Webinars, Shmebinars!

j0385401Am I the only one who sits through hour-long e-discovery webinars, only to ‘discover’ that some are low on content and high on marketing?

Don’t get me wrong – I understand we all have to make a living.  This blog is no exception.  Hopefully, I’m giving you content that’s useful and informative – and maybe a little bit entertaining (if there’s any way to make e-discovery entertaining…).  Otherwise, I’d expect you not to return.  Based on the fact that I’ve doubled my subscribers in the past month alone, I’d say people believe they’re getting something of value.

But man, am I getting tired of signing up to webinars and virtually all I get out of the hour is, “Start thinking about where all of your data might be…” mixed in with a sales pitch about a particular product.  In some cases, everything discussed could have been covered on a single sheet of paper in about five minutes!

So, here’s the deal.  As a Consultant, if I’m going to complain then I need to offer alternatives.  My thoughts are, we either need some kind of good-faith rating system by the provider that designates a webinar as “novice”, “intermediate” or “expert”, or I’ll default to the method I use to weed them out now:

If most or all of the presenters are from your marketing and sales departments, I’m not signing up.