No webinar without coffee

The webinar is hugely popular. Online update? Webinar. Product launch? Webinar. Lecture? Webinar. Scalable, manageable and easy to organise. But sharing knowledge in the hope that people do something with it? That takes more than broadcasting. It takes interaction, even if it is just a chat afterwards. That is why we organise at least one coffee moment at every webinar.

It is understandable that the webinar became the standard for sharing knowledge online. For the organiser it is a comfortable format: easy to plan and easy to control. The speaker owns the story, the technology is predictable and no unexpected objection comes back. Interaction often feels forced. It is not really part of the design — and the viewer notices. Distraction beckons and dropping out is only a click away.

Sharing knowledge is about content, but form matters

A good webinar starts with a speaker who has a clear story. That does not change. The difference lies in what you design around it. Q&A and polls are a good start; breakouts go a step further. In small groups, participants discuss what they heard, what they recognise and what they will do with it tomorrow. Their questions and insights go back to the speaker, who responds. That way participants make the translation from knowledge to practice themselves. And the speaker hears what is really going on in the room. That is the difference between broadcasting knowledge and sharing it.

Informing is the start, learning comes next

Informing is the foundation. Without a good story there is nothing to learn. But information only becomes knowledge when something is done with it. An old saying, often attributed to Confucius, puts it in three lines. Tell me and I forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I understand. The coffee moment at a webinar builds a first small bridge to that third step. Explaining something to someone else forces you to organise what you just heard. Someone else’s insight shows you where your own understanding stops.

From leaning back to active listening

Educational theory often refers to the Learning Circle. In the middle is the comfort zone: familiar, pleasant and not very instructive. On the outside is the panic zone, where everything becomes too much. The learning zone lies in between. That is where there is just enough tension to pick something up.

We design our gatherings to bring participants exactly there. We freshen up the comfort zone with surprising interaction that still gets people thinking. A poll with an unexpected result, a question that chafes a little, a conversation with someone who does it differently. Panic about the technology we catch with live support, so nobody loses the thread because a button does not work. What remains is the good kind of tension. Just enough to stay sharp, safe enough to dare to say something.

Online does this better than you think

For large groups, the webinar seems the only logical form. Yet online actually offers more room. In a physical room it takes a lot of time to split two hundred people into groups and bring them back together. Online it takes a few seconds, from the plenary to a small table and back. Informing and activating fit comfortably into a single hour. That is how a webinar becomes a gathering people really take something away from.