PEER REVIEW -- INTERNATIONAL

Online Conferences: Easy, Low-Budget and No Airplanes

By Gay Slesinger

If getting on airplanes to attend conferences isn’t something your target audience can do these days, try holding an online conference.

It’s inexpensive and easy to do, and a combination of technology offers means for participants to interact with speakers, each other and you, the sponsor.

I recently attended iCohere's Collaborative Communities 2003 online conference to explore the possibilities of the medium for use by marketers. There were over 250 attendees from a total of 14 countries for the four-day event.

As a participant, I found that it’s like being in two places at once. You can be there virtually and in your office at the same time. You spend time, but not much money to attend. (Full price was $199 for the entire event.) You can get as much or as little out of it as you want -- much like at a conference in the physical world.

As a marketer, I think of it as the marketer’s equivalent of e-distance learning: a type of e-distance marketing. Marketers can use online conferences for prospects, customer user groups, channel partners, industry analysts -- basically, for building and maintaining relationships with any target group with whom you want to interact, communicate and collaborate or influence.

As a sponsor, you can host a conference and never leave your office. You can reach your audience for far less money than sponsoring a physical conference. You can read what the attendees are saying as they participate in public chat and discussions or from feedback and questions they direct to you during the conference.

Plus you have digital records of the information to stay in touch afterwards. You can also include an online conference evaluation survey in which you can poll for opinions on related topics, for example, by including qualifying sales questions.

Here’s how the iCohere conference platform works: there is a live component and an after-the-fact component. Speakers present at live events, broadcasting via streaming audio while attendees listen and view PowerPoint slides. A moderator fields questions for the speakers at the end of the presentation, just as at physical conferences. But the interaction doesn’t stop there.

Speakers can hold scheduled Q&A discussion sessions via instant messaging chat. Attendees can actively participate in the chat discussion or passively observe. An attendee can also communicate one-on-one with a speaker or another attendee via instant messaging or e-mail, and invite other attendees to meet for a planned or ad-hoc discussion in the “Cafe.”

The beauty of the digital format is that the presentations, including the audio and PowerPoint components, and transcripts of public discussions are accessible after-the-fact. So if an attendee misses a live presentation, he can log-on later to hear the audio presentations, view the lecture slides, read chat transcripts, download background documents and link to relevant Web resources. Attendees can log-in any hour of the day from anywhere in the world.

There is an online emcee, discussion moderator and facilitator, and a support/help desk.

To help put a face to a name, and depth to personal interactions, there is a personal profile section in which attendees may opt to tell about themselves and their areas of interest or expertise, and even post a photo. There is also a “Who’s Online” feature for instant messaging.

What sets apart the online conference from an online meeting are the multiple levels of interactivity, the opportunity for collaboration, and the fact that the conference can last for multiple days -- or longer. The Collaborative Communities 2003 conference occurred over four days, and attendees can access the content for 60 days after the event. iCohere client SBC Communications uses the software on an ongoing basis essentially as a dealer portal for resellers.

Online conferencing is not without limitations, though, and is not for everybody. Although theoretically participants need only a computer and a browser, people may benefit most if they are comfortable with a variety of online means for interacting with people and accessing content, such as doing e-mail and instant messaging, listening to audio streams, viewing slides and downloading documents.

Using a keyboard is essential for maneuvering around the conference, and typing is the key means for interacting with people. The current user interface is primarily text-based, rather than graphical, so it takes some concentration to figure out where to go to get the content you want or to meet the people you want to meet. People expect to labor over an offline tradeshow or conference guide, but many expect an online interface to be quick, visual and intuitive.

But with tight marketing and expense budgets and an avoidance of travel, it’s compelling to get online for a conference rather than on an airplane. If you don’t mind, of course, providing your own offline beverage and pretzels.

Gay Slesinger of iMarket Strategies helps technology companies differentiate themselves via market strategy, competitive positioning and analyst relations. E-mail her at gs@imarketstrategies.com.