Free web seminars sponsored by vendors often offer good and rapid training, as they have practical information (if you can eliminate the commercial "pitch"). They can be an excellent way to get grounded on what an industry is doing, and you can take them at your convenience.

With thousands of vendors (mostly in Information Technology) offering tens of thousands of live and recorded web seminars, finding the right one quickly can be a challenge.

To help cut through the clutter, I recommend here some of my favorite sources of quality web seminars.

These cover a wide variety of business and technology subjects. While the author is associated with one of these websites, I hope readers will find the list as useful and comprehensive as I intended it to be. The sources are listed here in alphabetical order:

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Association of Corporate Counsel Webcasts

It is a collection of audio-visual presentations providing substantive information on legal topics relevant to in-house counsel and legal departments of corporations and other organizations.

I recommend: ACC Desktop Learning Webcasts I find this is one of the best collection on the subject of business law. Both Live and Recorded webcasts are offered.

Bettermanagement webcasts

Bettermanagement offers webcasts addressing Performance Management, Financial Management, Business Intelligence, IT management, and other critical business management issues.

I recommend: BetterManagement.com webcasts. It is one of the best and most comprehensive sources of free web seminars on technology-related business management issues.

CFO.com webcasts

It is a great collection of Live and Recorded covering issues relevant to finance executives

I recommend: CFO.com webcasts. It offers a comprehensive library of free web seminars on subjects such as regulatory rulings, industry best practices in finance, technology, compliance, and more.

DestinationCRM web events

These webcasts are offered by the DestinationCRM website.

I recommend: Destination CRM webevents, because it is a great collection of webcasts relevant to CRM users and managers.

EbizQ.net webinars

EbizQ offers some of the best and most comprehensive web seminars for IT professionals focused on enterprise infrastructure including SOA, BPM, integration, Business Intelligence, SaaS, and security.

I recommend: EbizQ webinars It has a very comprehensive collection of live and recorded web seminars on the subject.

Eseminarslive.com online seminars

This is a IT webcast source of Ziff-Davis Publishing.

I recommend: Eseminarslive as one of the most comprehensive sources on webcasts for Information Technology professionals covering virtually any IT-related subject.

Finervista.com business webcast search

Finervista is vertical search engine for business webcasts.

I recommend: Finervista.com , because one can use Finervista to conveniently search, find, and attend webcasts from websites listed here and from many other sources

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Most web seminars are free, but require registration. Be prepared to receive a sales call or an email afterwards from the sponsoring Vendor.
• •  While some web seminars can be blatant sales pitches, most offer very valuable information and a live opportunity to interact with speakers who are often highly-regarded experts in their field.
• •  When attending live web seminars, be sure to take advantage of real-time Q&A often available with the presenter.
• •  Be sure to advantage of recorded web seminars available on the above websites. Recorded webcasts offer an advantage of attending at the time of your choosing and at your own pace.