Online Presentations: Using Technology to Increase Productivity
Online Presentation Overview
Recent technological advances have eliminated the need to meet face-to-face to conduct business or convey other information in person. Popular tools now allow users to treat their audience to an online presentation experience. An online presentation can be set up to be live streaming, or on-demand to be viewed at the viewer’s convenience, and can involve dozens of attendees such as in the case of a webinar.
Appropriate uses for online presentations
- Educational lectures – These days many colleges and universities offer distance learning classes, where all of the course material (including lectures) is delivered online. Many times the instructor will prepare slides via presentation software and then allow the students to view the lecture online in the form of a webcast.
- Sales presentation for products or services – A company’s sales force no longer needs to make every customer call in person, because the product information can now be effectively communicated via the Internet.
- Supplements to conference calls – An online presentation can allow conference call participants to view visual aids during the discussion.
- Staff meetings where the business has staff in remote locations – Increasingly, businesses are allowing many different types of flexible working environments, and online presentations can assist in maintaining optimal productivity levels while minimizing travel costs.
Benefits of online presentations
- Allows information to be conveyed quickly and efficiently – With the on-demand nature of most presentations given online, information can be transferred much more quickly. For instance, there is much less need for schedule adjustments to accommodate last minute online training needs. In a crunch, a presentation can be prepared and disseminated to the necessary participants quickly and easily using business collaboration technology.
- Schedule flexibility for presentation viewers – Whether the viewer is a student, potential customer, or employee, their time is valuable and eliminating the need to meet with the presenter face-to-face allows for a more efficient use of time.
- Reduced costs for online education providers – Colleges and universities can spend less money on staff, because online presentation of class lectures allow for a higher teacher to student ratio.
- Reduction in travel expenses – Business can eliminate a lot of costly travel expenses for trips to and from meetings by participating in online presentations more frequently.
Some may suggest that online presentations detract from the personal touch of interacting face-to-face. However, advocates of online presentations would agree that utilizing Internet technology to convey information is not intended as a complete replacement for in-person contact with presentation viewers. Rather it brings the above benefits and more when face-to-face business presentations are infeasible due to hefty travel costs. And with the right presentation skills and presentation tools on the part of the presenter, great rewards can be received from embracing a collaboration tool such as online presentation or web conferencing software.
