What is a Webinar?

We’re presenting three webinars next week, and we realised that some people may not know what a webinar is, hence this post. Simply put, a webinar is an online seminar – and there are typically two types. You can have a presentation-type webinar, where a presenter delivers to a viewing audience. Then you can have a collaboration-type webinar where there’s a high level of interaction – this is good for team meetings, etc. Webinars are being used all over the world, on a daily basis, for countless different purposes.

We use an online tool called Dimdim, and it’s completely online. You do not need a telephone. All you need is a computer with an online connection. Our upcoming webinars are of the presentation-type – so you don’t even need a webcam or headset. I will be presenting, you will be able to see me, and you will also be able to see slides on your screen, and you’ll be able to hear me of course. You will be able to participate by text, if you have any questions. Our next round of webinars will be of the collaboration-type, that’ll happen early 2010.

We’re currently hosting a series of seminars and workshops, you can view the complete list here. The reason we’re doing webinars as well is that there are many people outside of Cape Town – and even outside of South Africa – who would like to attend our events. Cape Town people are always welcome though, of course!

If you have any questions, please complete our contact form. And if you haven’t signed up yet, these are the upcoming webinars (and they’re absolutely free):

Understanding Web 2.0 and Social Media (Mon, 16 Nov 2009)
Making sense of Twitter (Tues, 17 Nov 2009)
How to find a job (or freelance work) using Social Media (Wed, 18 Nov 2009)

The Long Tail

There has always been people on the Long Tail. This is nothing new. Being there was the end of it though. There was nothing else. Now, with the advent of Web 2.0, people on the Long Tail now have a voice, they now have access to markets and industries which they could only dream of previously.

Jayz Internet Solutions is on the Long Tail. And so are you, most likely. And the world has changed for us. It’s a completely new landscape.

Please view this video of a talk I presented in Johannesburg in 2008. This snippet covers the Long Tail.

For more information on the Long Tail, this link is also useful.

The Eternal September Crowd

On May 21, 2009 Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Eternal September. For a long while before then, I was focused on training “newcomers” and “novices” about Web 2.0 and Social Media. I didn’t have an adequate term for them though, because many of them were not absolutely new to the Internet, many of them were web designers (of the Web 1.0 era), and people who used the Internet on a fair basis.

I am astounded at how I, and others in the Web industry, take for granted what we know. When I deliver training, or consult with clients, I get asked questions which jolt me back to reality. That reality being that there is an endless stream of people who need to be educated – and inspired – about what the Web can offer today. It’s very exciting, and it’s really a thrill to catapult people from ignorance to absolute enthusiasm. As much as it is exciting, it’s equally challenging. The need is so big that we’ve now dedicated our resources to having continuous training events – seminars and workshops – across the country. The first set is already underway, and we’ve already received an overwhelming response from the public.

Eternal September is as apt a term as one could find. Seth puts it across clearly:

“…each September sees an entire crop of freshman showing up at college, you need to assume that you have to start teaching protocols all over again. Once a year, it’s a whole new audience, and they need to learn the ropes.

The Internet has been stuck in September ever since. Every day, new people show up at your blog, on Facebook, everywhere. Every day it’s a whole new crop that need to figure out what RSS is and how to subscribe.”

Will this “Eternal September” crowd ever disappear? Will we reach a point where everyone knows how to use online technologies to their fullest potential? I don’t know. I don’t think so, though.

Image source

Breaking the rules

Being a conformist rarely spirals into greatness. It is those who have challenged common thinking and practices, that have become legends. Google and Apple had done brilliantly along these lines.

With the ability to add as many links and ads on a web page as you want, Google chose to design an ultra simple home page, with a logo, a text box, and not much else. That was the Google homepage. That’s how Google became a household name. While everyone was jumping at banner ads and flashy animated ads, Google stuck with simple text ads. There is the rise of PPC and Google AdWords, raking in $21 billion in revenue for Google in 2008.

With MP3 players flooding all over the world, their capabilities expanded. They had fm radio, recording capabilities, etc. Then the iPod was launched, and it was the most simple of devices, and it could just play music. It took the world by storm. The new iPod Nano can record video yes, but the product has been established, the entrance into the marketplace was simplicity.

Henry Ford said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a very interesting piece for The New Yorker (May 11, 2009), and it’s all about breaking the rules and the rise of the underdog.

Gladwell says:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

You can read the complete article here.

Image source

CEO of the Decade

Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, as the CEO of the Decade. That’s really extraordinary, especially considering that he stands alongside Google’s Schmidt, Buffet, and Gates.

After being booted out of the company 80s, he returned back in the 90s, survived two brushes with death, and some other challenges – and despite all of this Apple is now one of the most valuable companies in Silicon Valley./

Apple products like the iMac, MacBook, iPod, and iPhone are becoming household names, and have expanded far beyond the tech and creative communities. Apple is a culture. A Tribe. And it’s only going to get bigger, and better.

Fortune says:

He’s a visionary, but he’s grounded in reality too, closely monitoring Apple’s various operational and market metrics. He isn’t motivated by money, says friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500). Rather, Jobs is understandably driven by a visceral ardor for Apple, his first love (to which he returned after being spurned — proof that you can go home again) and the vehicle through which he can be both an arbiter of cool and a force for changing the world.

You can read the complete article here.

More interesting links from CNNMoney.com: