Better webinars: Minimize distractions (noise)

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I've been telling people to make sure they minimize distractions when their hosting webinars.  Yesterday, I didn't heed my own advice.

I hosted a webinar in the morning.  It's part of a series and I have them well structured, so I've even taken to doing them from my desk (which is in a big open space in our Lowell, MA offices.)  It went well, great discussion, no distractions.

In the afternoon I filled in for Steve Chazin by hosting the Dimdim Live Webinar (Steve was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, flying back to Boston.)  I have a bluetooth headset I normally use with my phone that can pair with my laptop -- so I decided to give it a try.

The headset worked fine to start, but the noise cancellation features were not particularly good.  As the noise level in the office increased, my webinar attendees heard less of me and more of the office background noise.  (It wasn't even "water cooler" conversations, just people on calls.) It was clear in the public chat this was causing problems:

• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:07:19 PM EST] David : the background voices are very distracting 
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:07:41 PM EST] Bryan : I agree. The background voices are making it tough to hear you clearly.
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:07:47 PM EST] john : audio is breaking atm
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:08:01 PM EST] Linda : Can you quiet the background voices, please?
  
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:08:12 PM EST] Cy : please stop that background chat voices 
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:08:24 PM EST] Shoe : The sound in YOUR background is beyond annoying!:-/
  
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:08:33 PM EST] Attendee22 : Yes backgound not very professional 
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:08:57 PM EST] Cy : just stand up and shout 
  
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:10:20 PM EST] Diane : should we reschedule as this is quite distracting?
  
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:10:46 PM EST] Shoe : Does our dim-dim webinar come with annoying people talking in the background like yours does?
• [Thu 10 Dec 2009 01:13:00 PM EST] Shoe : It is hard for many of online to imagine that you are trying to make a favorable impression conducting your presentation from a cublicle with people chattering away and creating annoying distracting background noise

Tough position to be in.  The noise drew attention away from the webinar, essentially bringing it to a halt.  To fix it, I let everyone know in the office know what was going on and switched back to the USB headset I normally use.  Things went well for the rest of the webinar. 

My lessons learned:

• Test, then use what works! My bluetooth headset picks up too much background noise in the office.  Testing in advance could have shown the issues, letting me just use the headset I knew had better sound quality.
• Move somewhere quiet or keep people quiet! Running a webinar from my desk can mean more ambient noise.  If everyone was aware, they could help to keep the noise levels down.  Even better, host your event from an office or conference room where you can close the door to shut out the sounds completely.

Save yourself some headaches and minimize distractions before you start your webinar!  Have a "dress rehearsal" so you can make sure  everything is perfect.

Thanks!