Webinars are not just a marketing gimmick. These online learning sessions allow professionals to stay updated on the latest trends, tools, and emerging technologies by providing a platform for experts to share their knowledge, experiences, and industry gossip with a broader audience. 

They’re also an excellent next step for programmers who want to pivot from coding to coaching. If you’re a webinar speaker, you might start nurturing your bank account with talks and advice instead of late-night Python lines.

What are IT webinars?

A webinar is an online discussion or class — thus the word “seminar” — that opens the doors for participants from across the globe to gather in a virtual classroom of sorts. Virtual classroom software supports using additional web tools like presentation decks and group chats.

They’re usually set up like keynote presentations, and the speaker is often even more important than the topic. Since, in the business environment, not setting a clear agenda and points to be discussed is considered unprofessional, webinars frequently feature a clear overview of what’s to be touched upon. Sometimes, webinars include many speakers from different organisations, and could even feature a special guest, such as a client who had a resounding success using the host’s software, for example. 

If anything, a webinar is very close to a one-off university lecture. The audience, though, can be a bit more mature and seasoned than a regular university class. Moreover, a webinar is designed with clear “next steps” for the audience. Generally, and predominantly because they’re a superb marketing strategy, webinars are free.

Do you need to install anything to participate in a webinar?

Not really. Many webinars are streamed through YouTube. If the tool used by the hosts is effectively Zoom, WebEx, or whichever, you’ll probably be fine with a browser extension. Don’t sweat it.

Types of IT webinars

“IT webinars” seems too stiff, but, as any catch-all term, it actually refers to a spectrum of choices. Be it a live, hybrid, or on-demand webinar, different types exist for different purposes. Most importantly: some IT webinars are presented for more commercial-leaning executives, while others are hard-to-grasp, inside-baseball talks. Both of these types, the technical and the more conventional, might be presented as “IT Webinars,” so it’s up to each participant to check the agenda and see if they’re a fit. These are some typical formats for webinars.

1. E-learning or “Continuing Education”

Educational webinars serve as targeted online seminars or workshops designed explicitly for teaching purposes and frequently for people who’ve left the education system already (thus the “Continuing Education,” or CE, moniker). Typically, these webinars' content is very specific, so professionals who dive in can pick the webinar to hone a skill they think will give them a competitive edge, such as deploying LLMs or starting a business in a specific region.

Some even offer the so-called “e-learners” (from the creators of “nice to e-meet you!”) the opportunity to accrue credits in their respective fields and help them earn a certificate, for example, although you should check that twice (and you should not get involved into a webinar for the credits only!). The critical difference between this webinar and others is that these might have an arc and are not one-offs. They resemble a full university course more than a guest lecture. That’s why they’re called 

📚 Examples of educational webinars:

• What's new in CSS for Designers? By Onur Gumus
• ​​Creating a routing app with Google Maps API from scratch by Germán Álvarez
• Develop AI-powered Applications with OpenAI Embeddings and Azure Search by Rainer Stropek
  
  

2. Pitches or product demonstrations

Remember Steve Jobs walking through the stage and telling you a phone would allow you to shop for groceries while you chopped onions? Imagine that, but over Zoom. Pitch webinars are specifically designed to promote and “pitch” a product, service, or solution. These webinars are strategic marketing events where companies or individuals showcase their offerings to potential clients, investors, partners, or adopters. A product demo is an important part of closing deals, showing solutions to pain points, differentiating from competitors, and answering prospects' questions. If you’re a startup founder, this kind of webinar will help you get your message across without delving into technicalities.

📲 Example of product demonstration webinars

• Startup Tech Presentations
• How We Built a Machine Learning-Based Recommendation System (And Survived to Tell the Tale) by Dora Petrella
  

3. Informative webinars

Seminars are designed to teach participants about specific topics, subjects, or industries. They are a good way to share brainstorming and expertise with a specific group of people. Though it might sound similar to the educational type, informative webinars are aimed towards a discussion on a certain topic — in 2021, it would have been NFTs; in 2023, it would have been AI — rather than learning skills. 

📊 Examples of informative webinars

• Is reactive the new black? Imperative vs. reactive programming with Quarkus by Tatiana Chervova
• Your imaginations is (no longer) the limit: how Generative AI empowers people to be creative by David Estevez
• Hacking AI — How Attackers Impose Their Will on AI by Mirko Ross
  

4. Q&A

Questions and answers. The bread and butter of any conversation or any learning setup. So ubiquitous it’s landed an acronym that could fit in knuckle tattoos. Q&A webinars are highly interactive sessions where participants can engage in real-time by posing questions through a chat interface or verbally participating in discussions. Q&A webinars work best when the audience is involved, asking questions, sharing experiences, and talking to the panel and other attendees. Ultimately, these webinars aim to help people learn more about IT by bringing together experts and people who enjoy it.

🙋‍♀️ Examples of Q&A webinars

• Talent sourcing A to Z: What is critical data? With Rudi Bauer and Alla Pavlova
  

5. Panel discussions

Panel discussion webinars highlight a group of experts or specialists engaging in discussions centred around a specific topic or theme. Typically moderated by a chairperson who’s usually savvy but not an insider (journalists are very commonly tapped to act as MCs), these discussions involve three to five panellists sharing opinions and experiences around a pressing topic. Additionally, they frequently incorporate dedicated Q&A sessions, allowing the audience to pose questions to the panellists. Panels are a staple of business events, and bringing them to the webinar sphere meant simply transposing its discussion-forum format to a Zoom call. But this means that more people than just execs who shell out hefty Gold Sponsor fees can now access experts channelling questions to one another.

🗣️ Examples of panel discussion webinars

• Panel: How AI is changing the world of work
• Panel: New Work

Where to watch the best IT webinars

IT webinars are so cost-effective they’re everywhere. Starting on them may seem daunting, but we can point you in the right direction. At WeAreDevelopers, we host, stream, and archive yearly world congresses on anything and everything developer. We have curated a selection of webinars that cover the latest technologies and provide a platform for industry leaders and professionals to share their experiences and insights. You can start your continuous learning journey by exploring the platform at WeAreDevelopers webinars.

To ensure you never miss out, sign up for email notifications. By subscribing, you receive timely updates on featured speakers, topics, and schedules, allowing you to plan your participation effectively.

Become a webinar speaker at WeAreDevelopers

We welcome tech enthusiasts with unique perspectives to share valuable insights in our webinars. As a speaker, you contribute your knowledge and connect with like-minded individuals. And being a webinar speaker is a bona-fide career path.

If you’ve ever considered and don’t know where to take your first step, we got you covered. With a track record of hosting over 1,000 speakers, we provide a platform for voices like yours at WeAreDevelopers. Notable past speakers include Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++; and Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub. Not bad, huh?

Talk proposals can be submitted up to six weeks before each LIVE day. Whether you're a seasoned speaker or a first-time submitter, share your idea, take the chance to contribute to our events, and position yourself in front of our developer community. We find ourselves at the finish line of our sixth season, we're eager to keep hosting impactful insights on the latest tech trends. Please apply and take advantage of the opportunity to express your passion for code by discussing programming, coding trends, technologies, open-source projects, and tools.

If your developer-to-speaker pipeline is just starting, you can always browse WeAreDevelopers for jobs. Being a seasoned Python programmer will probably help you land a spot as a speaker in a fireside chat during a panel. Good luck!