Online seminars with igus
How does online training get going?
igu-blog-adm | 6. January 2021
The virus caught us all off guard and presented me with completely new challenges in my role as Product Manager. One of my tasks, which I share with my colleagues, is to explain new products to our customers. This requires the ability to answer technical questions, but also consider a broad range of positions. That is the only way we can generate new ideas for the future. We have no more face-to-face conversations, so I can’t gather ideas that way. We needed a solution. That is how the idea of igus online seminars came about.
Online training – the first steps
Once we had thought of the idea, the question became how to implement it. My colleague Katharina Esch and I began work on the project. Since we are currently working from different locations, we used videoconferences to exchange ideas and develop a concept.
We quickly decided that MS Teams was the platform we should use for igus online seminars. But we had no studio in which to show participants what they needed to see. So we decided to use good old PowerPoint. We had lots of experience with it, so it was easy. But delivering the presentation in a Teams meeting was something else entirely. We had to practice it.
It wasn’t easy.
We also had to prepare, create and send invitations, and provide invitees with the necessary access data.
Our first online training measure – a complete success
8th June was the day of our first igus online training. We were nervous, but were also looking forward to it. Would the technology work? Would people actually come?
It did work!
Suddenly, after about 30 minutes, the first igus online seminar was over and we were more than satisfied. You can see it for yourself in our video.
More online seminars at igus? – Yes!
Internally and externally, the whole thing was well received.
So we are planning more online seminars. We are looking for topics that are both very current and helpful to the attendees.
A point that keeps coming up in talks with our customers is cutting costs. Who doesn’t want to do that? So we decided to do a series of three online seminars in which we used examples to explain our price check.
Online seminar difficulties
An online seminar takes place at a fixed time. It is very likely that not everyone who wants to attend can make it at that time. In “real life”, we would try to arrange a new time to meet with the customer. We can’t do that right now. So we decided to put recordings on our website explaining the topic in more depth. This solution gives us the ability to call up the information whenever we need it.
The following examples can be found here:
Ethernet data volume price check
Single core motor cable price check
A whole new format – in the studio
What bothered us at the beginning was that the customer couldn’t see us when the presentation was running on the monitor. This was especially disadvantageous when we wanted to explain something that required us to show the product. So we looked for a solution here, too. And we found one. We have now set up a small studio with a producer and a projection screen. There are various cameras that give us completely new capabilities.
My colleague Max Herrmann and I decided to explain our new chainflex CASE from the studio. Many customers ask about it, and we thought it was important to explain the chainflex CASE using an actual sample.
This topic was well-received as well. We were able to both show the product while explaining it and answer all attendee questions live. This also demonstrated how important our studies into this new form of presentation had been. We are becoming more practiced and are constantly learning new things. We keep reflecting on what we have already tried and implementing improvements. And we will continue to do that.
We are offering a new online seminar next week. This one is about our laboratory and the necessity of testing cables under realistic conditions in the e-chain. You can register here.
Do you have topics you would like the chainflex team experts to explain? Let us know what they are. All current igus online seminar videos are availablehere.
We look forward to your feedback and ideas.