In this September 23 2020 episode, Eric Cook of WSI Digital and TheLinkedBanker.com announces that the long‑running Free Webinar Wednesdays series will be placed on pause for the remainder of 2020. He explains that recurring webinar logistics have become increasingly problematic—multiple instances of the weekly GoToWebinar series have been removed from the system, and the outdated registration link caused confusion. Cook reflects on the show’s origins in April 2009 with Jeff Simpkins, noting how the internet and webinar technology have evolved since then. While the series has never been monetized, it has served as a platform for sharing insights with a broad audience, especially community bankers. Cook signals a strategic shift toward more focused community‑banking content, leveraging his 15‑year banking background. He assures listeners that he retains the email list, will notify them of any future “Free Webinar Wednesdays 2.0” relaunch, and provides links to stay connected via WSI Digital, TheLinkedBanker.com, and his personal channels. The announcement ends with gratitude for a decade‑plus of support and an invitation to keep in touch during the hiatus.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook with WSI Digital as well as thelinkedbanker.com, and this will likely be one of the final episodes for Free Webinar Wednesdays, at least for 2020. You can see from the screen that I am showing during the webinar, and if you're watching this video on a recording, I just wanted to give you all a heads up and let you know that my plan is to hit the pause button here at Free Webinar Wednesdays and do some reevaluation of what all was involved in the creation of Free Webinar Wednesdays, where it's gone over the years. I mean, Jeff Simpkins, my friend, and I started this back in April of 2009. So it's been going on for quite a while, and the internet certainly was a little different back in 2009. Webinars have changed. Livestreaming video is now an option. And Without throwing the friends of mine at GoToWebinar under the bus, creating a recurring weekly webinar that just continues indefinitely has proven to be a challenge. And I honestly don't know if there's other webinar technologies that would do that better or if that's just the way that they are from a webinar perspective. But we've now gone through the 3rd instance Of having the recurring webinar actually removed from the system, and I just have not been able to take the time to reinvite everybody else to get this back on their calendar. And the old registration link was still on the Free Webinar Wednesdays website, and people were registering for that. So it just became a little bit of, as they say, shit show. And I've just made the decision that I'm gonna hit the pause button and not really worry about it. We've got a lot of awesome things that are going on within our work world. And this Free Webinar Wednesdays has never really been anything to monetize. We've never generated revenue per se. What it has done is it's brought me onto your screen or your phone into your office or your home. on mostly a weekly basis to share thoughts and insights from myself, from guests, from around the internet and around the business community. And I'm still planning on doing that, and I'm still planning on sharing my ideas and thoughts, but doing it a little bit more specifically, probably more so in the community banking realm. And making sure that we're true to our key target focus and our key markets, which are community bankers. I was a community banker for 15 years. I do a lot of speaking and teaching to bankers. And when Free Webinar Wednesdays was created back in 2009, we did stuff for a lot of different types of businesses, and that was okay and certainly served us well. And But we always have had a little bit of a banking focus here on the show. Jeff used to work for one of the main bank core service providers, and now he does bank consulting, and he has gotten busy where I've taken on the show for about the last year solo. And now it's to the point where I think the pause button needs to be hit, and we just need to spend some time internally within WSI. To determine what the actual future of the show needs to be. So quick and simple, don't want to really draw it out any further, but keep an eye out. I've got everybody's email addresses who had registered for the show previously, and when there is a decision made as to what we're ultimately going to do, you definitely will know about it, and you definitely will get a notification. And if you are interested, In Free Webinar Wednesdays 2.0 or whatever it ends up becoming, I would certainly invite you and would welcome you with open arms to join us at that point. So if you scroll down on the actual post here, you'll notice that there's a number of links that I have provided so that if you are interested in keeping in touch during our hiatus here at Free Webinar Wednesdays, You can learn more about us over at WSI Digital. You can learn more about us at The Linked Banker. You can learn more about me personally and connect, or any or all of those are certainly an option for you to keep in touch. And if you have questions or come across something that you just want to pick my brain on, I am always here and very interested in chatting and helping however I can. But for the time being, This will be a pause button applied to Free Webinar Wednesdays. Look forward to spending some time thinking about what the future holds for us here as it relates to webinars and video and content and whatnot. But for the time being, we will not see you next week or on future weeks until we get this all figured out. But I appreciate everybody's support and just being there over the last, boy, since 2009, over 10 years, 11 years. April 1st was the, was the actual first show. It's kind of interesting that we did our first show on April Fool's Day of 2009, but that's, that's just how the schedule Rolled out. So anyway, that is it for now. Eric Cook here at WSI Digital and the Link Banker signing off for what is not forever, but at least here for the remainder of 2020, unless you get an email from me that says I'm back and I have something else I want to share. But check out the social links and other ways to engage and keep in touch down below, and I'm sure we'll see each other online. But until then, thanks again for all of your support, and we'll see you somewhere. Other than freewebinarwednesdays.com, at least for the remainder of 2020. That is all. Bye for now.
