Best Practices: Using Webex for Online Collaboration

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  • Find out if all members of the audience know how to use Webex. If not, train them on the basics and the specific features they would need to use to collaborate in your session. For example, if they need to use the whiteboard, show them how prior to the session.
  • Send the URL and log in steps prior to the meeting.
  • Teleconference details (if required) should be sent along with the log in information. This ensures that all relevant information pertaining to the session is provided in a single email.
  • Keep the password for the session short, easy to remember and easy to spell out over phone.
  • Advise the clients that installation of Webex software would take about 2-3 minutes before they are initiated into the session.
  • Be well-prepared to conduct the session in the absence of the Webex tool:
  1. Plan for technical snags (which occur occasionally in online collaboration tools) by sending the presentation and supporting material to the audience ahead of the meeting.
  2. Be sure to have contact numbers of the key audience members for easy coordination.
  • Sometimes the presentation progresses at different speeds in different locations. For example, the presenter in San Francisco might be at slide 9, the client in New York City at slide 8 and the team in Bangalore at slide 4. Keep this possibility in mind while making the presentation and while moving from one slide to the next. Ensure your audience is always at the same page (literally).
  • Keep the documents you want to share ready.
  • Close your chat windows to avoid distraction while presenting (you can chat with your audience from the Webex environment).
  • Remember to close unnecessary windows especially if you plan to share your desktop.
  • Record the session, if required. Make sure your clients know that you are recording before the session begins. Recording sessions in Webex is fairly simple. For many of my projects, the alpha and beta testing sessions were recorded because we wanted to thoroughly cover all client feedback (This recording was always in addition to the client input recorded manually in a standard excel sheet format.)

Comments

Happy said…
The collaboration practices do apply to any applications you are using. We have www.rhubcom.com turbomeeting and all concentration is on direct to customer presentation in accordance with their social aspects and their strategic implementations.
12:58 AM
Anonymous said…
Thanks for a useful post, Aradhana.
2:50 AM
Anonymous said…
You might be interested to take a look at other online collaboration tool - http://www.comindwork.com, it has a broad set of features, advanced security, available hosting on your own servers and much more
5:40 AM
HueiHsien Liu said…
It is a good post as reference. My company has been trying out WebEx recently.
3:02 PM
Anonymous said…
Thank you for these best practices.
8:55 AM
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the post. I am just getting my feet wet an want to make sure the student experience is good at the onset.

Cheers
10:33 AM
Aradhana said…
I am happy you found the post useful! Thank you!
12:53 PM
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