What Do Web Conferencing and the Presidential Election Have in Common?

Polling! Presidential election season is in full swing right now in the United States and that means the media reports on a myriad of poll results daily. If you look closely at the poll questions they are generally clear and unbiased, although every now and then a biased question surfaces.

Polling is one of my favorite features in a web conference. Well-designed polls can enhance a web conference and give a boost to your audience engagement. Poorly designed polls can frustrate your audience and have the opposite effect. To avoid such pitfalls, think of polls as ‘mini-surveys.’ We can apply best practices from surveys in a web-conference to maximize the results of polling: avoid leading questions, eliminate unclear language, limit answer choices, etc. I explored this topic in depth in an article on Best Practices for Polling in Web Conferences if you are interested in learning more.