The Information Society Development Foundation spreads new ideas through webinars.

The Information Society Development Foundation is on a mission to help inhabitants of villages and small towns use new technologies to acquire new skills and take collaborative actions.

Customer needed:

• A tool for sharing knowledge interactively with librarians all over the country
• A way to expand on a range of areas covered in the in-person training programs
• A channel to communicate with librarians about new projects and offers for libraries

About the customer

The Information Society Development Foundation (Fundacja Rozwoju Społeczeństwa Informacyjnego, FRSI) is on a mission to help inhabitants of villages and small towns use new technologies to acquire new skills and take collaborative actions. This is a result of numerous FRSI programs targeted at local libraries, NGOs, and schools. Since 2013, the foundation has been using webinars to spread their ideas.

The birth of the idea

The idea of using webinars was born after the FRSI implemented an in-person advocacy training program for librarians. Because of program priorities and time restrictions, several important issues could not be included on the subject list.

We wanted to provide librarians with knowledge on several subjects, such as social media, website design, and effective communication with journalists, so we decided to try out webinars, said Małgorzata Dąbrowska, Projects, Communication and Advocacy Coordinator.

We have always believed that webinars can be successful only if they provide interesting and useful information and are mostly interactive. We decided to use ClickMeeting because its tools made it possible for the presentation to incorporate various interactive tasks and activities.

Working toward success

The FRSI, encouraged by positive feedback from participants of early webinars, decided to use ClickMeeting on a regular basis. As a result, they became the first Polish NGO to do webinars on such a large scale. Based on early positive experiences, they developed a method of conducting webinars and gladly share the method with others.

Each event organized by the FRSI lasts approximately one hour and is preceded by a 15-minute warm-up, during which the moderator explains to the attendees how to use ClickMeeting and introduces the experts. The moderator is also responsible for facilitating the event, while the experts host a 40-minute presentation, which is the core of each webinar. The presentation is a combination of attractive, informative visuals (photos, graphics, concise messages, and expressive data) and interactive exercises, such as surveys, whiteboard collaboration, and a Q&A session. The Q&A questions are chosen by the moderator from live chat submissions.

This is the best way to get the attendees’ full attention – they are actively engaged and wish to discuss presented topics and share their opinion, said Dąbrowska. This wouldn’t be possible without the flexible and intuitive ClickMeeting platform.

Better than expected

So far, the FRSI has hosted over 100 webinars for more than 10,000 attendees.

At present, webinars are an integral part of all our activities, said Małgorzata Dąbrowska. It is difficult for us to imagine a project that would not include online events. We conducted an evaluation of our webinars, and the feedback was clear: they were assessed very positively and should be continued.

ClickMeeting tools enabled the FRSI to:

• Deliver professional knowledge to remote participants
• Gather library employees from numerous locations and encourage them to share experiences and opinions
• Develop advanced methods of updating the librarian community on present and future FRSI projects

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