Scheduling of conference calls and webinars

Now that more events are being done through webinars and conference calls more people are able to participate at once.

It is always interesting to see what time a webinar is so that it can cover the largest range of the country at once. There are now times that a lot of the events are scheduled between noon and 3 pm Eastern time. The reason for this is to ensure that people out on the west coast are also able to participate in the same call. There are even some webinars are that are held at 6 pm so that more people can participate. We have been taking an online course and the webinar choices at 6 pm on Tuesday or 9 am on Thursday. The course is actually covering most of the world so the times need to be doable for everyone. We normally do the 6 pm course as it means that we have the day to do client work and then the 6 pm is at the end of the day. I actually tried the 9 am session once and found that I wasn’t able to gain a focus for a couple of hours after the webinar so that meant I lost all of the morning.

Webinars and conference calls are making it so much easier to communicate around the world and the cost is so much less than having to attend the various conferences and meetings physically. It is nice to have the ability to attend sessions this way but there is one disadvantage and that is you don’t get to meet the rest of the people face-to-face that you are dealing with.

Having the opportunity to attend the various webinars and conference calls is wonderful as long as you are aware that you may not get a lot out of some of the things you attend. Some webinars are very informative and other ones seem to miss what the description was that outlined the session. We have attended both types of webinars and conference calls and you just have to be aware that not all of them will be a win.

The another advantage of webinars and conference calls is the impact on work. Most webinars can be done either at your own desk or in a boardroom so that means that there is minimum time away from work. Conferences and sessions that involve travel can be a day to many days away from the office. It can impact more than the person that is attending the event as someone else will be needed to cover their job while they are away. Now with the use of the webinars and conference calls it is basically like someone taking a lunch so there isn’t as much of an impact on others.

The negative side of webinars and conference calls is now there seems to be a lot more of them and that can impact work. There is such a balancing act between attending all of the webinars and conference calls that sound interesting and getting the work done. The balance is something that needs to be looked at and each person is different. Understand what your actual job is and how attending or not attending a specific webinar or conference call will be. The choice is yours so now I am off to attend a webinar that will help me with my job.