’ presentation verbally.

“The Arkadin [Arkadin Global Audio & Data Conferencing] software was mostly for our benefit — to archive the class — but the phone feedback worked very well,” said Ross. An abridged form of the presentation contained in a zip file and sent to participants in advance proved valuable. “That [zip file] material is pretty sophisticated, with screen videos and voice-overs, as well as step-by-step instructions. I would not have attempted so complicated a presentation without this type of material.”

Availing itself of Arkadin’s teleconferencing services — e.g. a Web tool for extending invitations, registering participants, and validating RSVPs online — ASBPE also has used Arkadin for its own conference calls.

Upcoming webinars

Arkadin will likely serve as the vendor for the next two Ross webinars. The first, tentatively set for mid-February,will analyze financial statements, including 10Ks and 10Qs,when investigating publicly held companies. The second, set for mid-April, will examine ratio analysis, including such concepts as accounts receivable turnover, capital efficiency, return on equity and yield.

But ASBPE’s webinar committee is researching other vendors. Those under consideration — TalkPoint, Cvent, Web-Ex, MeetingBridge, Macrovision, among others — must meet requirements on pricing, capacity, services, and performance.

“I really like having a transparent service from a provider that handles a lot of the stuff for us — registration, reminders, attendee tracking — so we can give users consistent service,” said Tyler Davidson, ASBPE’s webinar committee chair and editorial director at San Francisco-based Meetings Media, a magazine for professional meeting planners.

“At the same time, the service provider will need to collect data about users’ preferences, experiences, and recommendations for topics,” he said.

Story from the January/February 2007 issue of ASBPE’s newsletter.

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