WEBINARS OR WASTEINARS

Recently, I happened to attend a few of the much-publicized Webinars, in a mission to ‘learn continuously’ and to keep myself updated about the contemporary developments in the field. But I am sorry to say this; most of such webinars are USELESS, to say the least.

In almost all these webinars, the presentations are not in line with the topic/title of the webinar. A poor participant, lured by the catchy phrases of the advertisements of such webinars, participates in the webinars – most of the time, by remitting a hefty fee too – feels disappointed, after going through the sessions of the webinar.

In my observation, most of the presentations made in these webinars are generic, which could be made to fit into any topic of discussion, without any focus on the topic of discussion.

I am reminded of one of my nephews, who, during his high school years, had to prepare for an Essay Writing Contest in his school. Poor chap had sincerely prepared for a classic essay on Cow. But alas! The title given for the contest was ‘Coconut Tree’. But smart fellow that he was, he wrote all he learnt about the cow, in that essay, ending each paragraph with ‘such a cow is tied to a coconut tree’, thus bringing the topic of the contest into the essay. I am not sure if he won that contest or not.

But most of the presentations are on the above lines only.

In one of the recent webinars that I attended, one of the presentations was titled ‘Switchgear Selection for Renewable Power Generation’. Lured by the topic and in a fond hope that I would learn something new, I had enrolled for the webinar, paying a considerable fee too.

But the subject presentation was very lukewarm, with no focus, whatsoever, on selection of Switchgear for the Renewable Energy Industry. The subject presentation, verbatim, was presented by the same faculty, in another seminar, not long back, on ‘Switchgear Selection for Continuous Process Industries”.

Yes! There were/are Q & A Sessions at the end of each session. But, again, with my experience, I vouch that uncomfortable queries are not answered during such Q & A Sessions with an evasive reply that they would get back to us through e-mail, which never happens.

My stand – that almost all such Webinars are USELESS – is vindicated.

I would strongly advise my fellow electrical fraternity, to think twice, before deciding to attend any such webinars.

 K. SIVAKUMAR 

(N.B.: Some of my friends here in LinkedIn, who too keep conducting such webinars, might feel offended. But, I never hesitated to call a spade, a spade.)