Behind the scenes of an AO Webinar

Beate Hanson tells us what it is like to present a webinar …

 

Beate Hanson, Director of AO Clinical Investigation and Documentation, was invited to put together an entertaining webinar on an aspect of clinical research. Together with the moderator Diarmuid De Faoite she gives us an insight into the challenges they faced when delivering the webinar "The Clinical Research Casino – Statistical Concepts used in Gambling and Clinical Research.

 

 

When AOTrauma asked me to deliver a webinar I was very happy to accept, but little did I know about the amount of work that goes in to giving one. In a webinar the moderator is subject to a number of special pressures and distractions – will anyone join us? Will they ask enough questions? Will I be able to answer them straight away? Will all the technology work well? Can I cope with simultaneously giving the presentation, looking in the camera, reading the questions that come in and following the off camera instructions that my moderator or technical support may give?

 

The practice run we did brought home to me how difficult it is to cover all these bases and still appear unflappable to anyone watching. Not having a “live” audience in front of me but knowing that around 100 people are following your lecture closely was a very odd experience for someone who has given many lectures and lessons to “live bodies”. Rudolf Elmer from  the AO Education Institute very patiently schooled me with some tips to try and improve my webinar presentation techniques. The second run-through then went much more smoothly and helped me to calm my nerves about the whole issue.

 

The next day was the day of the webinar. That morning we did a full dress rehearsal with some AO people joining us online to view the webinar. The minutes before we began were quite nerve-wracking. Slowly we watched the online room fill up, our first participant, our tenth participant, I could not believe it as I counted representatives of over 40 countries. When we began there were around 70 participants and that number kept climbing to about a 100 with people from Oman, Nigeria, the USA, India, Venezuela – I could scarcely believe the global audience we were reaching thanks to new technology.

 

Once I began with the presentation proper I soon forgot about the strangeness of the experience and got into "teaching mode". In fact, I was so involved in giving the webinar that I was really surprised when I got to the question and answer session and realized that the 40 minutes of presentation time had already passed. I then took great heart in seeing that 57 webinar participants took the time to leave positive comments in the chat box open once the session had finished.

 

I would advise anyone who is going to give a webinar for the first time to make sure they schedule enough time for a few practice runs. It is also very important that you have webinar team members you can rely on for advice and support. Although superficially similar, it is a completely different experience to presenting at congresses or standing in front of a “live” class full of students. But it is also an experience I am really glad to have made!

 

 

 

 

… and the moderator Diarmuid De Faoite talks about the challenges of being the man in the background

 

When I was asked to comoderate the webinar I was very excited to be involved in a new experience. After all, I was not going to be the one the camera was on, how hard could it be? The answer was very hard indeed!

 

I had been lulled into a false sense of security in the run-throughs we did because it was impossible to replicate the real-time experience of questions whizzing in from all around the world. In the practice runs I had simply posed Beate a few questions I had prepared myself. During the live webinar I asked people to send in their questions but they came in only in drips and drabs. With the benefit of hindsight I know that this was because they were too engrossed in the presentation to chat with me.

 

But during the webinar itself I was rather nervous. Did I send my private message to the right person? Did I manage to send a reminder to everyone to send in their questions? People kept writing test messages which I answered to let them know that everything was functioning perfectly.

 

However, once the questions and answers session began I suffered from question overload. The chat window began to fill up quickly as the questions whipped in from across the globe.

 

I had little time to reflect on each one. As quickly as possible I had to evaluate whether the question had already been covered in the webinar, whether it was possible for Beate to answer it on the fly (some of the questions were so specific that it would have taken too long to work out, I asked these people to contact us after the webinar). In addition, since English was not the first language of many of the participants and people were typing quickly I also had to make some fast edits to try to make it as easy as possible for Beate to understand the questions.

 

Having worked in radio I know that the worst possible thing is for there to be “dead air” - ie, time when nothing is being said. I had to try to keep feeding Beate with questions to avoid this happening plus I also had to offer her a choice of questions so that she could pick the one she felt most comfortable with. Obviously the person giving the webinar is under the most pressure and the support team should be there to reduce any additional stress.

 

Based upon my experiences over the two days I can definitely say that organizing and giving a webinar involves a steep learning curve for everyone doing it for the first time – even for the moderator in the background.

 

 

 

Further information

Once some postediting has been carried out, an archived version of the webinar will be made available here:

 

http://www.aovideo.ch/catalog/  -> Search by Category -> Webinars

 

It is also planned to hold a number of webinars, including a second live repeat of Beate Hanson's webinar, during the AO Courses in Davos in December this year.