Moraho. Moraho. Yeah. Amakuru. Nimesa. Nimesa. See? I still got a language. Yeah. I was speaking Kenyawana. How do you say, how are you in Kenyawana? How are you? Amakuru. Amakuru. Yeah. Then you say, Nimesa. Nimesa. Yeah. You speak Chinese, right? Yeah. Oh, Ni Hao. Ni Hao. Nimesa my young. Ni Hao. Ni Hao. You used to be in China, right? Huh? You used to be in China. Me? Yeah. You used to be in China. Oh, you used to be in China. Yeah. How long? Eight years. Eight years. Hmm. You should be Chinese. Haha. You should be. Haha. Oh, okay.


Hello and welcome to today's webinar. I'm covering the Redback Report. Today is all about the what, the why and the how. Conducted the research and now we're bringing the results to you. My name is Iza. I'm an employee of Redback Conferencing and I'll be your facilitator for today's session. I would now like to welcome our presenter for today, Marketing Manager at Redback Conferencing, Sarah Gonzalez. How are you today Sarah? Well thank you Iza and thank you everyone for joining today's very special webinar. I just want to give you a brief overview for those of you who didn't join us last year. Just on the Redback Report what it is and what we're actually going to get into. So this is the second year that it has been run and in 2013 we embarked on this journey to uncover the Australian Conferencing Landscape and what it really did it provided us with insights and intelligence into the way that online audience or online audiences attend, interact and engage with webinars and webcasts. I hope everyone today is familiar with the concept of a webinar and a webcast because we're going to jump right into the findings and talk about some of the fascinating facts. What we've found is it's absolutely amazing how much difference an entire year can make and we've found online events are still quite early in the adoption phase but virtual attendees are becoming much more an honest with their feedback and they're expecting a lot more from online events. Last year people really spoke a lot about the importance of increasing interactivity and engagement whereas this year you'll see through some of the findings that while this is still considered quite important for many things more like on-demand recordings, making sure that your presenter is prepared as well as sticking to a gender and stuff like that really top the wish list as many people attend who completed the report. However we like to say that the more things change the more they stay the same so there are a lot of things that have changed, have stayed the same, sorry. So really talking about accessibility. When people like to attend, why they like to attend and how they like to attend then we're going to go through the opinion pieces. So really outlining advantages and disadvantages and hopefully that will help you tailor your online events. Big baggage questions. So the questions that everyone wants to know the answer to but really very rarely come out and then we also, we're going to have some fun with some polling towards the end and talk about what's important and what's necessarily not important to some and then we'll be able to see how your responses stack up with those who completed the report. So let's get started and I believe we're going to jump into a poll, Liza. Yes. So we just want to basically understand how familiar you are with webinars and webcasts. So just launching that poll now. Great. So really just get an understanding of everyone online. How many online events you have attended prior to today? So whether it be a webinar or a webcast, maybe quite familiar with how they all work. So over 10, maybe you have attended none. And this is your first one in which case, welcome and we hope you enjoy. But this is really just to get to know people online and hopefully that will help us tailor what we're about to launch into now. And we can see those results coming through now with around 40% of people saying under 5 and then the second highest is 34% of people over 10. So it's good to see people are familiar with the service. So that's great. If we do speak it out anything that you're not really familiar with and you're like, oh that really makes sense. I don't really know what you're talking about there. Please feel free to use the chat box in the bottom left hand corner and that way we can respond to your questions as they come through and then also have some time at the end. Great. Okay. We're going to talk about the respondents now and the people who actually did complete the survey. So just a bit of an overview. So we talk about sector and there's no surprises here when we compare this to last year that the not-for-profit and association sector are the largest. They're the people who do predominantly use online events within the people within our community. So there was no surprise there. Corporate and government also came in quite highly with the people that we actually surveyed. But what we found is compared to 2013 there was about a 15% increase with those in the corporate sector using online events and about 12% in government as well. So just a bit of an overview there, just regarding the people who completed it and it's great that we have Aussie members online when we're talking about the not-for-profit association space. And just industry in terms of a breakdown. Healthcare and medical and education and training were part of the biggest chunk as you can see there. So we actually have 23, just over 23% of people within the healthcare and medical space and then 21% education and training. This is quite an average breakdown of everything. And as we go into the statistics and the findings this will make more sense because with education and training a lot of the responses really circulated around that as well. And we just want to find out also how long people spend online. We're talking about online events. So we really wanted to get an understanding of what people's online usage is. Just whether it be in their working days or whether it actually be in their home environment because that obviously is going to play into you hosting your online events and who you're actually tailoring or who you actually want to hop online. So what we found here is that it's obvious that a large chunk of our working days still spend online. So 26% of us we found were actually glued to the computer screen for around the four to eight hours. So it's no wonder that people are becoming obsessed with the convenience of these online forms of communication. But what does it really mean for you as people out there who are trying to engage with people and bring them online whether it be for membership purposes, educational purposes or even just to inform people? We think it presents opportunity obviously. There's so many online channels available when we look at social media, email marketing, web science. You do have the ability to engage people on so many online levels now. So what you think using these types of channels is obviously going to appeal to people but obviously being creative in how you do it and as we'll go into shortly just making sure that you're really specific on your audience there. And then also access as well. So no surprises here. We actually found access to the internet during work hours. 12% of people, we actually saw a 12% increase in laptop usage at 37%. But we do want to stress and some of the findings and some of the responses that came back is that people are accessing mobile devices a little bit more than previously. So really considering when you are promoting your online events are your emails responsibly designed? Are the registration pages that people are registering through accessible on a mobile device? And is even the webinar that you're presenting or the webcast you're presenting accessible to those people online? So just a bit of an overall view there just on the access and how people are accessing your online events either. All right, so now we've got the respondents covered. Let's get into the nuts and bolts of online meetings and events. So why do people attend online meetings and events such as webinars and webcasts there? Well, the people who we actually surveyed, they came back with this and the highest part here is professional development, 25% of people. And obviously no surprises, considering that these people were the ones we had 65% or something from the not for profit space. And then we can actually also see that a high percent of people are actually also partaking in these types of events for personal development as well as learning and education as well. As we can see, professional development really up the top there. As people, as online events, webinars and webcasts become more prominent in the corporate space, I think we will see product launches and business meetings become a big part of it. But a lot of people also said to us that they're starting to use online events. They've been using them for so long within the professional development space. Now they bring in internal communication so board meetings and business meetings as you can see here. And in terms of how often these people like to attend, we actually, this is actually quite interesting what we can see here. So the findings, in 2013, we actually saw 30% of respondents said they attended webinars on a weekly basis. That figure has actually dropped now to 18%. So as you can see, we're looking at, there we go, weekly. On the other hand, we've seen a 15% increase in those partaking in online events on a more regular basis monthly. So 49% of people are attending events, online events on a monthly basis. And we can just give a bit of insight information here with our clients and people who are partaking in professional development events. Most of them are on a monthly basis as well. So that also ties into the question that was held here before. So this truly tells us that, you know, the use of webinars and webcast as a key educational tool is definitely on the rise. But it's important to note that they are becoming more common and competition is going to also be on the rise as well. So once again, if you are hosting monthly events, making sure that they are, it's really consistent, it's really regular, and also being aware of what your competitors are doing. You know, webinars are very, very everywhere now in the online space. I know we use them a lot for personal development even internationally. We attend a lot of international webinars and we've probably received around 10 to 12 invitations a week just for marketing webinars. So really, if you are going to launch into an online event program, really be mindful of the fact that people are attending them quite regularly. So you always need to find a way to sort of stand out from the crowd. And just a question from Mike and Tess. So sorry, we didn't actually put that in the slide beforehand, but professional development, we just had, if you belong to a membership organization, is it compulsory professional development where you're actually gaining points from as opposed to just learning and education on a regular basis? Great. So now we know the why and the how, but let's just try and understand the advantages. So a little task for all the participants online now. Can you please type into the text box what they find the main advantages of online events? So tell us the advantages. Yes. So if everyone can just type into the chat box in the bottom left-hand corner, what do you find the main advantages are of online events? And it will be interesting to see if these actually stack up with what the respondents said. So we've got ease of access, convenience, the ability to reach regional Queensland. A lot come in here. I think convenience is a massive one. And also accessibility is big as well. So thanks for that feedback, everybody. And it is quite consistent with what we're seeing. So the three main responses that we got were cost-effectiveness, convenience, and time. So I think everyone's on the same page there, which is great. So it's very similar to last year. They all rated really fairly equally in terms of, as you can see there, 24, 28, 27% there as well. However, we also asked people to elaborate on the responses as well. So while they are giving us the percentages, we also wanted to know if there were any other advantages. And this is also interesting because it's quite consistent with what people are saying. Having the ability to view content at a later date via on-demand recordings, which is also another advantage to people. Having access to a wider range of topics due to no geographical barriers. So once again, just speaking to those in regional and remote locations. And having access to international presenters at any time of the day. So they were the top three things that came through when people were elaborating on this response. So it's really important to take this sort of thing into account when you are managing your online events because this is what the people are asking for.  If you do have an international speaker coming in and they are really well known and they're an expert in the industry that you work in, make a big fuss with it and let people know that, you know, this person is coming from an international location. The reason why you should attend this webinar is because it's convenient. This is what people are asking for. So yeah, once again, if you are even recording events, which we'll go into in a moment, always having some sort of strategy afterwards for how people can access that. But interesting there to see either that we've got similar responses from everyone online as well, which is great. Definitely lots of advantages there, but can you tell me some of the disadvantages? Yes, so there's always two sides to a coin. And, you know, once again, the responses are quite consistent with disadvantages and I think this is probably one of the most important findings and especially in terms of how we can help you guys run your online events. Time zone challenges was massive and it's something that didn't even come up last year. So as an attendee, join in an online event. If they're located in Queensland during daylight savings time, for example, the amount of people who said that people just don't communicate properly when they actually send out their details and their reminders and then they miss the webinar because of a simple mistake. All the conceived presentations with no interaction and too much content. And I personally think this is the case in face-to-face events as well and that really plays into your presenter as well, which we'll also go into shortly. The lack of networking opportunities, which also didn't really come up last year as well. So one of the things is people said they are online, but they miss out when you're in a face-to-face environment. You can actually have, you know, before the actual event happens, you have those networking drinks. Afterwards, you have those networking drinks. And while you're only taken an hour or so out of your time for these online events, there is a little bit of lack of humanity in some cases. Lateness and not sticking to the agenda. So I think a few people who did complete the report were quite big on the fact that, you know, these events should start on time because it takes me two minutes to be distracted by, like Richard just said, emails or something coming in and then I'm gone and then someone on the other side of my desk is calling out to me, then I've got a meeting and my time is precious. And also a gender as well. A lot of people say they receive these invitations with a world of promises and they hop online and the presenter has gone completely off topic and they have no interaction. They have too much content, like we said earlier, and it just really, really prevents them from wanting to attend anymore. And then obviously the big one, technology failures, which I think is huge for everyone. And I put my hand up as well. I've been on a few webinars where there have been a few technology issues and it's going to happen. But people did say, obviously it does play a major part, but if there is a plan B and if there is an easy fix and if there is communication throughout the webinar, then that's fine as long as, you know, stuff doesn't fall down and no one tells them what's happening and they have no idea what they're going to do next. So they were the top five disadvantages of online events. And I think for us as organisers and event planners and a host, we need to do as much as possible to try and overcome these challenges because I think as the online space gets more competitive, it's going to be harder and harder and I think your attendees may be a little bit more ruthless. So if an event fails, that's it. They're going to move on to something else. So for time zone challenges, for example, what we've started doing now and we do this for OSEE as well, we include time zones for all capital cities within the emails and also the registration pages. So when you receive your reminder or details email, you don't just have this webinar will be at 1 o'clock. You have if you're in this state, the webinar will be at this time, this time and this time. And then also including a link to timeanddate.com, which if you click on that, it will take you and you can actually convert the time yourself. In terms of poor presentations, how do we overcome this? And I think this is really brief in presenters and I think for a long time now, people have really misunderstood the importance of your presenter and understanding that presenting face-to-face is completely different to online, especially if you have webcams involved. So making sure that you're the event organiser and they're the presenter, but at the end of the day it is your event so you are responsible for, you know, if you want interaction and if you want collaboration in your event, let them know. Providing them with rehearsals beforehand to make sure that they get it right and make sure you're across everything that happens. And being firm, I think some people tend to back down when it comes to their presenters. Lack of networking opportunities and we actually got some advice throughout this part of the session and people said, you know, how to utilize social media more, having Twitter integration within their webinars and their webcasts, for example. One person actually came up with a great idea and I think sometimes you get some gold nuggets out of this sort of stuff. A pre-Q&A chat session, which is interesting, so that would work. Yeah. So what we could have done, for example, and excuse us for being busy for the report together, but next time we'll do it, is, you know, for those of you who want to come online beforehand and chat to the presenter about any questions that you may have or the findings on a one-on-one basis, feel free to come online 20 minutes earlier and that way you can collaborate and connect with other people online as well. And then also forums afterwards. So if you have a panel of presenters or something, maybe, you know, the Q&A goes for too long and there's too many questions. So if you want to stay online and have a chat, it can't hurt like being backstage, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. And I think when people are involved from beginning, during, and end, it really stands out as well. It's not just sitting online looking at a PowerPoint and not being engaged with the presenter. It can actually be quite powerful, I think. So whoever is expected to be the first person to run that, I'm going to put a challenge out there to everyone online. If you host a webinar and manage to engage everyone before, during, and after your event, in some way, please let us know. Maybe we'll get a prize. We haven't thought about it yet. Or we'll do a case study or we'll be really impressed. And then also, lateness and not sticking to agenda. So usually you'd like to think that this could be fixed quite easily, but sometimes it can't be helped and once again, really brief your presenters. Utilising a facilitator like how wonderful eyes are here as well. So if I tend to go off track and move my hands around too much like I am right now, she can just give me that look and I can know that. It's okay. And then also technology as well. So, you know, let's talk about Murphy's Law. It's going to happen. Always ensure that you've got as much backup as possible and you do have a plan B. You have to have local support. You have to really be connected with your webinar provider as well and make sure that they know your goals and make sure that they know how important this is to you as well. Try and remove the burden from yourself. And there are the disadvantages and how to overcome them. And just quickly, just Steven, what platform do you suggest for pre and post forums? I think this really depends on the type of event, especially it may be a hybrid event where you're running an annual conference and your webcast in the event live, in which case there are private social networking forums and we're partnered with someone from there as well, which I can provide you information with. Whereas if you are just doing one webinar a month, you can even just open up the webinar room early if you like and then have everyone stay on afterwards. You could even use a Facebook group if you wanted to but definitely look into some private social networking hubs out there. Confiner is one of them who we work with. But yeah, you can be really creative in terms of using anything free to you, the webinar platform, or even go one step further with forums. Fantastic. Now, I think we should get a bit more positive now, Sarah. I know, I feel like it's going a little bit negative. We also asked people what makes their events enjoyable and not so enjoyable. And the responses were very similar from last year, weren't they, Sarah? Very similar. It was actually quite uncanny. So content is massive. So we're asking people who have joined these events in the past. What makes them enjoyable? What makes you be glued to your screen? And it's amazing because the responses that we get, this is the second year we've done it, is stuff that most of our webinar clients would never even think of and they just brush to the side and don't think it's important. People come to us and say, okay, the presentation has to look really, really pretty and it has to look amazing. And we have to interact with people throughout the entire webinar and we need to really have a facilitator. But people out there are sane and it's the content that really makes it enjoyable. Finding the right presenter as well, very consistent to last year. They can make or break it. And obviously, seamless technology is going to be up there as well. So don't take this as gospel and think that you need to focus 27% of your time on this and 24% on this. But what we recommend is just be mindful and making sure that you take all of these facets into play when you're planning your webinar. Obviously, you've got the technology as one part and then the ease of joining. So try and leave that to someone else to take care of. Try and leave that to the webinar people and make sure they're looking after it. The content and the presentation, don't just palm it off to your presenter. Try and have a role in it and make sure, especially if you are running a regular series of webinars, that all your presenters are quite similar in the way they present. And the presentation that they use is a template with your branding on it. Little things like that, I think, are going to appeal to your webinar audience. If they're glued to you and engaged with you as an association, especially. But then, you know, sorry, Iza. We had to talk about the not-so-enjoyable as well. And once again, you know, very, very interesting to hear. The presenter number one. So really, really gets your presenters right. You know, selecting the right presenter can make all the difference and that was a big, real current thing in this year's report. So, you know, if the presenter is making it less enjoyable, then obviously you can fix that up for your next one. But you have to take some learnings. And having difficult technology is also going to place a burden on people. People don't want to have to sit there. They're busy. You have to join a webinar and sit there for half an hour and try and download something and get their IT department involved. It's just going to be way too cumbersome. And your members are just going to give up, to be honest. Especially if you're delivering free events. Making it easy is definitely, definitely a big thing. And once again, you know, it's about really engaging every single step of the webinar process. And I'm sure most of you out there know there are planning stages and things that you need to do to get it right. But we just really, you know, recommend getting all of these things right for the next one. And don't be afraid to ask for help.  What makes their webinar so great? You know, how do I increase attendance online? Obviously they're working with these people on a regular basis. So try and feel to as much knowledge out of them as possible. Fantastic. All right. Now, before we move on, just to remind our participants to keep the questions coming. All right. Now, we are on to baggage. So please explain. Yeah. So we tend to find, you know, these are the questions that everyone wants to know the answer to. They're so heavily influenced by past experiences and external factors. But they're always great to know. And once again, you know, unfortunately, we'll never be able to change people's perceptions if they have had a bad experience. They are carrying around experiences that have really tainted their experiences of webinars and webcasts. Their responses are going to be a little bit stewed. But it's always great to get an understanding of people out there. And these are the fun ones as well. I tend to find. So if we go on to webcams, yay or nay. I think this one divides everyone, doesn't it? Yeah. So do they actually add anything to your online event or are they a distraction? And this is going to also vary between your presenters. So last, this year we saw a massive spike in those people admitting that they add nothing to the event, 41%. So it's a 19% increase from last year. So while everyone thinks, oh, we have to have a webcam, we have to have people, you know, engage with the presenter and whatnot, 19% increase of people thinking that they don't think they're so great. That's pretty big. That's what we like to think. However, you've still got 40% of people out there that do find that they add something to the event, while 19% are like, oh, I'm undecided. It doesn't really faze me. So that's something to definitely take into account.  And it just shows on the other side of the screen, doesn't it, that it's awkward. And sometimes it does distract from the actual presentation as well. So if you do want your participants concentrating on it, and it's a good idea to sort of not use it, right? Great. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, what a lot of people are doing now is really changing it up per event we tend to find. So each event you hold, each audience, communicating to, and each presenter is going to have a different opinion. So post-event feedback is a great way to select people. Don't be afraid to ask, what did you think of the webcam? And if you have 80% of people come back and say, oh, I thought it was really, really bad, and it added nothing to the event, there you go. You've got your answer. Don't use it for the next one. But, you know, in terms of some little things that you can do to actually, you know, utilize webcams, or maybe not utilize them if you want. You know, the best of both worlds. What people like to do now is activate the webcams for the beginning of the presentation, so the introduction. So Iza and I had our slide up with our pictures so you could get an understanding of who we are and put a face to the name and remove that technology barrier. But you could have it on for the beginning. So Iza does the introduction, I come online, say hello to everybody, and then just tell you all that. We're going to focus on the presentation and turn them off. Then at the end for Q&A, we can bring them back up. And yeah, go from there. That's the best of both worlds we like to call it. Also consider bandwidth though. So someone at the beginning mentioned that, you know, webinars are great for having access to those in regional and remote locations. But those people don't necessarily have the best bandwidth or maybe you're in an office environment where you can only access wireless for the time you're conducting the webinar. One of the biggest things is, you know, you can have a webcam up, but if it's freezing and lagging and people are being pixelated, it's such a bad experience for those on the other end of the line. So if you are going to use them, make sure you've got the necessary technology requirements. And, you know, people have panel discussions as well, which is great. So we've got people who just run entire webinars with webcams, which is quite interesting, but that's where they like to do it. So, you know, you can have a facilitator in the background using the cameras. There's a functionality on this platform, our platform that is an on-air, off-air, if you like, because you don't want to have a panel of people sit in there. You don't want to have one person walking for 20 minutes and everyone else just staring into space or looking at their notes or turning their chair around. It can be really distracting. So definitely think about the types of events you're running. Think about the technology and think about mixing it up per event. And then, you know, hopefully you'll come to some arrangement where every single event you hold is going to be perfect with the webcams, whether you have them or not. Another big question, and this is just a bit of fun again, and someone mentioned this before as well, which I think is great, and I love this question because I do it all the time. Have you ever secretly checked your emails while being online? But what we actually found is that a year makes an entire difference. So the majority of responses, respondents, sorry, admitted to checking their emails sometime at 61%. 38% admitted to always doing it. But last year, 90% admitted to always doing it. So I don't know, Asa, if people were just a little bit more honest last year. So maybe they're just taking webinars a bit more seriously now. Maybe it's just become a part of them. Well, I think it's good in people. Yeah. That's one way of looking at it. But, you know, it's just a way of showing, you know, people do do this, and it's a reality. And if you're online, like, I'm not thinking that no one else is doing anything, although. But, you know, it's a reality. But it's really important that you try and engage people as much as possible, and that you're presented, you know, keep this in mind. Don't sit there and make it the be all and end or I'm scared of them while they're online. But make sure, exactly Carol, you're right. People, I've been at face-to-face events where people sit there on their iPhones and how distracting is that for a presenter? So once again, just something a little bit of fun and, you know, it's just something to be aware of as a presenter and as a webinar organizer.  And the skills required to make a presenter memorable. So here we've got a bit of a world-wide graph for you all. Now, you know, we all know that polished and engaging presenters are required to make online events enjoyable. We just saw that in the previous graph. But what are the skills? You know, people online who completed the survey obviously had been to many, many events before. So we wanted to really find out what they thought the skills were. And once again, the same as largely, largely, knowledge, enthusiasm and tone of voice were quite high. Personality also snuck in there as well. But what's surprising is we've got your PowerPoint presentation at 12%, which is quite low when you take into account all the others. But once again, so many organizers and presenters we deal with make their PowerPoint presentation be all and end all. And they talk about how great it has to be. And they talk about how, you know, oh, we need to give you the PowerPoint last minute because we're working on it. And they don't concentrate on anything else. They don't concentrate on, you know, the fact that they should be knowledgeable and be able to respond to questions. Or they don't concentrate on being enthused throughout the webinar because they're just worried about how people are going to perceive their PowerPoint presentation. So really, really communicate these to your presenters and make them understand that, you know, them showing their personality and having passion and being enthused and knowing what's happening is just as important as pictures and the words that are actually on the presentation. Day of the week, this is fun. And there's always going to be a range of factors influencing this one. But, you know, this also depends on the industry you're in and your members as well. So it's going to obviously be skewed. But as we can see, we've got the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday actually as the most popular days. And we get this.  When should I have it? I don't know how we... So if you ask the question, don't you? Again, ask the question and understand that all your members are different. Understand that people come into work and, you know, Monday morning, they either need to have four coffees before they can be ready to go or Monday morning they come in and they've got so much to do. You know, maybe Friday is great for people because, you know, after the hours of... You know, between the hours of two to five, they've maybe had a few drinks at lunchtime and they want to sit back and relax.  Whereas people who can point to the survey didn't mention weekends in there. So it really does depend. And always, always consider your audience and we can't really stress us. And Carol, after our session, is great. Really, really, once again, survey. Use surveys. Don't be afraid to ask your members because they're the ones that are actually going to be attending and they're the ones that are going to make your series a success. And, you know, just going on to Bonnie's point. If we move forward time of day as well, you know, working early childcare so they can't leave children to do a webinar. Exactly. So mid-morning was just as popular last year. It was the highest ranking one as well. And Carol, you talk about after-hours sessions and so many of our webinar clients do after-hours sessions because that's what their members prefer because they are on their feet all day and they're not necessarily, you know, in front of a computer because they may be physiotherapists or they may be doctors or they may be anything out there. So they don't have access to a computer between these hours. So once again, not taking this as, you know, oh, we all have to do our webinars between the hours of 10 and 11 because that would be completely boring and we'd all have no time to attend everyone's webinars. But really understanding that these are important factors that people are going to be looking for when they are looking to register for your webinar or not and just being really, really cautious of your audience and their wants and their needs when attending your online events. Great. So speaking of importance, I think we should compare 2013 to 2014 and see whether or not what was important is still important. We're also going to launch some more polls, sorry. So please join us. So go on, Sarah. Yes, okay. And any more questions feel free because this is the last section and then we'll move on to questions. So important or not, we asked our respondents to rate how important they feel the following aspects of web conferences, webinars and webcasts are. So these were the same questions as last year, so we're going to do a bit of a comparison. So the registration process is easy and seamless. So I'm going to launch a poll here. So everyone online, my lovely online audience, how important do you think the registration process is? Do you think it's extremely important? Do you think it's somewhat important? And you know it's something you need to have but it doesn't have to be all and end all. Or do you think it's not important at all? And obviously think of other factors that we're going to ask here, you know, in terms of priorities, I guess. But we can see that 96% of people so far are telling us that they think the registration process is easy and seamless. Now if we actually close that poll, the 30 of you who said that, and we look at the responses, so very similar responses to last year. 70 people said it is extremely important and then 30% of people said it was somewhat important. Some things said it's not important as well. So it is apparent that this aspect, you know, in 2013 and 2014 is important to people and shouldn't be overlooked. So in terms of recommendations, ensure that you make it easy for people to register to your event and keep it consistent. If you're running webinars on a monthly basis and you have people register one way the first month and then the second month you change it up, it's going to play with people's minds a little bit, I think. And you know, if you have a webinar series, you know, create a banner or something so everyone knows that when they receive an email and they go to your website, that's your webinar program. And that's a seamless registration process and it's consistent and it's easy and people aren't going to want to mind. If you have a registration process where it takes people, you know, two, three minutes to complete a form, it's not going to be a nice experience. And as you can see here, not one single person said that it wasn't important. So definitely even, you know, play around with your registration process and test it with other people in your workplace and say, okay, if you want to register, can you pretend to register for this webinar that I'm holding and let me know how easy and seamless it is or do it, you know, with your people you live with or your partner or something, get them from an outsider to register and get their feedback on it and mix it up a bit. Okay, the next one, drum roll. Okay, how important is it that the event that you're holding sticks to the timing and agenda. So we'll launch this poll to get your feedback. Is it extremely important? Is it somewhat important? Or is it not important at all? And, you know, as long as everyone's happy online and they're just, you know, wasting the hour of their time. Great. So as we can see here, people don't actually think that this is as important as the registration process, which is interesting even though it is only a small amount. But we've got these responses now. So 75% of you think that this is extremely important. Now, this is probably one of the biggest shocks from last year. So we've already seen throughout the report, people are saying this when we're asking them to elaborate that it's important. But, you know, we look at last year, 2013, and 62% of people said that it was somewhat important. And now we've only got 9% of people. You know, 9 to 1% of people say that this is extremely important to them. Like I said, there are a lot of webinars out there now. There's a lot of content, which is free, that people can go online and get in terms of education. So it's important that if people are dedicating half an hour, an hour, in some cases we run events where people are running events for three hours, that you say what you do, what you say you're going to do. So just remember that. And, yeah, it is interesting to see that people actually did think that the registration page was more important. Let's move on. So we've done the event six times in Agenda. Let's talk about feedback. And we have mentioned feedback a lot today. Haven't we, Ayesha? Yes. I think on the feedback.  After you have your online event, the importance of capturing their feedback, tailoring your webinar program, providing it to your presenters so they can improve. And also just understanding what people's wants and needs are. You know, for a webinar, redirecting people to an exit page and asking them how they thought the webinar was, or using it in room surveys, we think is very important. But let's see how important you guys think it is. Do you think that the fact that people's feedback is captured and then taken on board is as important as your registration pages and the agenda of your conference? Wow, 50-50. Interesting. Yeah. Yes. Ta-da. So, you know, we've all said it. You know, there's no point in capturing feedback if you aren't prepared to do anything with it. However, it's obvious that it's not as much as a priority for people out there. I think personally, from our experiences with webinars, it's more important for us as presenters and as hosts to capture that feedback as opposed to me as an attendee. I'm going to provide you with my feedback straight away, and you know, I appreciate that, but it's not the main thing that I'm worried about. I'm more concerned with how much I learnt from the webinar. I'm more concerned about how I'm going to apply this knowledge as opposed to whether my feedback is taken on board. So it's very consistent, I think, with everyone online here now. And, you know, we can see for the first time 16% of people are saying that it's not important at all. So once again, definitely collect the feedback, but you know, if you are getting feedback from people and it is necessarily negative at some stage, you know, maybe respond to them, and if it is necessarily positive in some stage, maybe respond to them as well, but don't think of it as, oh, my God, my event's over because someone didn't like it because you're always going to get, you know, one end of the scale, another end of the scale. Okay, how important is it, Iza, that the event is recorded and made available at a later date. So we'll launch this poll. And this is really just recording the event as we're doing now, making it accessible afterwards as well. So... I don't think we had this one here, did we? No, we didn't have this poll for you guys. We're now just going to skip straight to the results. So how important is it? Somewhat important, 33%, extremely important, 67%. And this is something to take what you will. And I think it really depends on your presenters. A lot of presenters don't like being recorded. We find recording out all of our events no matter what. And as you can see, no one said that it's not important to them. And the reason for that is because you are going to have, on a free event, around a 50% attendance rate. And 50% to 60%, if you have any higher, you're doing incredibly well. So how are you then, especially as a membership benefit, going to provide the people that didn't attend with this information? You know, do you have an online library where as a membership benefit you have your people go into and say, okay, as a member, not only do you have access to our free webinars, but you also have access to a whole content bank where you can access information that's been projected to previous members for the past 12 months. So always recording that. We even use it for our search engine optimization reasons. You know, having a video online is incredibly important to us as a company in terms of our brand awareness and letting people know that we're educators and we're thought leaders and we do have great presenters. So it can also be a selling tool as well. So think about those who can't attend. Think about the membership benefit and then also think of it as a way to increase and engage those people who aren't necessarily members yet. Okay. Now, this is the last one we're going to. Okay, I just want to get before I go into this and you can maybe read amongst yourselves for a moment into Sue's question. So if attending for PD points, how do you verify actual attendance, not log in and walk away? And that's a great question. And there are a few big brother tools. I won't actually show you now, but I'll let you know. One of them is polling. So the polling that we've been using, some of our clients actually launched a secret poll at random intervals throughout and don't let people know. And then there's also a presence manager as well which pops up randomly throughout the webinar. So you can set that to pop up every two minutes or every 20 minutes if you like. A person actually clicks on that and it may come up and say, are you here or click if you are present. And if people click on that and you only have it up for say five seconds, then you can actually track who's online. So it is a little bit sneaky in the way that it works. But yeah, it is one of those things. It is very difficult to confirm whether people are even paying attention if you like. But there are a few little tools that you can use and you can incorporate to make it easier. I hope that helps. This is the wish list. And this is just a condensed version. So we ask people, what is your wish list? As people who regularly attend these online events, what are the things that, you know, what are the things that you wish that you could have? What would make your perfect webinar or your perfect webcast? And you know, we're going to go through these now and we're also going to just launch the survey at the same time, which is a way to collect feedback as we both just mentioned. And you know, this would just help you guys, as you're listening to our speaker, just provide some feedback for Ozey on the right-hand side. So dynamic speakers who convey knowledge and messages with clarity, really important to people. And it seems as though, from what we can see from the results, a few people haven't actually had the best experiences with presenters. So once again, definitely should be on your priority list. Interaction with the speaker prior to the webinar. So a pre-blob session or Q&A. Some of the things that we do in the emails that we send out, we ask people if they have a pre-question even. And so if you have a pre-question, please feel free to submit it. And that way, you can interact with the presenter beforehand and not just randomly see them on the day. Reliability of event organizers and responsiveness to technical glitches. So if you are promoting any event three weeks out and people respond to your details or reminder emails and ask you questions, you know, you're getting back to them with responses, making sure that you're letting them know what's actually happening if they have any questions communicating with them before the webinar. And then also online responding to technical glitches as well. Follow-up. So we always provide follow-up documents. So we also, a lot of people are there and it depends once again on the type of events that you're promoting and also depends on your audience. We send the recording out as well as a summary of any documents that we've spoken about as well as a PDF. You know, if you have too many questions coming through, how are you going to follow up with those?  Or are you going to have your presenter complete those questions and give them a week to do it and then send out the responses to everyone online? That's another way to do it. You know, people were saying board meetings and internal meetings should be done online. You know, it can sometimes be the worst subject ever, but it's one that needs to be covered. And to, you know, people shouldn't just think of these as educational events. Using the webcam for introduction, but not necessarily the entire event, which is what we also covered. Meaningful content, which is accessible at a later date. And I think one thing that, you know, just to add to this is having evergreen content. So the content that lasts for a long period of time doesn't necessarily cut off, you know, it's not accessible or not meaningful within a few months' time. And you know, obviously you may use online events to communicate maybe legislation or changes in the way things are happening. But having that content that is available, so if I watch it in January 2013 and I watch it in 2014 January, it's still going to be relevant to me as well and I can still access it. So maybe think about having a few of those little golden gems, especially for people who are coming, you and your organisation as members. Meaningful slide presentations and the ability to respond and have questions at the end. We've just spoken about content. Question time, structure and two or more presenters, which is what we've got here. I find it much better even as a presenter, having either in the room to bounce ideas of her and not talk to a PowerPoint. And I think your presenters may find that quite good as well. There's nothing worse than not getting that feedback from somebody instantaneously. There's nothing worse like us just staring at a blank screen and not knowing how you're going and not being able to see people's facial expression. So once again, just a little bit of a summary of what people are wanting and hopefully that'll make some sense and give you some advice on how you can maybe start your online event program with some tips and tricks or maybe even mix things up a bit and try something new. There's always time to do that. And that wraps it up, Iza. That covers it. I believe we don't have any more questions coming through. Yeah, we don't. Yeah, if anyone does, please type them in now. I'll just do a bit of a wrap-up, just a summary. And for those of you online, hopefully you have had some insights and inspiration from what other people out there are wanting as webinar attendees. You know, we will actually send you a copy of the report within the follow-up email within 48 hours. So that will also contain a link to the recording as well as the PowerPoint and the report itself. But yeah, enjoy it. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy mixing things up again and learning from your online events. And I really hope that you've all had, like I said, some of those inspirations from today. And I'll leave it to Iza to wrap up and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you, Sarah. And thanks to everyone for joining today's webinar. We hope you found the event inspiring and the technology easy to use. If you would like any additional information on how to host your own webinars, please feel free to contact us directly. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks, everyone. Bye.


At a bid to address the long-cursing scarcity of cash at a automated tele-machine nationwide, the CBN directed banks to begin paying a maximum of 20,000 aria off the newly designed note over the counter to customers. Despite the directive given by the APICS bank to Kimashu banks, the customers say the banks are yet to heed the other. Our correspondent Paul Judge reports. On Lagos Island, long-curses continue at the ATMs of commercial banks. Customers jostle to get money as people on the ground are ensuring that no one makes more than one withdrawal session. Customers say the scarcity of cash is making life unbearable for them. I'm coming from inside the hall right now. Even the hall is not even helping issues. I learned the CBN said they should be giving us 25,000 on the counter but they are not giving. They said there is no money there. How do you want to force them? A guy was there saying that when he comes back he's going to scatter the old bank and all this stuff. People are getting frustrated by today. Is there any sign that there will be election at all? We can't be stopping from fuel issue, we are now stopping from currency issue as well. Two issues at the same time. It's not right. I've been to POS, they said they don't have cash. I also tried withdrawing from ATM machine. The machine only pays 1,000 ERA for other bags that is not their ATM machine. They said they don't have any cash to pay. They need to look at it and rectify the old issue because it's really really hard on everybody. I went to the bank before it was a war. It was another war there because many people will not let you. Somebody will say that he's been here before you. Before you get to the place, everybody will be crowded in the bank. You will not know who faced you and who did not face you again. So before you know it will lead to another problem. So what I'm soliciting is the government to look into this issue because I know it was a new Nara policy that triggered all these things that is happening. This lady operates the point of sales business. She laments the unavailability of cash. She says it's difficult to get money from the counter. It's very affecting my business because I have only one daughter. I cannot even feed my daughter. Since morning now, I was killed in the ATM. Since morning, without with skill, I am not able to withdraw any money since morning. This thing is affecting us. Let our government find solution for it. We have our own money. We can't even use it. That thing is not making sense anymore. Go many times. I can't see even counting. I go more than five times today. They say we can withdraw on counter. We should go and kill in the ATM and there is no money in the machine. Well, banks are not dispensed in any way. It's obvious. And using POS, the charges are like killing. I think yesterday I made withdrawal of 9,000. The charge is 2,000 Nara. So I actually got some 5th stage from 9, 5 years. So the charge is ridiculous and it's too much. Today, no difference. So I don't know. It's just getting really terrible worse. Hopefully, I am hoping that things actually get better on time because this is really stressful. The cries of no cash fills the air across the country as the CBN tries to drive its cashless policy to an acceptable point. But the more it does, the harder it becomes for people, especially petty traders and commercial boss drivers who have been used to translating with physical cash. Paul, George, plus TV News. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Alright, before I get started I'm sure this is going to be another Circle of the Moon situation because I'm playing, with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions, the first game in a series that I'm sure has since received better games with more capabilities and options open to the player and whatever else. But the point of this video is to look at advanced wars as it holds up today, if you're unfamiliar with the game or the series. In case you can't tell already, this is a turn-based tactical strategy role-playing game as part of Japan's never-ending quest to get this style of game to catch on in the West. No joke, there were nearly three dozen strategy role-playing games released in Japan on the Super Famicom that never saw the light of day anywhere else. Safe to say they liked these kinds of games a lot more than the rest of the world evidently did. Or maybe is it because the right game hadn't come along yet to get mainstream audiences excited about tactics and strategy? Advanced Wars is as close to that game as you'll get. This game did sell half a million copies in North America alone, a very impressive figure for such a niche genre. So yeah, Advanced Wars is definitely accessible. You maneuver infantry, tanks, helicopters, bombers, fighter jets, artillery, battleships, transport shifts, and your maneuverability and strategy all depends of course on positioning, terrain, and sometimes the weather. You can also join damaged units together, capture bases and cities to replenish health and provide money and supplies. There's a lot here, if you can't tell. Thankfully, you can even save your game in the middle of a battle and pick up right where you left off, so that's real handy. Sadly though, Advanced Wars has one ginormous glaring flaw. The game makes you complete a 13 step tutorial that goes over every single gameplay aspect and you have to complete it to get to the actual game's story. Now if you're brand new to tactical RPGs and you have no idea what you're doing, then this tutorial is great, it's well made and extremely helpful. And again, I get why they did this, it's for the purposes of getting tactics heavy games to catch on with a larger audience. But if you've already played through stuff like Fire Emblem or Tactics Ogre or Shining Force or Final Fantasy Tactics or whatever, then you don't need this, you get the gist of what to do. But nope, you can't skip anything. You have to play through all 13 missions, that's really annoying.  Once you do get to the story campaign though, the game is really very good and pretty dang challenging. You're eventually introduced to new characters that all have unique special abilities that are a little bit like the God powers in a game like Age of Mythology. Like you can restore health all at once, allow extra movement to certain units, or just strengthen firepower altogether. It's pretty cool. Anyway, since I mentioned Fire Emblem a little earlier, there's an obvious comparison here to that series, since they were both developed around the same timeframe by Intelligent Systems. I'll say this much, if you're looking for more of a story-driven game of this nature, Fire Emblem is the way to go. That's the kind of game that immerses you in the battlefield with your comrades. Advance Wars is much lighter on story and makes you feel like a general operating from much further away. In other words, Fire Emblem is more RPG than strategy, and Advance Wars is more tactics and strategy than RPG. So yeah, the original Advance Wars is a great game that's currently available on the Wii U Virtual Console.  Hey, that works great for the purposes of making this video, since the game helpfully provides examples of everything I want to talk about and show off. But yeah, for playing purposes, it's a major drag, and I can totally understand why that would be a deal-breaker for some people. If you're willing to grind through that, though, Advance Wars really is a quality handheld title with fun, accessible, and time-efficient battles, and a distinct style that no other tactical game can match.


Saber Guardian serves to specifically focus on the southern region of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The purpose of the airborne operation was to insert first battalion of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment into Bezbir landing zone, this airport here, in order to seize key terrain to deny it from enemy use over time. We were stopping the advance of enemy forces from from the east and basically turning the element by seizing this key terrain, clearing enemy insurgents from the airfield and holding it to support follow-on forces. So this vertical envelopment that that this operation consisted of was significant in that it put our forces in the front of the enemy in order to stop his advance and push him north. This is a larger alliance mission. The beauty of this operation as a whole is we had the opportunity to work with a host of it not only airborne allies from Canada, Italy, with observers from Spain, Portugal, as well as the United Kingdom, all NATO allies. It supports the larger architecture of NATO and shows our resolve as a national force, the US National Force, that we are here to support this alliance. The greatest alliance known to man is in action before us right now with this with this specific exercise.