How to spice up webinars with more interactive elements

In large firms and research network alike, knowledge is dispersed.

Take my friend Gunnar. Gunnar works at Bosch. Bosch is a large supplier of automotive goods. The company is so large that they have a saying that goes as follows: "If the Bosch would know what the Bosch knows, then...." And then you could add any type of solution to a problem that the company has. For example: "If the Bosch would know that there are currently five departments all over the globe working on the same micro-electronics related problem, then it would be possible to substantially leverage synergies".

However, often this is not the case because knowledge flows remain at too small scales. In research networks, we have similar challenges. Most of the times, researchers are based all over the world, but might work on similar problems. Conferences help to get the communication started, but they only take place every so many months. Hence, what can we do in order to build communication structures that kick off the information flow?

One way that can help is to conduct webinars. Especially in times of #COVID19 they come in handy in order to reach a crowd of dispersed people.

We just started the #NESTwebinar series yesterday, with an introduction from our Chairman Jochen Markard. The key feedback from the participants was that they would love the webinars to be more interactive. Hence, please find our five tips for fostering interaction in webinars (find links in the first comment below):

• Welcome them with a short online query on how they feel, where the come from and what they are looking forward concerning the webinar (here you could make use of mentimeter).
• Offer/open a chat function (included in Zoom),
• Include a Q&A session after the talk/presentation
• Give participants the opportunity to ask and rate questions. Choose the highest rated questions and give the question poser the opportunity to ask their question directly to the person who gave the talk.
• Wrap up with another set of questions concerning overall happiness with the webinar and suggestions for improvement.