Franklin Covey Co. Releases New eBook: The Webinar Manifesto: Never Design, Deliver, or Sell Lousy Webinars Again! – Authors Offer 7 Principles for Creating Best-in-Class Webinars

Franklin Covey Offers Free Download of The Webinar Manifesto on October 22-23, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE: FC) announced today the release of a new ebook, The Webinar Manifesto: Never Design, Deliver, or Sell Lousy Webinars Again!, published by Franklin Covey Publishing.

“Webinars are the fastest-growing form of corporate learning event, yet they are often too boring, too long, and invite multi- or even triple-tasking. The Webinar Manifesto is an important and brave look at redesigning and refocusing our online connected learning time”

Franklin Covey is offering a FREE downloaded copy of The Webinar Manifesto on October 22 and 23, 2012. On October 24, the ebook will be on sale for $6.99 (retails at $9.99). (www.thewebinarmanifesto.com)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheWebinarManifesto
Twitter: www.twitter.com/learningexplosn
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mattmurdoch
linkedin.com/in/treionmuller

The Webinar Manifesto is co-authored by Matt Murdoch and Treion Muller. Murdoch is the Global Director of Online Learning and Muller is the Chief E-Learning Architect for Franklin Covey. The two are industry leaders in e-learning and webinar design and delivery. They have been responsible for transitioning Franklin Covey’s own world-renowned content from the live classroom to the virtual classroom, as well as creating Franklin Covey's best-in-class on-demand, self-paced offerings.

In The Webinar Manifesto, which premiered at #3 in all Internet books on Amazon.com’s list, the authors declare war on bad webinars, mundane talking head PowerPoint presentations, working in silos and doing things the way they have always been done in webinar creation. They invite readers to join their revolution by applying their 7 Webinar Manifesto Principles for creating best-in-class webinars.

Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe Connect, said, “Whether you are running webinars for sales, marketing, or e-learning, your ability to create rich and engaging experiences for your audience directly impacts the ROI of your event. The Webinar Manifesto provides a set of principles and tools that will help you transform flat and boring webinars into rich and engaging experiences.”

“The Webinar Manifesto is for anyone who uses webinars to present, teach, inform or engage employees, customers or vendors. It’s especially written with HR professionals, trainers, instructional designers, marketers, and sales people in mind,” said Murdoch. “It’s for those who want to transform their webinar design and delivery. We’ve all tolerated boring and wasteful webinars for many years. Of course, we’ve made some real advances. But we still have a long way to go.”

Muller said, “Webinars can’t continue to evolve incrementally. We want to help readers of The Webinar Manifesto to speed up the evolutionary process, whether it’s in the virtual classroom, on a webcast, or in an online conference. We offer proven principles and tools to help readers captivate audiences with webinars which are beautifully designed, push the limits of technology, are eloquently delivered and create the best experiences possible for their audience.”

In The Webinar Manifesto, the authors outline 7 Webinar Manifesto Principles for creating best-in-class webinars focused on next-generation design and delivery:

Principle 1 – Connect or Die: Survive the constant evolution of webinar platforms, influx of new studies and information, and best practices by tapping into the online network of relevant thought leaders and communities.

Principle 2 – Don’t Default: Be aware of everything your platform will do, attempt and assimilate new ideas, discard those that are irrelevant, and keep a manual with best practices for engaging your learners.

Principle 3 – Shut Down the Ugly: Shut down the creation of webinars which are ugly or boring to encourage engagement and behavioral change. Keep four key touch points in mind:

• Marketing Communication – To market your webinar, use the right communication channel to invite the right audience with creatively designed invitations that feature simple messages and beautiful graphics.
• Presentations – Keep visuals simple, refrain from regurgitation, use creative approaches on slides, and cater to the culture and generations to whom you are presenting.
• Handouts – Handouts should be beautifully designed, have a purpose, be relevant, and properly messaged.
• Webinar Experience – Break up content into chunks with segments to engage and keep learners focused.

Principle 4 – Captivate or Alienate: To captivate a virtual audience, apply the following guidelines:

• Verbal Accountability – Give participants opportunities to contribute.
• Visual Accountability – Provide a visual content roadmap, use storytelling, and vivid images instead of text.
• Kinesthetic Accountability – Use platform tools to involve participants, provide downloadable materials, opportunities to engage, breaks to work offline, and utilize accountability measures.

Principle 5 – Humanize the Screen: Create a face-to-face virtual experience by mastering four humanizing skills:

• Skill One – Look at Me: Create a persona that is human and engaging.
• Skill Two – Talk to Me: Converse naturally, as if talking to a friend face-to-face.
• Skill Three – Listen to Me: Listen and speak variably to encourage dialogue and discourse.
• Skill Four – Let Me Think: Allow time for participants to think, process and reply.

Principle 6 – Crack the Feedback Code: Don’t just rely on visible feedback, such as forms and Q&A. Learn and decipher four invisible feedback codes:

• Invisible Code #1: Poor Attendance – To encourage maximum attendance, use the right invitations, sent to the right audience, with the right value proposition at the right time and at the right price.
• Invisible Code #2: Dropoff – Avoid dropoff rates by applying Principles 1-5 in the book. Once attendees are logged in, it’s too late to design a better experience.
• Invisible Code #3: Silence – Silence may occur because of technical issues, prior experiences with talking heads, feeling too uncomfortable to contribute, the presenter lectures, there is no opportunity given to comment.
• Invisible Code #4: Poor Feedback or No Feedback Scores – Feedback from attendees should be gathered before they log off, with follow up via e-mail, phone or questionnaire. Clarify with attendees why there is a lack of feedback submitted (e.g. confusing, complicated, takes too long or confusing and too time-consuming.)

Principle 7 – Cage the Monsters: Content, technology and delivery are the three biggest monsters that can destroy a webinar:

• Content Monster: Content overload (too much content in one webinar), content block (subject matter expert doesn’t keep to time deadlines), and content stink (boring).
• Technology Monster: Disruptions because of technology issues.
• Delivery Monster: An unprepared or unskilled presenter.

“Webinars are the fastest-growing form of corporate learning event, yet they are often too boring, too long, and invite multi- or even triple-tasking. The Webinar Manifesto is an important and brave look at redesigning and refocusing our online connected learning time,” said Elliott Masie, Chair, The Learning CONSORTIUM.

The Webinar Manifesto authors, Murdoch and Muller, also co-authored The Learning Explosion: 9 Rules to Ignite Your Virtual Classrooms, published by Franklin Covey, which serves as a resource and guide for training professionals charged with the task of introducing virtual learning into their corporate environment, specifically through the use of virtual classrooms.

The authors are available for consulting, as well as speeches and keynotes on any number of topics related to online learning and training and are listed on the Franklin Covey Speakers Bureau at www.franklincoveyspeakersbureau.com.

About Franklin Covey

Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE: FC) is a global company specializing in performance improvement. We help organizations achieve results that require a change in human behavior. Our expertise is in seven areas: leadership, execution, productivity, trust, sales performance, customer loyalty and education. Franklin Covey clients have included 90 percent of the Fortune 100, more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500, thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses, as well as numerous government entities and educational institutions. Franklin Covey has more than 40 direct and licensee offices providing professional services in over 140 countries. For more information, visit www.franklincovey.com.