This blog is primarily directed to John Thronhill’s MasterClass students.

I am sure, however that many others will benefit as well.

 

We recently conducted a Webinar for the JohnThornHillMasterClass students.

Thank you John, Steve (support), Dave Nicholson and others that helped to make

 this first one a pretty good success. Some of us had some difficulties however.

It was conducted using GoToWebinar® Services and Software. I was personally

not familiar with this package as a “participant”. I have since started to learn,

it seems to be quite powerful. 

 

When this webinar was conducted, there was an unforeseen glitch

that took place thanks to the United States changing most of it “zone” time

clocks shortly before this event. It certainly caught me off guard as I was still

expecting to see it at 1:00 pm Mountain Time in the United States. Fortunately,

I just happened to be browsing around over an hour before the event.

 

However, about 5-10 minutes before 12:00 pm (my time) I received an Email from

John saying the Webinar was about to start shortly.  An HOUR early for me!!

Fortunately I had (just barely) enough time to install my USB Web Phone

Headset/Microphone. I followed the links from logging in and heard “hellos”

from lots of people. Unfortunately my “hello” was never heard nor acknowledged.

I began to wonder if my microphone was working. I didn’t have time to test nor

confirm this before it all started

 

So I dialed-in using a wireless home phone (not cell phone) and also heard

some talking,  but again I received no “response” from my HELLO-ing.

What was going on I wondered?? I saw the Hand Icon whose functionally

appeared (to me) to be logically in reverse of what I would expect. The only

way I could figure it out was to click it and wait for a hover message indicating

that my hand is up (or down) even though the ICON DID NOT APPEAR

the way I expected.Anyway, I got disconnected from my “dial-up” and after

re-dialing, entering the access code. I heard a pre-recorded woman’s voice

saying I was only  going to be allowed to be in 1-way HEAR mode and

could not REPLY/SPEAK to ANYTHING ?????.

 

I did not hear this during my 1st dial-in time OR from my Web Headset.

I had both the Web Headset on AND the wireless dial-up phone on at the

same time. I could hear from both just fine. BUT, when it came time for

Q/A, I NEVER GOT acknowledged that my HAND Icon was up for a question

and it had BEEN UP for a long time. I had a couple of  responses I

could have shared regarding some questions asked by others.

 

But I NEVER  got to speak.

 

There were several other on-screen GoToWebinar® whistles/bells

I was not familiar with using as well as what phone buttons (if any)

were active for special commands. ?????.
 

THERE ARE SOLUTIONS – KEEP READING

 

Shortly after it was over, about 10-20 minutes later I received an Email

from GoToWebinar(tm) saying they were sorry I had so much difficulty

(how did they know ?) and they were willing to let me try their SERVICE

for 30-days no charge! I did not reply. Bit it was obvious to me

(as in other webinars I have attended) that SOME kind of webinar

service/software was involved to make this all happen. But I had never

seen documentation as to how all this worked, from GoToWebinar®.

 

It would be nice to get some “documentation” about how this works with

Web headsets,  dial-up headsets, useful commands and so forth LONG

before the webinar and also some way to “experience and test” all the
features, in some sort of simulation, so that some “familiarity” with this

GoToWebinar® software could be achieved BEFORE a live webinar.

This particular software was quite foreign to me as well as apparently

quite powerful.

 

Well I am happy to say that I have explored and found a LOT of

documentation that would be quite beneficial to all of us to access

and study before the NEXT webinar.

 

This link https://www2.gotowebinar.com/en_US/webinar/pre/support.tmpl

has many PDF files and links to other related documentation. Besides this,

I would strongly suggest checking out the link labeled

Search Online Help for GoToWebinar for some great information. There you

will find OTHER PDF files and I would suggest you pay particular attention

to the linked marked Audio Best Practices.

 

Hope this was beneficial to at least some of the MasterClass students?

 

Oh, and I certainly learned more about Webinars than before. This class is

offering a LOT of really good learn-by-trial experience.

 

Mark Himes