Webinars — an emerging medium of learning, growing and evolving

It is not just the education, IT, healthcare, wellness and other such fields that have taken to it. Next week, top bureaucrats of the State government will have an interaction with the IT industry through a webinar to iron out the issues that may come up in the post-lockdown phase, indicating the efficacy and relevance of this medium.

On a video call with DT Next, Sanjay Tyagi, Director STPI, Meity, Government of India, explained how STPI has been holding sessions by both the central leadership and at the regional level. “Every month, we plan two webinars. We want to keep everyone in high-spirits and as comfortable, interactive and motivated as can be,” he said.

Now, the stage is set for a first-of-its-kind townhall meet where Additional Chief Secretary (in charge of IT) Hans Raj Verma will join Tyagi to spell out the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines to enable government facilitation or regulators intervention for the industry. Tyagi added that STPI encouraged an Indian start-up Airmeet (with no limitation on the number of participants) that was providing the platform free-of-cost for all. This comes at a time when security concerns are raised in the case of Zoom, the most popular of such applications.

Purnima Ramakrishnan, who has been hosting webinars under the GLOW (Genuine Loving Outstanding Women) banner, said Zoom was an easy medium to use, as it does not require much technical knowledge. “But the onus of security lies on the user because the danger of compromising security is similar to leaving an email open at a browsing centre. One has to go through the user manuals carefully so that the password protect feature or the lock option for a webinar can be used to prevent hackers,” she added.

Over the last four years, hundreds of such webinars have been organised on a monthly, weekly and daily basis, without anyone feeling the lack of a physical-level engagement, she said. “However, it has been noticed that special treatment of people has worked. For instance, a large IT firm received 6,000 registrations for a session on bravery on a woman’s day. Niche programmes targeting a specific group has shown good outcomes.”

The strategy of Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research, has been successful in the US and Europe, and companies like Infosys and TCS have availed its services. Infosys and HFS have organised a seminar on working in the new world, which will be addressed by global speaker Simon Sinek. “This is advertising for Infy and Sinek gets paid. It is no different from a conference but moving from travel and hospitality to an online channel. No transport logistics and hotel costs means easier on the pocket,” an industry veteran, who is also an attendee, told DT Next.

Such ‘by invite’ webinars lead to better understanding and specific knowledge transfer, apart from exploring newer trends.

The technology that enabled this was available right from the early days of internet. But now, the bandwidth is better and is easier using mobile phone, which is encouraging more to take it up, pointed out Sanjay Shroff, president, Indian Foundrymen’s Association, another votary of webinars.

“At the click of a button, you have a global audience though this too has a cost with either the VCs subsidising it or offering it for free until a subscription model can be incorporated. I am a complete believer of webinar being the best way forward – not only for seminars but even company meetings, one-to-one meetings. So, why restrict its usage,” he told DT Next. Though people would still lament about face-to-face interaction, webinars or virtual interactions are great from an environment perspective, too, he added.

Brand expert Harish Bijoor did his first webinar as a lark on April 6. But by now, he is just about to do his 56th webinar during the lockdown period, taking to webinars and online masterclasses like duck to water, as he describes the experience. His webinars are of three types: Fireside Chat for industry bodies, academic institutions and corporate houses; Gyan Webinar focussed on issues of the contemporary moment; and Covid-kaal packaging all his new theories on economy, business, management, marketing and brands for corporate houses and industry bodies grappling the crisis.

Bijoor, a firm believer for charging sessions, delivers content in a different way to make it standout amid what he calls a “veritable webinar jam, from cooking classes to corporate take-over strategies. “I do not use PowerPoint presentations. I use hand-written prompts that break the boredom of a typical talk as well. Animated, alive and fun are the elements of my talks. I package completely new thought and new strategy,” he said, noting how this has kept him working without much time to spare even during the lockdown period.

The audience for these webinars is global and large. “The largest audience I have had to date is 92,000. The smallest has been a group of six CEO’s looking for strategy nuggets. I have enjoyed both sizes and the in-betweens. Yet another interesting facet for me is the fact that I have now spun off an e-consult model where consultation fee is half of my regular hourly fee,” Bijoor said.