The Internet is Changing Relationships
Recently, someone asked me, “How has the Internet changed history?” Since the Internet is relatively new, we’re actually living through a period of “history in the making”. I brainstormed on the many ways the Internet is changing our lives and how we communicate with one another, and considered what future implications and directions might be. With all things that change, it’s not all good or bad; the issue is what do we do with the new technologies: improve our lives or not?
So, as the first post in this blog, I decided it might be interesting to explore how the Internet is changing relationships and invite everyone to share their ideas. What’s changing and what’s not, including psychological and social implications? (As a psychologist, that’s always my slant.)
Recently, I delivered a webinar for InterCall on “SuperMentoring: Creating a Performance Culture” and announced a calendar of other webinars from now through December, let’s focus on webinars for a while.
There are some key advantages to webinars. You can:
- Deliver live presentations to an audience from your desk
- Save time and money by not traveling
- Reach a large audience at one time without having to rent out space
- Build a relationship with an audience through polling, Q&A, etc.
As a result, webinars are ideal for many purposes including:
- Introducing info (such as a health or retirement plan)
- Educating employees, vendors, consultants
- Marketing to customers and investors
On the other hand, webinars are NOT ideal for such things as sales and negotiations where “reading” and “relating” to the other party are vital to success. So use webinars to reach the audience and face-to-face meetings to close.
What determines impact usually isn’t mastery of the webinar technology; rather it’s the use of fundamental presentation skills when designing and delivering the presentation—content, structure, succinctness, organization, engaging graphics and the communication power of the presenter—are what really count. We’ll talk about these issues in the next entry and then turn to other communication issues.
Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.