Webinar Wednesday - Woes & Wins

Today, I hosted a live, 45 minute Webinar over the internet for students that are going on US and International summer projects. A coworker of mine covered the strategy of summer projects, and gave a biblical perspective on raising financial support, and I covered the tools and procedures we use to raise support and process the donations once they are given. (Some staff joined in as well - so cool to think we had people from all over the US meeting together for the same goal, via the internet).

I hosted the first of these webinars about 3 weeks ago, which I was initially really nervous for. That one went flawless. Today was another story! The actual webinar went fine, but there were quite a few little things went wrong along the way- starting before I even got to work.

Last night, we got 4 inches of snow on top of an inch of slush, making the morning commute awful. After spending 15 minutes digging out my car, I managed to put my elbow in the middle of my breakfast while attempting to get into the car. (I ate the breakfast anyway...tasted just fine!)

Because of the roads, the coworker who was supposed to help with the first part of the webinar couldn't make it in, so we had to scramble to get him set up on the program at his house. I had neglected to reserve the big computer TV system I wanted to use, so about 30 minutes before the webinar I had to rethink the setup for the broadcast.

Regardless of the little hiccups along the way, the webinar was a success. It was so fun to 'stand' before a group of nervous students and guide them in the support raising process. When I went to Brazil on project in 2007, we didn't have these great tools and processes; even in the last four years there have been major advances in websites, procedures and tools for students and staff to make the process of raising support and tracking donations much easier. I think it's a great example of leveraging technology to enable us to increase our capacity for sending students around the world.