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Everyone is painfully aware that the business climate today isprofoundly different from that of just a year or two ago. Along withthis rapid deflation of the boom mentality has come some seriousbelt-tightening. Of course, those who’ve been laid off have bornethe brunt of the new reality, but even those that remain gainfullyemployed are likely to find themselves dealing with reduced budgets andincreased scrutiny of expenses. And it’s not just that theChristmas party has gone from bubbly to Bud; everyday costs of doingbusiness have to be justified as efficient and wise.

Normally, an environment such as this would be an inauspicious timefor new technology initiatives. But for at least one set of‘Net-based firms, corporate spending cutbacks actually offer— in theory, at least — a selling opportunity. Iftight-fisted managers can be convinced to see the Web as a vehicle forsignificant savings, companies that offer efficiency-enabling servicescan actually thrive in tougher times.

One promising example is services that allow that most fundamentalof corporate activities — the meeting — to take placevirtually rather than physically. According to Webster’sDictionary, meetings are “a coming together, an assembly.”However, companies such as eStudioLive, Presenter.com, MShow, Evoke(now called Raindance), WebEx, and PlaceWare are marketing the ideathat what’s important about coming together isn’t thesimple fact of being in a common physical location, but rather theability to exchange information and ideas. The Internet, they argue,facilitates that exchange while eliminating the costs andinefficiencies of transporting and gathering a group ofparticipants.

“The cost benefits of webconferencing are tremendous,”says Felicity Wohltman, director of strategic marketing at WebExCommunications in San Jose, California. “Customers tell us thatthey are saving up to $4 million a year in travel costsalone.”

Stephen Blanchette, vice president of marketing at e-StudioLive inChelmsford, Massachusetts, adds that for in-person meetings such ascorporate training events, obtaining and equipping the meeting spaceitself is often a major cost over and above travel. But in addition todirect outlays, Blanchette points to the issue of opportunity cost.“With in-person events,” he says, “both presentersand participants must be taken away from their jobs for extendedperiods of time. When sales people, for example, are taken out of thefield, that prevents them from selling.”

A Valuable Sales Tool

Physical meetings come in all sizes and for many purposes. At thesmall end of the spectrum, a meeting may be just a few employeesbrainstorming on an in-house project, or a one-on-one update for animportant customer about developments in a product they use. On theother hand, stockholder’s meetings, product rollouts, or salesconventions might involve hundreds or even thousands of people.

The type of meeting also determines the nature of the interactionsbetween participants. A project-oriented work meeting will likely beinteractive and collaborative, while a product rollout will more likelytake the form of a “one-to-many” presentation.

Just as the size, the nature of the interactions, and the mediatypes of the information to be shared (text, graphics, audio, video,etc.) all influence the planning and support requirements for physicalmeetings, the same holds true for Internet-based approaches. Sodepending on their own overall approach to meetings, each company thatutilizes web-meeting services comes to it with their own particularexpectations and needs, sometimes general and sometimes quitespecific.

“We needed a medium that would allow us to quickly disseminateproduct information to field sales,” says Ron Biggs of AspectCommunications Marketing, “and to set up a series of customerseminars that would draw high-level decision makers.” Based inSan Jose, Aspect provides customer relationship portals, which arecontact servers for managing dynamic customer contact transactionsacross both wired and wireless communication channels.

“A webconferencing system needed to be simple for us to use,and to allow us to animate our content,” Biggs continues.“And we wanted to make reliance on the speed of a network anon-issue. We also wanted a professional phone bridge that could handleinternational toll-free numbers. Plus, the show needed to have aredundancy factor, so that if it crashed on the presenter’scomputer, we could quickly turn it over to another computer andcontinue the presentation.”

To provide web-meeting services, Aspect settled on MShow ofHighlands Ranch, Colorado. According to account executive ScottWalters, the company’s current offerings break into two maincategories. “We offer launch-on-the-fly, self-serve meetingsusing our NOWShow tool,” he says, “and pre-planned, fullyproduced webcasts using the traditional MSHOW tool, with basicstreaming, storage, and content-delivery options available through ourvarious partners.”

To use MSHOW, Walters says, a client enters an online portal siteand fills in the requirements for the show. The foundation of a show isa PowerPoint presentation, which is pre-cached into the system of eachparticipant prior to the show’s start. Participants need only anInternet connection and a browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer).

“None of the PowerPoint data is coming through the pipe duringthe webcast,” Walters explains, “so users on any connectionspeed share the same audio/visual experience, viewing the same contentat the same time. The only aspects of an MSHOW that travel through thepipe real-time are an application demonstration or the commands forgroup websurfing.”

Like most users of webconferencing systems, Aspect was interested ina means of supplementing rather than supplanting existing meetingstructures. “Our web-based events are not intended to replaceface-to-face meetings,” Biggs says. “They are created toenhance and support the selling process by providing information ofvalue. In addition to product updates to sales, we use the web-basedsystem for product and industry presentations to customers andprospects. We have also begun using on-demand shows for one-to-fewsales presentations, allowing the sales team to do a live demo of oursoftware.”

Biggs feels that the addition of a web-delivered option offersAspect a number of real advantages. “People can attend the showswithout the pressure of a sales person,” he says. “We cantalk to a large audience and get live feedback. We can poll theaudience at any time and get real-time feedback. Plus, we are notlimited to a presentation. We can make our desktop live and show theaudience anything on our computer or on the Web.”

Playback On Demand

Biggs says that Aspect often records its web-delivered presentationsand makes them available as Real Player archives, allowing those whomiss a live presentation to go to the company’s website and viewit at their own convenience. This same use is what drew PriceWaterHouseCoopers in San Jose to a system from Presenter Inc., also of SanJose.

“We utilize Presenter.com to webcast select events andseminars after the fact,” says PWC marketing manager Terry Fuqua.“The webcast can then be viewed by internal employees who wereunable to attend, or by external clients or targets with an interest inthe given subject matter. We utilize PowerPoint, and it seems to workwell. The video is a bit slow, but tolerable.”

Fuqua says the company has been “very selective” in theuse of event webcasts, reserving the treatment for events deemed to be“big hitters,” such as the Thought Leadership series ofseminars. “I think it's a great way to get your‘knowledge’ message out,” Fuqua adds.

Fuqua’s impression appears to be backed up by some data on theefficacy of various media types in learning. Pointing to a study byChi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, and Glasser published in the journalCognitive Science (issue 13, 1989), Presenter vice president ofmarketing Konstantin Guericke says the retention rate from hearing andseeing information together is 50%, while the rate for reading alone is10%. Thus, Guericke asserts, “Presenter's iPresentations shouldbe five times as effective as sending out a static textdocument.”

With iPresentations, Guericke adds, “there is no real back andforth. The author creates the online presentation and then distributesit via a link in e-mail, or places it on an Internet or intranet site.Once this is done, the viewer, using their browser, just clicks andviews with very intuitive and flexible navigations.”

Interaction and Collaboration

While an emphasis on presentations fits the bill perfectly for some,others need interaction and collaboration between participants. Take,for example, think3, a Santa Clara, California company that developsdesktop solutions for mechanical computer-aided 3D design (MCAD).think3 employees are dispersed worldwide, with R&D teams located inmultiple offices in France, India, Italy, and the US.

“We needed the ability to communicate in real-time withcolleagues thousands of miles away,” says Art Ignacio, directorof educational operations. “Collaboration allows us to leveragestaff members around the world at a moment’s notice for keyprojects.” think3 also wanted to augment its online customer careprogram with live education and training programs. “Because weoffer a visual product that involves 3D objects moving around, there isa lot of power for us in showing the product in action. So we need theability to do live demos and share applications withcustomers.”

think3 ended up choosing services from WebEx in San Jose. WebExmeetings, involve “hosts” and “attendees.” Abrowser plug-in is used to send information from the host that can beused by the attendee’s plug-in to recreate some or all of thecontents on the host’s screen. Participants in WebEx meetings maycommunicate back and forth via the system’s IP telephony andinstant-messaging features or use regular telephone lines.

During a meeting, the Internet connection of each participant ispolled to assess available bandwidth, and compression of streamedmedia, such as a video window, is adjusted on-the-fly. The company saysthat performance is enhanced by the WebEx Interactive Network (WIN), aglobal communications network built on dedicated leased linesconnecting six communication hubs at co-location facilities distributedacross the United States, Europe, and the Asia/Pacific region.

“WebEx's network works just like a phone system,” saysWohltman. “The network dynamically links users’ desktops.There is no stored data, no conversion to HTML, and no forwarding ofmeeting content. Everything in a WebEx meeting is live, just like aconference call.”

In addition to a presentation mode, WebEx also has anapplication-sharing mode in which an application running on thecomputer of the meeting’s host is not only visible to but useableby the other attendees. Control of the application, including datainput and use of interface elements such as menus and buttons, may bepassed among meeting participants. A desktop sharing mode, meanwhile,gives shared access to the entire desktop, which may be particularlyuseful for troubleshooting during customer support situations.

Training and Demonstrations

The ability to share applications and view remote desktops has bigimplications not only for collaboration and customer support, but alsofor training employees in a geographically dispersed workforce. AlSallette, development manager for Excite@Home in Redwood City,California, says his company adopted the technology out of an urgentneed to train a diverse group of internal employees, as well asemployees of cable partner organizations across North America andaround the world. The company uses a webconferencing system fromPlaceWare of Mountain View, California.

The system, Sallette says, “reduced the time it takes todeliver training, so that we could train more people at the right time— just before they would need to use the training — andwith complete materials that accurately reflected theproducts.”

Sallette says that webconferencing has also lowered the logisticalbarriers to convening the right people at the right time for the rightamount of time. “For example, I did a three-hour class with10-minute Q&A sessions between each hour. Different people wereable to join in from wherever they happened to be: first ourdevelopment team, then an engineer from Netscape located in a differentcity in California, and last an engineer from Microsoft in Redmond,Washington.”

So far, Sallette says, the system has been used for training inareas including HR, technical, and sales. “It handles anythingthat you can display on a workstation,” he says, “includingweb pages, presentation slides, and polling questions.”

Excite@Home has also used web-based marketing seminars,collaborative sessions for software development, and specialpresentations. “Presentations work best for material that can bechunked up into 60-90 minute sections,” Sallette says.“They haven’t worked as well for role-playing, or forhands-on learning of how equipment works.”

Sarah Henderson, an account executive with HigherMarkets, Inc. inSan Francisco, California, agrees with Sallette that webconferencing isnot necessarily a total solution. “Face-to-face meetings arestill critical for demonstrating the more robust functionality of oure-procurement engine,” she says. “But web meetings presentan excellent opportunity to exchange a very high-level overview of ourproduct offering. And in turn, it gives us an opportunity to collectcritical information from our prospects in a cost-effectivemanner.”

HigherMarkets uses webconferencing solutions from Louisville,Colorado’s Raindance (formerly known as Evoke Communications).“Originally,” Henderson says, “we were interested inthe ability to walk through a demonstration of our web-based product tomultiple prospects in multiple locations without having to spend toomuch time coordinating mouse clicks. We've used the web demonstrationsboth internally and externally, and found the webconferences veryeffective.”

HigherMarkets’ applications of Evoke to date, Henderson says,include “using webconferences to introduce our product to collegebusiness officers throughout the US and Canada, to demonstrate ourcatalog solutions to businesses that want to participate in our highereducation marketplace, and for internal sales meetings and trainingsessions.”

Overall, Henderson says that the webconferencing approach has provenvery reliable. “Our market — colleges and universities— are among the most wired businesses in the world. So we have anadvantage for web-based meetings in that we are working with veryhigh-speed Internet connections. I can see the speed of the Internetconnection being a real thorn in some sides.”

Leveraging the Infrastructure

Sallette says that one of the benefits of a web-based approach isthat “anybody from anywhere who has a telephone, computer andInternet connection can join in. You don't need to go to some specialplace to meet.” PlaceWare marketing manager Kathryn Romley addsthat you also don’t need any specialized equipment.“Webconferencing leverages infrastructure that most businessprofessionals have at their finger tips — a web browser and aphone.”

Of course, with just a web browser and a phone, meeting participantsdon’t actually see each other live while meeting. “But youdo see real-time visual content such as bar charts, pictures, and livedocuments,” Romley says. “Seeing the content leads togreater understanding and comprehension of the information beingpresented. And webconferencing offers its own unique ways of engagingparticipants through interactivity tools, like live polls, whiteboards,Q&A, sharing and working on a document together in real-time, andannotation tools to draw on slides.”

Beyond Videoconferencing

Romley believes that the level of information-exchange supported bywebconferences goes beyond that offered by a traditionalvideoconference. “In a videoconference,” she says,“you see the person talking to you, but any type of visualpresentation material does not come across well. And videoconferencingalso requires specialized equipment that is fairly expensive for mostcompanies. The company has to have one system in one location andanother compatible system in another location.”

A number of these objections are addressed, however, by using theInternet as the delivery channel for the videoconference, which is partof the approach taken by e-StudioLive. “e-StudioLive offers twolevels of turnkey systems,” Blanchette says, “with all thesoftware and hardware needed to automate the creation, production anddelivery of an interactive webcast. Any slide, camera angle, clip,text, or link can be shown as relevant content. The participants caninteract with chat and surveys, or can watch an archive later if theymissed the original event.”

David Matney, director of the Video Engineering Group at theUniversity of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, usese-StudioLive’s system for a weekly broadcast of grand roundspresentations for the Departments of Surgery, Pediatrics, InternalMedicine and OB/GYN. “These events go live to our residents atdistant hospitals,” he says. “Web-based education greatlyincreases our ability to provide courses that are not always locallyavailable. Beginning in the fall semester 2001, we plan to offer ourmedical students live presentations that are archived for laterreview.”

One factor that makes IP video workable for UNC is the system-wideavailability of sufficient bandwidth. “We have a high-bandwidthbackbone between all sixteen campuses,” Matney says, “and100Mbps switched ports to each student desktop.”

Blanchette says the e-StudioLive systems provide on-the-fly controlof the viewer’s experience, including video, audio, graphics,links to the Internet, surveys and chats. Matney, however, says thatbecause documents themselves cannot be made full screen with thepresenter’s audio during the live presentation, his departmenttends instead to incorporate document graphics directly into video andto play them back using a full-screen video window. “DuringPowerPoint presentations,” he says, “the primaryinformation is the graphic and not the presenter, so it really isn't soimportant to have the video of the presenter at the sametime.”

Matney sees the web-based conferencing technology as being“more cost effective than it is costly,” and he anticipatesrapid growth regardless of any slowdown in the economy. “We seeno end to the need for this technology,” he says. “We seeeducation becoming equally balanced between on-site and off-sitestudents. Web-based education, continuing education and telemedicinehas only just begun.”

The same positive outlook seems to hold for business applications aswell. Web meetings, Sallette says, will become “a widely adopted,ordinary part of the way we live in the business world.”

Walters agrees, adding that the challenge right now is waiting forthe marketplace to catch up. “It’s still considered by manyto be an idea and a service that is ahead of its time,” he says.“But a strong value proposition can be made for using these toolsin the current economy. Without a doubt, they can save companies largeamounts of money, and increase productivity by keeping personnel offthe road and working at their desks. We expect to see a dramaticincrease in webconferencing use across the board in the comingyear.”

Phil DeLancie is a freelance writer based in Berkeley,CA.

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Company Contacts

e-StudioLive
Chelmsford, MA
978-244-0858

Raindance
Louisville, CO
800-878-7326

MShow
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
303-730-4900

PlaceWare
Mountain View, CA
888-526-6170

Presenter
San Jose, CA
408-536-0510

WebEx
San Jose, CA
408-435-7000