Bravo-Luna-Oscar-Golf

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In this blog series I’ve been grousing over my personal angst with long email addresses and the best way to allow your listener to receive and notate the proper address information that will allow future electronic discourse between the two of you.

A few months ago, I blogged about our corporate name change from 3D Conferencing to 3DVE. I like “Delta-Victor-Echo”. It’s easy except that I sometimes forget the correct NATO words and say “Delta-Volcano-Egg” but hey, the correct information is heard and understood. HOOAH!

I once joked that I wanted to work for a company named BOB so my email address could end with “bob.com”. It’s short, easy to say, easy to pronounce and easy to spell even if it’s the Monday after Thanksgiving and you just returned on the Red Eye flight having had no sleep since the previous Wednesday since you’ve been camping on the ancient hide-a-bed in your mom’s basement. 3DVE is almost as good as BOB. Thank you, Law of Attraction.

OK, here’s where I circle around to the beginning of this blog series and my whole point. If you are a speaker on a web conference and you are going to allow people to contact you after the fact with questions, comments or requests for further information, you should include your name, in written format, as part of your presentation. Make it larger than the surrounding font, in bold letters, maybe even a contrasting color and point it out for your audience (just in case their eyes wandered while they were multitasking) AND leave it on the screen long enough for someone to borrow a pen and make sure that pen works on the back of their hand. I find Sharpies work really great for this.

If you find yourself speaking your email address over an audio connection only, have that advance conversation with your self about the best way to convey your email address. Remember that we are a world-wide community now and not everyone in your attendance has English as their first language. Speak slowly, enunciate, clarify letters that may sound like other letters using the NATO phonetic alphabet (or other words of your choice) and repeat.

Regards;
SIERRA – HEDGEHOG – ECHO – LOLLIPOP – LOLLIPOP - YETI

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Bravo-Luna-Oscar-Golf

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My last name is a long one: Yergensen. It’s not only long but there aren’t many Yergensens around. There are far more Yorgensons, Jorgansons, and Jergensens. The mind seems to sometimes reject a name that it hasn’t heard before and substitutes something that it’s familiar with. I’ve experienced this quantum mental leap when giving people my name many times. And there is that whole “son” verses “sen” suffix at the end to further muddy the waters. Once you read it and see it spelled properly, it seems easy, it even flows phonetically but people who are hearing the name for the first time just do not instantly grasp how to spell it.

Is that spelled with a “U” like in “urine”? I swear, I’ve been asked that question.

The other strange phenomena that happens is I will spell my last name for people and when I say “Y” for some odd reason their brain translates that into the word “why” and I get all kinds of items addressed to Shelly Whyergensen.

So, when I needed to give people my email address, I tried using the NATO phonetic alphabet to spell my last name. “Y as in Yankee, E as in Echo, R as in Romeo, G as in Golf, E as in Echo, N as in November, S as in Sierra, E as in Echo, N as in November. Usually by the time I got about halfway through, I got lost and I would drop an Echo or a November. Then I went to work for 3D Conferencing. Conferencing is an easy word to misspell if you aren’t concentrating, haven’t had enough caffeine or are typing too fast. There is an extra “E” in there that isn’t typically pronounced.

So, I would end out phonetically spelling both “Yergensen” and “conferencing” for some people. Most of those people fell asleep some time after the third “November”.

A few years back 3D tossed around the idea of renaming the company “Conferencing Concierge” because it eloquently described what we do for our customers. I had a personal meltdown.

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How to Ruin Your Conference (For Dummies!)

Have you ever asked yourself, “This is the biggest conference of my career… how can I ensure this event ranks in the top 10 of my worst day’s ever category? Well you’re in luck! I have gathered together some of the best tips to ensure your conference will become a dismal failure. If you follow my simple guidelines, your co workers are bound to be talking about this failure at the next Christmas party. (Probably after everyone’s had a few cocktails) You're sure to have your own poster with a picture of you and a caption reading, “Some careers are meant to serve as a warning to others!”
*** All sound clips are from actual calls ***

Talk as fast as you can!
You always want to speak as fast as you can and make sure you slur your words a little. It’s not like your attendees are at your conference because they’re interested in what you have to say. If you plan on sharing your phone number or email address with your attendees, make sure you say it as fast as you can, and only say it once. You wouldn’t want your attendees to actually get your contact information would you?




Love your speaker phone!
Nothing tells your attendees, “I don’t care about your experience,” quite like a speaker phone. Not only do speaker phones make you sound like you’re calling from a cell phone in an air port bathroom. The wonderful machines will pick up the conversation your co workers are having two cubicles down; speaker phones will even pick up cell phone vibration on the table.




Do the Darth!
Everyone loves Darth Vader. Using a head set with a boom microphone is a best practice; however, nothing turns this best practice into a living nightmare quite like having the microphone too close to your nose. The only thing worse than the creepy Darth Vader breathing, is telling your attendees that you’re their daddy…




Never hit your mute button!
Above all else, if you want to ruin your conference, never, ever, hit your mute button. If you hit your mute button, your attendees might miss someone in the back ground bashing the speaker, slandering the company, or worse, we may miss your latest rendition of, “This Conference Blows Chunks.”




All kidding aside, it’s difficult to quantify what makes a great conference, It’s infinitely easier to see what makes a terrible conference. If you learn to avoid the above items, you will be well on your way to a successful conference.

~ Kyle Jackson

These are a few of my favorite things...

...to follow on Twitter.

@Mashable: Offers one line summaries with a link to what is currently on their site. Lots of daily tweets but a must for any tech lover.

@OHnewsroom: Or, overheard in the newsroom. Pretty much exactly what the name describes. Never more than one or two tweets a day but always funny.

@OGOchoCinco: Chad Joh...err Ochocinco updating everyone on Chad Ochocinco. As @slachapelle pointed out, the guy is a marketing machine. He is all over various social media applications.

@TheOnion: 2,000,000 followers means that I probably don't have to explain much. Still, a must. Tweets in small bunches. Wish they would tweet more often.

@nytimes: Very good news feed. Half dozen tweets a day.

@engadget: A lighter version of mashable that's more hardware centric.

@sportsguy33: Bill Simmons tweets a few times a day. Outside of the late Rodney Dangerfield, no one has a sense of humor that is a better fit for 140 characters.

This last one is a sleeper but he's a great guy doing very interesting stuff. Nice to have a friend who is living a dream and appreciates it at the same time.

@christianschauf: Musician, entrepreneur, and world traveler. The guy is going everywhere and taking pictures with his iPhone to show you the cool things he sees along the way.

Faithfully submitted by @twinco721

The Smart Phone

For the last decade there has been one major center for cell phone innovation: Japan. I recently read an article on the Japanese "smart phones" on the New York Times discussing why these phones haven't made it overseas yet. The Japanese are calling it "Galápagos syndrome." Their cell phones have evolved well past the point most of us use, which makes it difficult for Japanese companies to break into foreign markets when we think we have the "latest technology" in the iPhone. Truth be told, what the iPhone can do has been done by the Japanese for awhile now, the only difference being the lack of a touch screen (they tend to enjoy flip phones instead).

A few features not typically seen on phones anywhere else:
E-money (using the cell phone instead of a debit or credit card)
Tickets for public transportation
User identification via facial recognition and fingerprints.
Bar code scanning/advertisement scanning.
Television streaming (not Hulu or YouTube style, actual television)
Movie viewing
Video calling
AM/FM Radio
GPS
Live streaming video

There, it's more common to surf the internet with a cell phone instead of a computer. In the US, we frequently hear about how great it would be to have one device for everything. In Japan, there are few things they need any other device for. Once you start reaching past entertainment value with a cell phone to things that could be considered "necessity," the cell phone loses its status as a novelty item and becomes an essential. Why buy a nice computer for $1500 when you can buy a cell phone that does everything a computer can and then some (minus graphically intensive games) for $300? For me that answer is easy, I need a bigger screen for design work. But I think the average computer user who's not in front of one for 8 hours a day or just using word processing probably doesn't need a big screen.

Think of what this would mean for advertising, even for conferencing. For YouTube ads, for Facebook, Twitter, and blog interaction, internet needs to be available. For most people, that means a computer. In Japan, 100 million people have access to the internet at all times because their phones are with them. That's 100 million people you could connect with 24/7. Maybe we should start taking the hint over here.

Trust, Bad Plumbing, and Technology

We spent several days recently in Denver speaking with prospects, partners and one of our larger clients.

The focus of course was on Conferencing, On-line Meetings and Virtual Events. Our partners told us how their newest offering had additional features that clients needed and wanted. Our prospects told us how their web conferencing technology was giving them fits. Our client told us that the meeting technology we’ve been successfully supporting them with could not be used for a particular meeting because the presenter could not use a technology of one of her competitors – (as in Cisco’s everywhere).
About this same time in Minneapolis, my wife and I bought a new home; a slightly used 1932 Tudor. Plumbing was sure to be an issue as in “honey, water is filling up the basement”. We wanted to establish an ongoing relationship with a local plumber but what do we look for? Certainly the plumber needed to be bonded, licensed and have experience with older homes. But doesn’t that fit pretty much every plumber who sets up shop in the city.

Where’s the differentiator? Enter the couple who sold us the house – who coincidently live across the street and have done so since the 70’s. They had a long list of craftsman that they’ve worked with in the area for years. They spoke highly of service, of the response, about sticking with a problem until it’s fixed. Yes they were references giving testimonials but what they were talking about was trust; about the human aspect of the plumbing; nothing about pipes or elbows or copper; just conversations about people.

Back to Denver. It occurred to me that the partners we choose to team with will be chosen not because of pricing or a latest feature – sooner than later a competitor will have the same price and the same tool – but because the partner is committed to service, sticking with a customer challenge until it’s overcome. Our prospects complaints will not be fixed by the next best technology - although solid technology is a good starting point - but by solving the procedural and application challenges BEFORE the meeting takes place will help them shine. Our client requiring a different technical solution is not worried about the efficacy of a tool but about human perception and how she’ll be viewed by her colleagues and superiors if the name of her competitors shows up on a slide.

What really matters in the web conferencing and virtual worlds is the same as what matters in the physical world. People helping people achieve their goals and digging in to get it right. Whether the results are a successful on-line marketing meeting with jobs on the line or a plain old hot shower that just feels good - in the end it’s all about trustworthiness – a very non-technical term.

Ten Things I Am Thankful For This Thanksgiving

1. Our Customers! They allow us to pursue our passion everyday – to help them find new ways to leverage communications technologies productively & profitably!

2. A smart, responsive and driven team… the best in the conferencing and collaboration business.

3. Innovative companies that are creating the next generation of webinar and collaboration tools and, by doing so, re-energizing the industry.

4. Patient technology partners that help deliver special services.

5. Our friends/teammates in Hawaii – World Class Conferencing – who deliver GREAT Calls.

6. New technologies that help me to re-connect with dear friends.

7. My tennis buddies at Colonial … great competitors and even better people!

8. For pictures that take you back to a special place – Mr. Stepnick’s 5th Grade Class to be exact!

9. Cincinnati’s football teams and the Minnesota Vikings for making this football season a BLAST!

10. My father who is still teaching me things even 3 years after he passed away.

Where Do We Go Now?

Nothing like stealing a Guns N' Roses lyric for a blog title.

The reason I love my job is because I get to talk to people about something that I find interesting.

Human interaction is fascinating. What we say, why we say it, context, delivery...With every gesture, word, and breath we are communicating something fundamental about ourselves.

And sure, the people who cut us checks are usually only doing so because it helps them be more productive and therefor more profitable. But we are still taking someone's message and attempting to deliver it in the most effective way possible.

So we'll throw your phone in front of a audio receiver, flash a presentation to your audience's computer screen, and maybe prompt them with a question or two to gauge what they heard and saw.

(Pandora Update: Sweet Child O' Mine just started playing. This blog is fate.)

Yesterday, I sat in on another company's event today and while I am always impressed with any technology that pushes people towards virtual interaction and by companies who see its value, I was underwhelmed by the actual virtual aspect of it. It took me 20 minutes to retrofit my browser to support it, the look and feel seemed a decade old, and there was no social media integration whatsoever.

And again, these people are ahead of the curve.

But that's just yesterday. Today, I want to know where do we go now?

We are quickly approaching an interactive revolution that goes well beyond muted speakerphones and stale PowerPoint presos and there are two reasons why.

Primarily, and realize I am making myself vulnerable to an endless line a ridicule from my boss for this, non-native computer users are beginning to pack for their condos in Del Boca Vista Phase 2. As a younger generation of decision makers who grew up with an Apple IIe in their home assume control of annual reports that will be read by stockholders on their Playstation 3 in between monster sets on Rock Band 2, failing to deliver far reaching technical integration won't be an option.

Also, as advanced communication technologies both hard and soft become more cheap or free (read: subsidized by retailers), the enormous world population that doesn't have a computer and internet access will soon be filling out their Facebook profiles and tweeting about what it's like to live in places where only CNN dares to go.

So, again, where do we go now? We go from Belfast to Berlin at 7.2Mbps. Design to delivery in less than a week. Thought to trend in one push of a button. We go to a place where the world is connected via streaming audio and video, they talk in 140 characters or less, and no gesture, word, or breath gets lost in translation.

The Greenwash

We are currently victims of a greenwash. What is a greenwash? It's when we are constantly bombarded by products and brands that claim to be "green" and "eco-friendly." I'm not about to say that companies trying to be more sustainable is a bad thing, it's not. What I will say is that we don't know what "green" and "eco-friendly" actually mean. There's no standard, there's no real definition. Is a company allowed to brand themselves as "green" because they recycle all their used paper? Can a bottled water company be called green because they use 30% less plastic in their bottles, despite the other 70%?

The problem is there's no way to set a standard anymore. We could have at the beginning, but now "green" is almost a brand unto itself. It's too large, too amorphous, for any single entity to get a grasp of and bring under control. As consumers, the responsibility falls on us to be skeptical of companies throwing around those terms with wreckless abandon. We have to remember that, in the end, a company actively branding itself as "green" is doing so to get a leg up on the competition because it's what consumers want to hear right now. We need to look into the practices of those companies before we decide they can ethically label themselves as "eco-friendly."

Maybe it's also important to remember that no kind of consumption and purchasing is eco-friendly. It can only be less harmful.

So what does this mean for your company? Well, if you want to have a green policy make sure it's one that actually helps. Something that goes above and beyond recycling your office paper. Encourage (even require?) your employees to take public transportation. Use only enough electricity to power what you need, leave lights off and use natural lighting. Make sure your products don't have a lasting impact on the environment (stainless-steel is a good example of this. It lasts forever in the home, but bio-degrades in a reasonable amount of time in nature). Three times a year, have your office go plant trees to make up for the ones that were cut down for your paper. Three times a year, clean up the trash from your company's city.

If you're going to slap the green title onto your brand, make sure you deserve it. Otherwise you're just manipulating people.

Bravo-Luna-Oscar-Golf

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Have you ever been on a web conference where the material presented was so indispensable or interesting that you wanted to email the speaker and ask a couple of questions? So you sent a chat message asking for the speakers email address. The speaker saw your message and in the course of their closing comments they said, “Oh and if you want to reach me later and ask questions, my email address is “p” “smith” “at hotmail dot com”. There it is.

Your brain goes into gear and you propel yourself forward, (cause you were leaning back in your chair) to find a writing utensil and a scrap of paper. You can immediately find neither and you yelp. At this point a co-worker throws you a pen from across the way, you test it to make sure it writes on your hand and you begin to scribble…and you can’t remember exactly what the speaker said even though it was an easy one. “Smith” and “hotmail”, you’ve got that right for sure but the speaker’s first name initial is the problem. You don’t remember hearing it announced during the introduction. Did the speaker say B, D, E, G, P, or T? You are pretty sure it wasn’t Z.

You could either guess or you could send a note to 6 different email addresses and know you’ll get one right. The other 5 will probably forward your email address to an off-shore pharmaceutical corporation with a quick note saying you want to order two years worth of Viagra.

Variations on this scenario happen all the time in different telephony venues, not just web conferences. Getting letters correct has been a problem since we started communicating via radio and various militaries and international organizations have devised phonetic alphabets to make sure the message is received properly. Currently, many folks are using the NATO phonetic alphabet and speaker Smith could have saved you some spam mail if he had only said,”My email address is P as in papa, sierra, mike, India, tango, hotel at hotmail.com”. It would have been effortless, huh?

“Psmith” is an easy one. In my next blog, I’ll talk about what you should do if your email address isn’t so easy.

NATO Phonetics

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Web Conferencing, ROI and the Real Challenge

We attended the Wainhouse Research Conferencing Service Providers Summit in Boston a few weeks ago as guests of our good friends at Compunetix. (The session was well done – kudos to Marc Beattie and his team).

One statistic that caught our attention is termed the attach rate (AR): the ratio between audio conferencing minutes and web conferencing minutes. The current rate is 6% or for every 100 minutes of audio conferencing usage there are 6 minutes of web conferencing. The expectation is that AR will grow to 20% over the next several years. We are seeing this growth in our own base.

As you would expect, customers and conferencing providers are responding by focusing on the technologies supporting the projected growth. As important as that is, we take a slightly different view. Given that the technology works, the challenge for clients is integrating good business practices into the web conferencing decision and delivery processes.

Profitable companies spend money on products and services only after ROI, productivity, and customer satisfaction indicators are defined. In the virtual meeting and conferencing space we see marketing and operations’ budgets quietly draining valuable cash and resources. The expense of the audio and web conferencing technologies improperly matched to the need; internal administrative costs and headaches; potential brand damage of a badly managed meeting; and the general misuse of an operating asset are spilling dollars into the cloud.

And of course, CEO’s are generally too far away to hear the sucking sound. The shame is that by applying strategic business practices improvements can be significant. In budgets larger than $40K per month we estimate that a 30–50% improvement is achievable. Gains come from the analysis and reworking of audio – both reservationless and operator assisted; the definition and consolidation of web conferencing and presentation tools; the tightening of administration processes; and the integration with Social Media initiatives.

As increased web conferencing usage puts pressure on resources, organizations will need to recognize that web conferencing has become central to customer communications, brand outreach and operational efficiencies.

The Marketing Director’s Webinar Problem

I had coffee this morning with a marketing director at a rapidly growing med-tech company. She has a webinar problem. Here is an excerpt of our conversation:

“We set it (webinar) up and get lots of people to attend, but the presentation is a disaster. There is constant beeping on the phone lines and no one wants to “own” the delivery because they always mess it up and are embarrassed. Then, the responsibility is passed along to somebody new and they don’t want to do it because they are scared of screwing up. And, with our doctors’ time being so precious, the importance of delivering a well-run presentation just adds to the pressure. Ugh.”
~ Anonymous Marketing Director

The Internet and associated web-based social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In, are making webinars commonplace. The technical and economic justifications are clear, but executing a professional webinar is still beyond the grasp of many marketing organizations.

Execution – the elusive Holy Grail for marketing directors –keeps them up at night. Her primary concern is focused on her team’s ability (or lack thereof) to present its value proposition in a clear, concise package. Information needs to be conveyed in a “clean technological wrapper” in order to deliver the desired impact and credibility in our tech-savvy culture.

Get Ready For The Google Wave (The Other One)

I like Google but they scare the daylights out of me.

They pretty much run my computer, my phone, and seemingly the future of technology as a whole. Want to find something on the internet? Google it. Buy it? Google Checkout. Run your business? Google Apps. Want to consolidate phone numbers? Google Voice. Go somewhere? Google Maps.

Arguably this type of command of my virtual life should be reason enough to be afraid but something happened the other day that is far more terrifying. Just take a peek at the stock prices of Garmin (GRMN) and TomTom (TOM2.NX) after October 28th, the same day Google announced Google Maps Navigation.

Now, I have nothing particularly profound to say about the nature of business or, even more, about how this is a wonderful example of a free market based economy and how it helps consumers or how this is some cautionary tale of a big company unfairly flexing its muscles that should be government regulated.

What I will say is that today's business, especially technology based ones, should be aware of where Google is going. And the short answer is everywhere. Businesses that are still hoping to thrive as this happens need to figure out where value is defined outside of the technology itself.

Either that or don't be surprised if the next Google Wave wipes you out.

Gaming & Conference Marriage

There's a new kind of conferencing method that's been gaining steam over the last couple of years that involves 3D avatars in a virtual environment.

A lot of people can't see the draw to this. They would much rather meet at a conference in person than in a fake conference room because it's more personal. You can physically shake hands, trade business cards, and hold a conversation. You can also physically get on a cramped plane, wait for luggage, find a taxi, find a hotel, find decent food, report your expenses to corporate, and hope you get refunded in a reasonable amount of time. Some people enjoy those things, I know I enjoy traveling, but there are many who do not. Some people are just much more comfortable sitting at home or in the office. That's who this service is targeting.

There's a genre of games out there called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs, usually shortened to MMOs). These are games where thousands of people gather in one place in 3D avatar form in complete various challenges. The most popular of those games, and you've probably heard of it, is World of Warcraft. Some of you may be thinking, "Now hang on, aren't these games typically played by 40-somethings in their parents' basement? What role could they possibly have in our business?" That stereotype couldn't be more inaccurate now. People of every kind are playing these games, and if the 12 million current players of World of Warcraft alone are any indication of the playerbase, it's not those kind of people anymore. To give you a more concrete idea of how many people that is, it's over twice the population of our humble Minnesota. Granted, we're certainly not the most populated state in the US, but the point is the gaming community of World of Warcraft would be a formidably sized state. That's not including the huge playerbase of the other big MMOs: EVE Online (which actually targets CEOs for their playerbase), Guild Wars, Lineage, Aion, Final Fantasy XI, and Ragnarok Online.

A lot of the players from these rapidly growing games are between the ages of 14 and 30, and you can bet they would be perfectly willing to spend time in that 3D virtual conference space. It's something worth looking into, because in the future when most of your employees are made up of those people you might be able to save yourself the huge head-aches from organizing venues and transportation for guest speakers.

Media of the Regimes

A recent article on abcnews talks about the use (or abuse) of social media by governments, for the most part referring to Chinese, Iranian, Egyptian, and Russian governments.

My question is whether or not the author is aware that our own government is probably monitoring our use too. The difference is that we're still allowed full access to everything. I'm fairly certain if you posted in your Facebook or Twitter status that you were going to assassinate the president, they would know. I'm not going to spend this post talking about our own government's surveillance though, because that's a can of worms I don't want to get into.

Instead, let's talk about those other countries. Apparently, they're using social media to spread propaganda. I'm not sure I have a problem with that. It's their country, it will be run how they wish, and the people living there will believe what they want to believe. The only danger is that social media adds to propaganda what it does to advertising: an authentic and personal message. China is actually paying people approximately 50¢ per comment for that very reason. This has the potential to become a powerful brainwashing tool. But it won't.

Why? Because there are too many other people active in it. Even if countries block all tweets, status updates, and blogs from other countries they still have their own population to deal with. If the Iranian elections aren't an indication of the futile attempts of a government to bend national social media to their wishes I don't know what is. The entire time Iranians were tweeting about the horrible things happening there, government agents were attempting to subvert everything citizens said. It didn't work. Every time an agent tried to say a claim was false, they were immediately exposed by other users. The ratio for government to citizen users was not in their favor, and it never will be. Unless they can come up with a program that not only seeks out key phrases and finds the user responsible (which they do) but actually changes the user's posts, there's nothing to worry about. Even then there are work-arounds, and again I have to reference the Iranian election. Government officials were tracking down dissenters by checking up on their profile locations on Twitter, but users (including myself) helped thwart those efforts by changing our time zones and locations to the same place as the citizens (Tehran). This made it take 2, 3, 4 times as long to track down people they could actually do anything about.

In short, does it have the potential to turn scary? Yes. Will it? No. The internet belongs to the world's citizens, not governments, no matter how much regulation is imposed. They will not stand for being brainwashed.

One Bad Trip

About ten years ago, I hopped a Southwest flight from Chicago to Las Vegas. I spent most of the flight going back and forth with the passenger next to me making fun of our mutual airline of choice.

I'm sure we had some clever jarbs about the boarding system, the socially awkward "Who should I set next to" seat selection process, and how they only fly out of Midway Airport which is as conveniently located as Milwaukee.

But this weekend I picked up a remarkably affordable fare to Chicago and was really impressed by the entire experience.

The boarding process has been improved and is very quick. The flight attendants we're (as opposed to drones who seem to intentionally push drink carts into people's exposed appendages), and there wasn't that uncomfortable feeling that you might have paid twice as much for your ticket as the person next to you did for theirs.

As the major airlines seem to be grabbing at every consumer penny they can grab ($5 for what is essentially a cracker salad?), Southwest's booking system is clear, flexible, and reasonable.

I guess what's neat to see is that in an industry that is sinking towards the bottom, Southwest has shed the jokes and now has become a carrier of choice for vacationers and business travelers alike. The jokes are over, Southwest is now one of the bigs.

Keeping Up

While Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, and YouTube are essential parts of getting word of your company out into the world, here's a scary thought for you:

Every single one of them is old news.

As much hype as those sites are getting right now, they've been around for awhile. Twitter has been fully open since 2007. Facebook has been fully open since 2006. Blogger has been around since 1999. LinkedIn has been around since 2003. YouTube has been around since 2005. If you're starting now, these are not things you're on the cutting edge of. You are a part of the influx of people who, thanks to massive unintended promotion through news and entertainment, are just getting started because they see the value others have been capitalizing on for the last few years. While you're figuring out what needs to go in that valuable 140 character slot or managing wall post content for your Facebook page, other companies are investigating what's next.

How do you go about figuring out what's coming? Well, you have to pay attention and you have to invest time into research. You may find the newest media site, but have you looked at what that site offers? What does it do that Facebook and Twitter do not? Does it integrate everything all the other companies have into one space? If you manage to find a good place where you're one of the first hundred-thousand, even the first million, users you have that much more time to establish yourself as a valuable member of the community. In the sea of 300,000,000 Facebook users, it's hard to make an impression just starting out. In a group of 100,000 users of Site X, you can become a pillar.

A Sales Lesson from Ancient Art in a 2.0 World.

Stating the obvious - the selling landscape has changed driven by 2.0 and the universal access to information. In the past, a sales cycle was generally based on quid pro quo – I the selling party give a piece of information that I control about the benefits of a product and you the identified buying party allows me into your opportunity. Each step is orchestrated in such a way that each side holds information and opportunity until the next step. This cycle continued until either a deal was made or a no was given.

Today, buyers, often holding themselves stealthily anonymous, insist that detailed information be provided without expectations. They maintain control of the conversation, choosing how and when to proceed. The response is that selling organizations must first seek to help these faceless individuals and unknown companies by providing pertinent information in formats and with access acceptable to the buyer. There is no guarantee of reciprocation.

This leaves the seller with two options: either produce valuable information and drive targeted prospects known and unknown to the opportunity or attract opportunities by giving away price. Simple enough.

But the complexities of 2.0 makes the lesson hard to learn and even harder for many of us to believe. Companies, even those supposedly leading in the social media space, continue to struggle with quid pro quo vs. first let me help. (More in a later blog but think coffee wars - Starbucks vs. Caribou and not so free and free Wi-Fi).

Enter Michelangelo and friends. My wife and I visited the Minnesota Institute of Art (MIA) http://www.artsmia.org/ this weekend and enjoyed “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” , a tour of several dozen pieces on loan from the Louvre in Paris. A great event if you like that sort of stuff. Interesting as it is to see works from the masters, I was just as captivated in learning how a Midwestern museum was able to lure this event from the world renowned Louvre. (One of only two American museums to do so, the other being Atlanta High Museum http://www.high.org ).

Turns out helping without any real assurance of quid pro quo made the difference. Two things secured the “deal”. First, the MIA committed to building a top notch environmentally controlled exhibition space – don’t want any paint peeling off a 300 year old masterpiece. This investment clearly signaled a serious commitment and took off the table what must have been a serious hurdle (Looking and sounding like a sales process – don’t you think?). Second and most importantly, long before any tour was planned and with no quid pro quo expectations, the MIA was looking to help. As Louvre Director Henri Loyrette put it, “The Institute (MIA) has been very generous with lending to us over the years. It seemed time for us to do the same.” See related story here Star Tribune -

Simple enough – give to receive. A sales truth older than any masterpiece I saw Sunday.

An Open Note To Self

As a football fan and a perceived idiot by marketers, I saw the Motorola Droid commercial a good half dozen times this weekend. For people who aren't agoraphobes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPYM-XTqcec

HOLY MOLY! MY LIFE IS GOING TO BE MADE COMPLETE WITH THE ABILITY TO RUN MULTIPLE WIDGETS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DARK!!!

OK, of course I'm excited and of course I'm checking out every tech blog I know of to get a better look at the phone that took 2.33 major companies (Google, Verizon, and Motorola) three iterations of the iPhone to make.

But here's a little note to Apple, Google, AT&T, Verizon, Motorola, and pretty much everyone in the profiteering off the 21st Century Digital Boy age, start with probably the most important functionality that a communication device should have. Functionality.

Before everyone goes Double Live Gonzo! about new tech specs, hardware, software, shareware, Andre Ware...Give me a phone that makes calls from my basement so I can call my brother and ask him if I can borrow his tent to camp out for the new phone that will completely change my life.

Rules are Unconstitutional?

An article on MediaPostNews comments on the Interactive Advertising Bureau calling the new rules we blogged about here on Wednesday being unconstitutional, concerning the payment disclosure in particular.

The claim is that it's infringing first amendment rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. I can't agree with that. There's no interference from the government on what can and cannot be said on those blogs, they just require a little extra information. It should be noted that newspapers and other non-blog media do not require this same disclosure, and so the other part of the argument is that bloggers shouldn't be held to standards more stringent than those of other media. While I can agree that it's not fair, I still don't see a problem with it. The reason the rules are in place is because blogging is a single person making a review. Unless disclosed, the review becomes a testimonial from a member of the company's target market. The difference between a paid-off newspaper review and a blog review is the same as the difference between an infomercial testimonial and your friend telling you a product was great. The latter is far more valuable advertising. These new laws ensure both the newspaper and the blog sound like an infomercial when they should, and a genuine review when they should.

I can see why this could be a problem in some situations, it means that even if a product is amazing and a blogger says so but the reader can tell they've been paid the review has less weight. That's the way it should be though, because it's not an unbiased review anymore after payment. The laws are meant to protect the consumer from manipulative advertisers...and that's a good thing. As a graphic designer and advertiser myself, I know how manipulative the business can be. The fact of the matter is many, many people are easily swayed by advertising. Not many take a critical look at ads. These laws protect those people.

My general feeling is, if you have a quality product and it's getting any exposure anywhere, you're going to get business no matter what. If you have a terrible product and it's getting exposure, you shouldn't get business. Theses laws are a step to make sure the terrible products don't.

Bad Tweets

Socialmedia Today has an article up on Twitter cracking down on Recurring Tweets.

The important thing to remember here is that a Recurring Tweet is not to be confused with the Retweet. A Recurring Tweet is when you post the same thing multiple times per day, a Retweet is when you repost something someone else said.

I'm really happy with this decision. There's nothing more obnoxious than searching for a keyword only to find a company monopolozing the search page with recurring tweets. I remember searching for what people were saying about "District 9" a couple months back, only to be greeted with pages of people and companies tweet spamming their advertisements over and over with the #District9 attached. For those of you reading this who have used this strategy to market, either adding hashtags that have nothing to do with your tweet or using recurring tweets, there's a lesson on social media to be learned.

Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace, and Blogger are first and foremost social networking sites. They were not created as an advertising tool for companies to reach a large number of people quickly and efficiently. While we can (and indeed should!) use those mediums for those purposes, a line has to be drawn.

By using recurring tweets and unrelated hashtags, you are diminishing the networking experience. You are cheapening it, you are polluting it. Do not force your message onto people like that. Will you be noticed? Yes. Will it be good for your company? Not a chance. No one ever sees tweets like that and says,"Gee, I'm sure glad Company X took up my entire search page with advertising tweets." They say,"Really? You've gotta be ----ing me." You're only damaging your online reputation.

The solution is to instead become a contributing member of the community. Manually search for people who are tweeting about products you sell, ask them questions about their experience. Find people who are tweeting about problems with your competitors, let them know you exist. A little effort in social media goes a long way. It's supposed to be personal, stick with it.

There are a few technologies that have revolutionized life on this planet. Inventions like the automobile, the airplane, and the internet have changed the way humans live. At 3D, we adapt to the technological curve; therefore, we can provide our customers an award winning experience. We are constantly testing new and different approaches that have become available with the latest technological advances.

Recently I have been introduced to a new technology. This revolutionary idea has solidified itself amongst the greatest intellectual achievements of man-kind. The minds at 3D have been working together tirelessly to bring together state-of-the-art audio and the highest quality video to produce a top notch demonstration. Below you will find the future of conferencing which actually allows attendees to join the virtual environment.

So without further ado, I give you, JibJab:



Life as we know it may never be the same…

~ Kyle Jackson

Legal Blogging

The Blog Herald has created a solid article on how to blog legally. I'll outline some of the main points below:

Add a Disclosure Policy
Starting on December 1st all bloggers are required to give full disclosure concerning their relationships with companies they review. This is to ensure the public is not being deceived when they read a positive blog about a company; they know if the review has been influenced by pay or not. It's the same reason testimonials on TV are still branded with the company the testimonial is for, they've been paid.

Add Privacy Policy
If you're gathering contact information on the bloggers following you, let them know what you're using that information for. Not only is this common courtesy, it avoids legal issues if someone finds out you're using their information for something they don't want it used for. Just make sure it's in a clear, obvious place. If you feel guilty enough to have to tuck it away in small print somewhere, chances are you need to change your policy. Your followers will appreciate the honesty.

Add Trademark Clarifications
If your blog is set up to review a certain company's products and is using a name that could make it seem affiliated with that company (ex: AdobeBlogger), make sure it's clear that they have rights to some of the content on your blog. Be careful of using their trademarked name in your blog name, some companies will consider that infringement.

Add Copyright Policy
Make sure followers understand how your content is allowed to be used. Simply by creating the blog and hitting "Publish Post" you own all rights to its content. That said, if you're blogging chances are you want that information shared. Be sure it's clear how much you want to be shared. Can they copy paste your article and claim it as their own? Can they copy paste your article and give credit? Can they rewrite your article in their own words? Can they rewrite your article in their own words as long as credit is given? Can they only link to it? You have full control over all of those choices, you just have to make it clear.

Add Adult Content Disclosures
If your blog contains adult content, make sure that's clear and follows appropriate steps (ex: enter date of birth, if 18+ blog opens up). Also make sure your blog host is willing to have that information on their servers, it's their business space too.

All of these are easy, reasonable steps and will take all of fifteen minutes of company time to discuss. Make sure they're done, it'll save you big headaches later.

Death of Email?

The Wall Street Journal recently posted a blog about social media taking over email.

I can't see social media completely taking it over anytime soon. While web 2.0 certainly gives us faster communication, most people still want a separation between work and personal life. Using email allows for that separation. Your boss probably doesn't care that you're going on a walk with your dog after the 9-5, or that your kid lost her first tooth. He just wants to make sure you filed that TPS report while you were at work.

Email still feels more professional too. It's something that's composed for a specific message for one person, not many. As much as I enjoy and am actively participating in web 2.0, I'm not about to put a wall post on a strategic partner's wall to find out how they want their logo represented on our site. That belongs in an email. As an employer of a big company, you don't chastise an employee by sending them an @reply on Twitter, you email them or send a hard copy. There are just some conversations that don't belong in the social media sphere. The counter argument would be, "But Mitchell! Those services also have personal message systems that no one else can see!" True, but re-iterating the first point, most people want that work and personal life barrier. They're not going to friend their strategic partner or employer with a personal account.

Businesses Avoiding Social Media

According to Reuters:

"Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees."

The reasoning behind this is their concentration on running their business and ensuring it's fiscally sound. This makes perfect sense to me, because if you don't have a business to run you won't have any business to tweet about.

That said, it's still an important thing for those small business to figure out, especially if 75% of them aren't using it. On Twitter alone, if 25% of Twitter users are currently reached by 25% of small businesses, that leaves 40.5 million people who haven't been touched by possible competitors. I would say that's a demographic worth targeting.

Yes, it takes time and therefore money to run a business's social network especially if you want to cover all the bases. Most of that time, however, is spent figuring out how to navigate your way through the sites and deciding how to reach your audience. One that's established, it takes all of fifteen minutes a day to go through a routine on the basics (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin). High start up fee (lower if you have an employee who already knows how to work it all) with low maintenance cost. Even if you don't get direct business from those media sites, if you're staying an active and participating member of the communities you're getting exposure. Arguably, half the struggle of a small company is becoming known to begin with. There's not enough money to run commercials, radio spots, or print ads...but social media costs nothing except time. I would say that makes social media a pretty great investment.

More Media Banning

According to Computerworld:

"About 54% of U.S. workplaces don't allow social networking, a study finds, while an additional 19% grant access solely for business use. Just 10% of the 1,400 chief information officers surveyed by an IT staffing firm provided full access to social media at work. The executives said they were concerned the tools would distract workers."

I'm not sure how I feel about 54% of workplaces preventing social media access. I can definitely see why, a quick check to see what's happening on Facebook could easily lead to getting paid to message friends for 30 minutes. On the other hand, it seems to me that employees should have enough work to get done that it's a non-issue. I don't know anyone addicted enough to social media to risk getting fired because they didn't meet their quota but absolutely had to arrange a Friday night party during work hours. If a company doesn't have enough work to keep them busy for the 8 hours a day they're there, should they even be at work? I know that's how my jobs have handled things, if they don't have work for me to do I don't come in. My hours are scheduled to fit the work load. It's that easy. I don't waste time twiddling my thumbs, and the company doesn't pay me to do it. If it's a job where waiting on calls or customers is a necessity...well then why not allow social media access? It's a way to pass the time. It may not be productive but if a company has designated an employee a task and visiting those sites doesn't hinder their performance, why block them? What's the difference between getting paid to stare out a window or read a book, and getting paid to tweet?

There's the question of breaks too, isn't what an employee does during their lunch hour their own business, as long as it's nothing illegal and nothing hurting the company? Why should they be blocked from checking in on what a friend did over the weekend on their own time?

I'm not about to, nor am I prepared to, argue that there are benefits to the standard worker using personal Facebook or Twitter accounts on company time for personal reasons. The question is whether or not it's actually harmful. If employee distraction is that big of a concern, maybe something more important than blocking social media needs to change.

The Joys of Video Editing

Recently I was assigned to produce ‘something’ that demonstrates to customers the value and capabilities of 3dve. Like a bolt of lightning, inspiration hit me in the middle of the night. For two hours I couldn’t stop writing as I planned my new bouncing baby… video.

I worked tirelessly for the next week to try and give some sort of tangible figure to my idea. And finally I stood proud (ok so maybe I was a sitting) as I demonstrated my new ‘baby’ to the team at 3dve. It was a smash hit, but certain things needed to be changed.

“It’s too long” “It’s too fast” “It’s a little overwhelming” “The colors are wrong” “You’re using the wrong type face” “Outro is too wordy” “The graphics aren’t updated” And my favorite: “Can you chop it up so I don’t have to watch the whole thing?”

WHAT?! You want me to chop up my baby?! It’s only 3 minutes long!! (That’s 15 inches in Camtasia)

Anyways, I continued to work on my baby, and produced several version only to find out that something else wasn’t quite right, the opening shots were confusing, then the transitions were a little choppy… But I pushed towards perfection, and it gives me great pleasure to present it to you here.

But please be gentle, I don’t want to ruin that new baby smell.

- Kyle Jackson

Multiple Presenters

Got more than one presenter? Get thee hence to separate locations where you can each use a land line phone with a headset. If that’s the only thing you get from this blog, then my work here is done.

Since you paid attention, you are now co-presenting with someone in a different physical location. Get together and check each other's audio quality as you practice your presentation. Then, just before the event starts, have a third party give input on your sound levels. You want both voices to be at similar volume. Maybe one of you backs off your microphone a wee bit to keep the levels balanced. Then stay put.

If you must sit in a conference room together, do your sound checks for volume levels. Not everyone talks at the same volume and level of projection. Move the speaker phone so you get similar levels from each speaker while still maintaining quality sound. This is easier to accomplish around a round table instead of an oblong table unless you have a sophisticated conferencing room with precision setups that will accommodate multiple conferencing requirements.

You might have to snuggle up a bit to make sure that everyone is heard or consider playing musical chairs moving the louder speakers further away from the speakerphone. Keep the speakerphone as far away from the overhead projector as you can. I understand, that is sometimes impossible when you are trying to keep the speaker phone in the middle of a table and once again I say unto you...Get thee hence to separate locations where you can each use an old reliable land line phone with a headset. Who knew this could be a subject that would wax biblical? The beauty of web conferencing technology is that we don't have to be all in the same location. So enjoy that freedom.

Speakerphone Cons

Avoid using a speaker phone if you can when you are speaking over a web conference. I've heard many presenters claim that they must use their speaker phone so they can keep their hands free to run their computer in the web conference...please read my previsous blog on using a headset.

If you must use a speaker phone, you will have to be very careful as ambient room noise can be picked up by a speaker phone and magnified for your listeners 10-fold. Do a sound level check with your body location in relation to the speaker phone and then don't move the phone. If you slide the phone, or even bump it, your listeners will get a rude noise. Turn your cell phone off. I was recently on a conference where the speaker turned his cell phone to vibrate and then sat it on the table next to his speaker phone. You guessed it, the cell phone went off and although the speaker only heard his normal vibrate noise, we thought we were being buzzed into a high rise apartment building.

There are as many old speaker phones in use today as there are contestants who don't make it to Hollywood at the American Idol auditions. If it ain't broken, don't have to buy a new one, right? Not true in this case. Speaker phone technology gets better every year and old technology gets older every year. Small single microphones that don't pick up audio evenly from all directions which transmit low fidelity sound can dull what was otherwise a shining presentation.

Are your presentation notes sitting right in front of you with a nice staple in the upper left corner and as you go from slide to slide, you are going to flip the top page over to the back? Be careful. That particular action is frequently picked up by the speaker phone. Here’s how you avoid this: First, don't staple your stack of papers. Then slide the top sheet noiselessly off to the left. If you’ve read my previous blogs you’ll know that I also want you to sit with good posture in your chair, holding your head upright and speak in a relaxed professional but conversational manner which mean you shouldn’t be reading a script right off your notes anyway but if you absolutely have to have notes, use the above method of moving through your papers.

Presentation Tips

Look around where you are presenting from and pay attention to the background noise. Is there any chance that some of that background noise might erupt into something loud close by that will transmit over your conference? Doorbells, overhead announcements, laughing co-workers, barking Schnauzers? Have you turned off your Call-Waiting? If another call comes in while you are speaking, will your phone make a beep or emit a short ring?

We’ve talked about sitting while you present but you should also try to maintain good posture while you are presenting. I know it sounds crazy, but sitting in a lazy position encourages you voice to be lazy. You will slur your words more if you slump. Sit with your back straight but be comfortable so you can also sound relaxed. You want to be able to speak in a normal conversational business-like manner, just as if you were sitting at a conference table. Notice I said “conversational”. The most frequent follow-up comment that I field from post-event surveys is: The speaker sounded like he was reading a script he had never read before. Are you reading a script that you have never read before? We’ll discuss this in more detail in a later blog but for now, make sure you have water accessible. Speaking while nervous increases dry mouth and you want to be prepared if you really need to take a drink.

Try to arrive in your web conference 15 minutes early so you don’t feel rushed, thus increasing any nervousness you might feel. I’ve read articles that suggest that fear of public speaking ranks right up there with fear of death. I’m not a psychologist but I’ve sat in on literally hundreds of web conferences and more than 60% of the time, I can hear nervousness in the voice of the speaker.
In a web conference, the speaker is usually sitting in a familiar location with familiar equipment talking to the air. Why are you nervous? I would love to hear back from anyone who wants to tell me why they are nervous. Click here to send me a note and I’ll review some of your comments in a future blog.

While I'm Not For Bigger Government...

I think someone needs to start regulating corporate usage of the term Customer Service.

Two issues in 24 hours.

1. I upgraded from an old Playstation 3 to the a Playstation 3 Slim. As someone who has bought computers and switched purchased content like iTunes from the old computer to the new one, I was stunned to learn that it is darn near impossible to transfer purchases between consoles. After hours searching the internet for answers, I found one that put me directly into Sony's customer service cross-hairs. After being told numerous times that there was nothing they could do and that they couldn't wait for my system to update because they had "other people to help", I was defacto hung up on and am now determined that I will simply return the new system to the store.

2. I needed to replace an optical drive for a company computer because the one that was sold with the computer was D.O.P. (dead on purchase). Kyle, our tech support, started a service file and simply needed my to call to authorize the credit card deposit (don't get me started on why I have to put a deposit on a new drive that they will hold until they get the defective one back).

To refocus, they needed a credit card authorization and a ship to address for an existing service file.

20 MINUTES.

Customer service is tough from a management perspective. You can invest heavily in great people who take pride in helping customers find the right answer or you can see it as an obligation with low ROI and accept that miserable service is equally miserable to that of your competition.

I feel very fortunate to work with customer service people like Shelly and Kyle. Unlike Sony or Lenovo, they take pride in helping people, not just answering the phone.

Getting Quality Audio

What's the best practice? In my opinion, get yourself on a land line. I know, I know, I love technology too. I work for a technology company and when other girls were sleeping with stuffed animals I was sleeping with my Atari but the analog telephone line it is still the most affordable, best quality audio for presenting over the Internet. It is widely and easily available in every remote part of this country and most countries of the world. If you don't have Alexander Graham Bell's brain child sitting at your conference location, go to a place where you can use one.

Then get yourself a good quality headset. In fact, round up a couple and test them to see which has the clearest sound. Borrow one from a friend who sounds really good when they call you. If you can't find a wireless headset with good quality, there is no shame in using one with a wire. It's not sexy and you don't get to walk around but that's actually a good thing. Wait, let me rephrase that, it's good to be sexy but it's not good to walk around while you are presenting.

Walking around encourages head movement which causes static on the line. Sometimes it's slight, most times it's noticeable. Waking also increases the chance that you will pick up odd and various room noises. As you walk closer to an air conditioner, ceiling fan, desk lamp, overhead projector, you pick up room noise and it may be slight but as it goes in and out with your walking action, it can be distracting. Find a comfortable chair that doesn't squeak in a quiet location and sit down to present.

Ever lost your headset in mid-sentence? You know, you are walking around, wildly gesturing with your hands, really into telling a great story and all of the sudden your headset goes flying off? For me, it’s the twisting in my chair. I use a wired headset because I prefer the consistent sound quality and sometimes when I turn my chair, the arm rest catches the cord and rips the device right off my head. See, when I tell you about things that can go wrong, I speak with a lot of experience.

The Brand

It's a heavy word, "brand," and it should be. It's a very involved subject. For most people, however, it's a nebulous one. The two most common associations with branding are the company logo and the company slogan or tagline. Now, while these are very important parts of the brand it's really only the tip of the iceberg. A brand is not the print collateral, it's not the website, it's not the products. It encompasses all those things, it uses those as vehicles to spread the brand, but they're not the brand itself.

A brand is an idea, a feeling, that is produced through the look, behavior, and level of product quality a company has. The brand lets customers know what kind of entity they're dealing with; is it a large corporate entity or a grassroots company? Does it take itself really seriously, or is it more casual? These decisions are made by identifying the target market. A successful brand immediately caters to the target market with every piece of identity the company outputs. It's not something that grows into the market over time, it entrenches itself in the middle and spreads. Nothing makes that more clear than the marketing shift to web 2.0 over the last seven years.

The purpose of web 2.0 on the advertising level is much the same as it is on a personal level. It's meant to connect with other people. The company that wants to annoy their potential customers will take this as an opportunity to spam them with offers and information across all social sites, damaging their brand identity's reputation. The intelligent company will make available, not necessarily send out, information that other people want to have. After potential customers have been hooked in by that information and are actively following the company, it can start sending out more information on their actual services because the customers become curious enough to ask for it. This ensures the brand stays healthly because the company has more to offer than products and services, it becomes a valuable part of the web 2.0 community.

Importance of Audio

How much do you think about audio when you are planning a conferencing event? You might spend days working on the PowerPoint and fine tuning dancing animations that introduce key points with movement and flair. You might type your whole script into the PowerPoint Notes field and do a spell and sentence check to make sure you have conveyed your text in a grammatically correct manner. You might read your speech to yourself, to your cat or to a co-worker that owes you a favor to try different phrasing techniques. You might practice in a conference room with co-presenters fine tuning details of who is going to speak when so it appears that you are bouncing things off one another in a natural manner. But did you do a sound check with the audio equipment you will use for your conference?

Phones are ubiquitous and we always assume when we turn the thing on, we are going to hear that, oh so familiar, dial tone. We love the phone because POTS always worked. It worked when you couldn't find your Mom after school, it worked when you were hungry and there was no pizza in the refrigerator and it even worked when the electricity went out. Even after we all got cell phones and experienced cell signals that cut out during very important communication moments, that didn't lessen our love affair.

And because love is blind, we have become very accepting of poor cell phone signals, cheap Bluetooth devices, dusty old speakerphones and soft phones that produce delays because our computer resources can't do VoIP and receive a fax at the same time. It's one thing to be accepting of this when we are having a casual conversation but when you are making a professional presentation you should tie that package up in a bow of the best sounding audio you can arrange.

Humming Phones

This week my phone developed a hum. Humming on the line is annoying to the person you are calling but they can always hang up. After a couple of hours listening to the hum, I felt like I was part of a sensory overload experiment. I heard humming even when I wasn't on the phone. I hear humming right now, as a matter of fact.

I thought it might be the equipment, so I tested using a different phone and I still heard the hum. Then I called the phone company and asked them to test my line for noise. The recorded message (that I could barely hear over the hum) told me that they would have a service technician contact me before 5 pm the following day. I limped through the next two days, borrowing other people's phones (it's a good way to find out who is a germaphobe), burning up minutes on my cell phone (I have figured out that my earrings can activate the mute button on my Blackberry touch screen) and begging my callers to please be patient, the phone company is coming to the rescue before 5 pm. At 4:49 pm, the phone company arrived and after a few minutes, I learned that my line was fine and I had two bad phones. At least I've got a new phone on order now.

So, why did I make you sit through this tale of telephony woe? To introduce the subject of audio quality on your web conference. I’ll spend my next few blog entries talking about audio and how you can take some small steps that will make a big difference.

The Twitter Engine

I will preface this by writing that it was late Saturday (actually early Sunday) and I am embarrassed that this is what passes for conversation amongst my group of friends but...

I was enjoying one of my final cocktails of the evening when the topic of Twitter came up. My friends, who I will identify by their cell phone models, iPhone 3G and Palm Centro both agreed that Twitter was pointless.

"Who cares what I am doing at 2:30 PM on a Thursday" Palm Centro blurted out.

This seems to be the most regular anti-Twitter sentiment that I encounter. The hardest part for a Twitter user like myself to admit is that they're right.

However, Twitter's real opportunity is to become the broadest reaching, most current search engine in the world.

Twitter has users at every ground zero around the world. Whether you interest is finance, fashion, or fishing, Twitter has users on trading floors, runways, and your nearest lake ready to tell you in less than 140 characters what you want to know.

Tips and Tricks to Help Your Computer Run WebEx

Kyle Jackson says:

We’ve all seen these tips and tricks things. They are almost always too wordy. So you end up sifting through the endless bloviation of some emotionless, and surely monotone, engineer from the other side of the planet, just to find out, that this Tips and Tricks Guide doesn’t apply to your OS… how lame. So here is my answer to this problem. Cadence. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how easily this rhyme sticks in your head, and how effective it really is. And for those of you soulless individuals who don’t like fun, I have a more traditionally Tips and Tricks Guide below this short rhyme. Enjoy!

Here are some tips, and you shall soon see. How to keep from being an Eye Dee Ten Tee*.

But first I must know something from thee. Do you click on a fox, or a big blue ‘E’?

Avoid the fox, or some graphics look bad. Foxes make those in Bangladesh** mad.

Fox virus protection makes IT guys glad. But missing the meeting will make you feel sad.

Close down all programs, but don’t be bitter. After the conference, you can return to Twitter

Once all is closed, click on the big blue ‘E’. Then tools, Internet options, look for browsing history

It’s easy to find, this page is short and sweet. Now click on the box that says “delete”.

Deleting it all might take a while, at least delete all temporary internet files.

We’re not quite ready or done with this rhyme. Go back one screen, and click “settings” this time.

Half way down the page is a little white square. For IE 7 or 8, put a “50” in there.

For IE 6, put 500 in the box, but no really knows when it comes to the fox.

Listen to me, and not Justin Long, if you use a Mac, stuff will load wrong.

I agree with you that Microsoft’s evil, but it’s like when Frodo had to trust Sméagol.

So take my advice and do it my way. You’ll only have to use it for one hour today.

My final hint, don’t be a slacker; the host will watch you on the attention tracker!

*Eye Dee Ten Tee = “I D 10 T” spelled out. For further definition, remove spaces, ID10T.

** Bangladesh is where WebEx’s Tech support call center is located

WebEx Web Conferencing Attendee Tips
1 - Use Internet Explorer as your Browser. You can attend a meeting using Fire Fox or Safari, but sometimes odd problems arise. WebEx was designed to run on a Windows OS using IE as your browser. Firefox users don’t always see graphics properly and MAC users can’t Host a meeting with full functionality.

2 - Save and close all unnecessary applications before launching WebEx. This includes any email programs. WebEx runs cleaner and faster if it has all of your computer resources free and available; this is especially important if your Host is sharing Applications or the Internet.

3 – Clean out your cache memory. Open Internet Explorer, select your tools menu, and select Internet options. Under “Browsing History” select “delete”. If another screen appears, check the box “delete Temporary Internet Files”. Then click on “OK”.

4 – Have enough memory allowed for cache memory. Click ‘tools’ ‘internet options’ and look for the section titled ‘browsing history’ and select ‘settings’. Half way down this window is a little white box. For IE 6, enter at least 500 mg, and for IE 7 or 8, enter 50 mg,

5 – What if your meeting is unavailable? If the meeting is not available to join wait a few moments, and refresh your screen. The meeting may not be accessible until the Host starts the meeting.

6 – Leaving a Meeting. You click on the “File” menu located in the upper left hand corner of your screen and select “Leave meeting”.

History Lesson

What's in a name? 3DVE used to be called 3D Conferencing. The history behind this is fascinating...at least the way I embellish it is. The original company was started by two gentlemen whose first names both started with the letter "D". But, calling your company 2D in this century means you are either really out of touch or you have a serious Southpark addiction. By the way, here's an artist's rendering of me done by the artist James Whalen of Hawaii which in no way indicates that some of us really are addicted to Southpark.



Further introspective thought by the founding fathers to establish their goals for the new company gave them the concepts of "Defining", "Designing" and "Delivering" virtual conferencing for their customer. DEFINE - Help the customer understand what they are trying to accomplish and offer them options as to how they can painlessly achieve their goals. DESIGN - Customize a Solution. Establish roles and responsibilities. Put into place the technologies and people that can meet and exceed the needs of the customer. DELIVER - a world-class conference, meeting, webinar or virtual event that makes the customer look good. Voila! - 3D Conferencing. The name was all about service and had nothing to do with the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify a shape. Then again, I could tell you about how the founders conceptualized that we are offering multiple dimensions of conferencing and merging different synchronistic technologies into a seamless orchestration of communication medias which are independent of the physical boundaries we exist in. Or, I could tell you that a third guy whose name also began with "D" joined the partnership. The truth is actually, all of the above and it was a delightful serendipitous confirmation that the start-up company was on the right track.

Fast forward to now and our recent name change from 3D Conferencing to 3D Virtual Events (3DVE). It's time for a change. We still do conferencing but our forte has blossomed into the high-touch virtual events that our customers need to make the right impression, at the right time in a professional, worry-free manner. I'll talk more about how we accomplish this in future blogs.

I like the change because our new name says so much by saying so little.

21st Century Digital Boy

I really like technology. I buy approximately one computer a year, I am on my third iPhone, I’ve owned countless BlackBerrys, and I spend most of free (and a good amount of work) time researching what will be next.

But good luck trying to contact me on any of them because as much as I love them all, their specs, features, applications, and accessories, they all just bring me somewhere I’m terrified of going.

Yes. I really like technology but I am afraid of the virtual world.

It’s endless in size, hard to understand, and not always friendly. I guess it’s similar to an exchange student from Denmark.

It’s also always reinventing itself almost every day, creating more content, more places to sync with other places requiring another username and password to remember only to forget.

I’d simplify if I just knew where to start. Somewhere I could be stay informed without a half dozen e-mail addresses. A place that doesn’t require bribing an IT guy to set up my phone. A world where people I haven’t talked to in 10 years aren’t considered “Friends”.

Maybe my iPhone has an App for that.

Everyday

I recently discovered the YouTube video Everyday. You may have seen it used or reproduced in car commercials before, though I can't for the life of me imagine why. It's taking something very personal, the aging of a single man, and twisting it into a cheap ad. I'm not sure why car companies feel the need to tug heartstrings when showing their commercials, considering the majority of feeling you get in a vehicle is frustration from rush hour traffic.

Anyway, I thought the video was amazing. Following to his site, I looked at the most recent photos he's taken over the last three years. Apparently, Kalina plans on continuing the pictures until the day he dies, uploading a new video on the tenth anniversary and every five years following. Assuming he lives a life free of fatal accidents, this will be a truly inspiring piece of work. Already, even after a mere nine years, it's an astounding piece. To see someone age with the same gradation we would see from friends and family makes the viewer feel like they've always known Kalina, and knowing he's actually a stranger makes it all the more interesting. If you've never heard of it before, even if you have, check him out.

Face Bags

The Onion recently reported on a new line of fast food products where the consumer eats his/her meal by strapping a bag of pulverized food to his/her face.

If you aren't already aware, the Onion is a satirical "news" station (originally just a paper) that writes fake stories for entertainment. The thing is, I can guarantee you a think tank in the US has considered this a viable marketing option. If ever rising obesity rates are any indication, I can see us getting to this point (are we already there?) more quickly than I'd like to admit.

This problem goes well beyond food, it involves laziness in general. If society thinks something is too hard, too time consuming, or not immediate enough, someone will create a solution and capitalize on it. The question is, where is the line drawn? When we're the floating blob people from Wall-E? When do responsible marketers and inventors need to say, "You know what? I don't need a robot to zoom around my house and vacuum my floors,"? Just something for everyone in such positions to think about.

When do you consider our well being over your pocketbook?

Tweeting Marines

The Marines have just passed a ban on Web 2.0 use for a year. Their reasoning? Tweets, status updates, and YouTube videos could be compromising soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can see how this might be a problem, YouTube videos in particular. If the enemy could take a small amount of information from a large number of Marines they might be able to piece together things like location, numbers, equipment, etc. Knowing any of this information could be extremely detrimental to Marine operations.

That said, all internet usage by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is already monitered. There are restrictions on what can and cannot be shared, and consequences to face if that information is leaked. Could this Web 2.0 ban be to simply divert resources that have been keeping tabs on Marine social sites into something more constructive? I doubt it's a single soldier in a tent watching over all incoming and outgoing messages, there must be teams of people at work. I can agree, it certainly seems like a better use of resources to have them doing something else.

Still, we get a lot of information directly from soldiers right now. Very little of it, if any, could be used by the enemy to procure game changing information. What we get from them is unadulterated news, something untouched by US news outlets. I think we can all agree that kind of honesty is hard to come by when news stations feel the need to put a positive or negative spin on an event.

Web 2.0 also allows citizens to keep track of loved ones in the field. I have a friend in the Army who uses Facebook freqently to keep all of us up to date on what life is like in Iraq and, most importantly, whether or not he's still alive. I suppose I could live if I didn't have daily knowledge of his health, but without Web 2.0 I wouldn't have monthly (or even yearly!) knowledge of how he's doing.

This is ground the Marine decision makers are going to have to tread carefully. I can't imagine the soldiers are happy about it, much less their loved ones. We'll probably hear more about this in the near future.

So It Begins

Here we have the first post of hundreds to come. The four of us (Richard, D., Tommy, and myself) will be bringing you various news, a lot of it pertaining to 3dve, some of it not. The goal here is to keep both you and us entertained and/or informed about the world's goings-on from our desks to yours every morning. As much as we love what we do here at 3dve let's face it, there's a lot more to life than work. With that said, let's start out with something on the lighter side:


Copyright Lawrence Yang, 2009. Check out his blog here.