IBM's webcast

Last week I took part in a recruiting webcast done by UK's consulting arm of the company, IBM Global Business Services.
I thought, from the beginning, that it was a cool idea, as I would be able to take part in the same event as my colleagues from Warwick Business School, even being an Ocean apart.
But the webcast was set up in a surprising way: the slides were served through a password protected website, while you had to call a special number to be able to listen to the speakers. Why not have both online, I don't know, but, in the age of Youtube and Skype, it surely is strange. Since I don't have a good phone plan for daytime calls, I used Skype out, which worked just fine, bringing all back to the internet.
The presentation was fine, the slides being showed on the screen and the audio through the headphones. One glitch or two due to feedback, but that was really minor.
I would have one or two suggestions to make this type of event more effective.
First of all, it should be all online. I don't know the reasons to separate the audio from the video, but I am sure the folks at IBM know why they do that. But it certainly would make our lives easier. And taking part in the event would be more convenient for the participants. It certainly is technologically possible.
Then I would suggest doing it in two parts. The first part, the one way presentation, when the audience doesn't interact with the talkers, could be presented as a pre-recorded podcast. Not only would the overall production quality be better, it would give participants the chance to get the presentation at their own time.
The second part would naturally be the questions and answers part, which is two way. For this section, people would then all connect at the same time and use the teleconference possibilities.
Furthermore, there were only 3 questions allowed and I thought this was very little. After all, people had been listening for about 40 minutes, they could have reserved a little bit more of time for the more interactive part of the presentation.
All in all, it was an interesting event. But, more interesting, was the opportunity to talk to a more senior consultant from IBM Global Business Services Canada, who gave a guest lecture for the marketing course here at Queen's. The cohort went to the pub after the class, with the aim of having the possibility of talking to Todd. And this was certainly constructive, as I could discuss several higher level issues related to the consultancy profession in general.