After my webinar with Bruce Carton on Tuesday (Web 2.0: Leveraging new media to Maximize Your Securities and Compliance Practice), I ran across a three part series on Why Webinars Fail from Larry Kilbourne: Content Failures, Format Failures and,  Process Failures.  I hope we did not make too many of these mistakes:

• Cramming too much into one slide. The unmoving PowerPoint slide becomes like wallpaper on the monitor. (Larry recommends a slide or two per minute.)
• A presenter simply reading the bullet points. (“Bullet points, if used properly, are the basis for commentary, not the commentary itself.”)
• Animations and streaming video. (Audience members may not have the internet connection bandwidth to handle them.)
• Delivering a monologue. (Use a “Charlie Rose” format.)
• Using the webinar as a sales pitch. (Webinar registrants are prepared to get pitched, but they expect in return to receive information, data, or research that will benefit them.)
• Live product demos. (Inevitably the product crashes – in real time, in front of an audience.)
• Lack of preparation. (Unrehearsed webinars generally look unrehearsed.)

Thanks to Stewart Mader for pointing out these articles: Why Webinars Fail To Sustain Attention & How to Fix Them.