Week 5

My school offers a global MBA program; this is a consortium of 5 business schools on 4 continents. Our participants are put into local and global teams, and we ask them to use Centra as an e-meeting tool. As a member of the tech committee for this program, I am on Centra very regularly as well. A majority of our participants, especially if they are in SE Asia or South America, complain about poor connection with Centra and prefer to use Skype which uses less bandwidth.

With my webinar team, our first meeting using Connect proved quite frustrating. The sound quality was very poor and Yvonne wasn't able to get on at all. After this meeting, I learned a first lesson: the tool itself doesn't matter, it is the outcome which counts. So, if our participants prefer to use Skype, then I need to learn to use it myself and present it as a viable alternative.

Then we had a second meeting using Connect with my team, and this time things went very well. We all got on and the sound was perfect. So, my second lesson learned is that with a little persistence and through trial and error, it may be worth sticking with the recommended tool. After all, at work, I have never had any problems with Centra and there are quite a few things that participants can do with Centra which are not possible with Skype.

The conclusion is that I need to make sure that our participants get ample training and practice, first with Centra, which on some occasions they are required to used (when a professor is invited for example), and then with Skype, which they like to have as an alternative. Above all, I need to remember that they have a task to accomplish and not a tool to use.