Starting Up Again

Here's what's going on ladies and gents. We're looking at starting this thing up again. We've done a lot of research on what people want to read on a blog. We've been to countless professional sources and "social media gurus" concerning how to structure our content. We've come to one conclusion:

We care a lot more about what you say you want to read.

So let us know! If you comment here by clicking the post title and tell us what you expect to read when you click our blog link, we'll see if we can make it happen.

iPad First Impressions: Point Counterpoint

The purpose of the majority of new devices is to replace or revolutionize a pre-existing object. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly the iPad is replacing.

Let's look at some of the highlights Apple gives and compare them to what's already out there.

LED Backlit Display: Currently on all Apple Products, including the iPod Touch and iPhone. The iPod sports a 9.7", larger than the iPod Touch and iPhone, smaller than any Apple computer. Nothing new.

Multitouch: Currently on the Macbook Pro track pad, Macbook Air track pad, Apple Magic Mouse, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Also nothing new.

A thin and light computer: Macbook Air, iPod Touch, iPhone. Nothing new.

10 hours of battery life: An improvement! One hour more than the average Apple Product.

Wireless: Available on all Apple computers, the iPod Touch, and the iPhone.

3G Network: Available on the iPhone.

Apps: Available on the iPhone and iPod Touch


Those are all the major design highlights given on Apple's site for the iPad. Notice something very important: the only thing the iPad has that no other Apple product has is a better battery.

Right now the iPad seems to occupy a technology space somewhere between a laptop and an iPhone. That's nice and all, but it's like having an 18" long ruler. It can measure as well as a 12" ruler with some additional inches, but it's a pain to carry and it'll never be able to effectively measure as much as a tape measure can.

Another major problem (granted, this exists on all Apple hand-helds at the moment) is the lack of Flash Player thanks to Apple's fight with Adobe. Apple likes to tote the iPad's video playing capabilities on that wonderful LED Backlit Display. Great, so you've got YouTube and any movies you might have hacked for iTunes or downloaded. What about the millions of non-YouTube videos like Hulu? That's another topic entirely, but you get my drift.

Bottom line: overpriced, oversized iPhone that can't make calls and would rather be a laptop but it can't because it can only run one app at a time.

The Bold Claims of Viral Mail

Who starts this stuff anyway?

I got two new viral emails this morning. You know the type, they are full of either tips and tricks using common household products or nonsense factoids that are supposed to amaze and astound. Mostly I just get mildly annoyed. It’s like sitting next to Cliff Clavin. Ten years ago, the norm was that I would get a whole bunch of these from people who had just gotten their first email account. Then those people would get a bunch in their Inbox, they would realize how annoying these can be and they would stop forwarding to me It was part of the Circle of Life.

Now with email being as ubiquitous as junk mail being delivered by your postal carrier and with the general hatred of junk mail that we all seem to share, it boggles my mind that people still forward some of these old chestnuts around and around and around.

Do people really read these things or do they just look at the top line and say, “I’ll forward this on to everyone I know because I think it will help alleviate some of the stress in their shallow lives”? OR maybe they look at the top line and they say, “I’ll forward this on to everyone I want to annoy today”? Hey, I got two this morning!

I actually opened and read mine this morning just so I could debunk and make fun of the content and I read some really amazing stuff. How about this one: Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. Can this be true? How can this be measured? How can I be measured? How do we measure intelligence? How do we define intelligence? Is having intelligence different than being intelligent? How is a baseline established to determine if someone is high or low on their zinc/copper levels? If you are below the baseline are you automatically dumb? Or just dumber? What If I’m high on zinc and low on copper? What if I go bald?

Ok, time for some research here. I spent a couple of hours digging around on the Internet and I think I’m now an expert. Here are my ultra scientific conclusions: Apparently you need both copper and zinc (in the proper proportion) for good health. Too high copper, you have health issues, too high zinc, you have health issues, not enough zinc, you have health issues, not enough copper, you have health issues. You can measure short-term high exposure in the blood, urine and feces and long-term high exposure in the hair and that's bad.

If you have high levels of zinc and copper in your hair, you are probably a hyper-active, paranoid schizophrenic with severe PMS, acne, headaches and white spots under your fingernails. You could soon suffer from panic disorders and hallucinations while struggling with nephrosis. You may be at higher risk for leukemia, anemia, hyperthyroidism, myocardial infarction and hemochromatosis! You also could be highly intelligent but it's not related.

Not enough zinc and copper in your hair and you open the crazy emails that your evil friends send you and you actually investigate the claims (which seem ridiculas on the surface) wasting away hours of valuable time which could be spent on Twitter or Facebook. Clearly, a sign of being less intelligent.

~ Shelly Yergensen

Video in the Virtual

The ongoing drive to the ubiquity of video communications is often seen as a technology play. User based services such as You Tube and UStream; the technologies of industry leaders such as Cisco and Polycom’s TelepPresence; and, the eventual video access of the iPad certainly have the WOW that piques our interest.

The real driver though lies not in the picture but in the very human need to remove barriers to understanding – it is the never ending quest to approach the reality of same space interaction.

Video – in ways audio alone cannot provide – allows us to duplicate more closely the visceral experience that drives our emotions which in turn moves our perception and ultimately our decision making.

The video genie is out and as the world’s infrastructure continues to evolve visual communications will change, in unforeseen ways, how we see the world and our roles in it.

~ Rich Scorza, Executive Vice President of Sales

Tax Day=Annual Scorecard

Every year at “tax time,” small business owners and entrepreneurs find ourselves writing checks to our friends at the state and federal government. Some years (like this one) they are smaller than others. Unfortunately, this does not mean we found a new “loophole,” but rather, it means one of two things:

1. We spent the year re-investing in our business to make it stronger in the long-term, or

2. Our business did not perform as well as we expected it would.

Conventional wisdom suggests that small business owners and entrepreneurs make lots more money than they report on their taxes and that they are very good at hiding their “real” income by running it through their businesses. While there are some that are well-versed at “gaming the system,” most of us are focused on scrapping for new business and looking for a) new ways to add value for our customers; b) pinch pennies to boost our slim margins; and c) keep our employees and families happy while we juggle multiple responsibilities to maintain our independence and keep our dream alive.

Our egos drive us to find ways to keep our business moving forward even when our bank accounts ask us why. We take on a multitude of personnel and financial liabilities in the belief that there is “Gold” at the end of the rainbow (full disclosure, I graduated in 1987 when Spandau Ballet was cool and their song Uncle Sam True was a “hit”). Believe it…

Selling yourself, your team and your business value are the order of every day. And, like most things in life the rewards come in small doses often times when you least expect them. These range from a new business opportunity with a long-time business contact, a phone call out-of-the-blue from a long-time prospect or a completely new business opportunity within an existing customer.

But, on Tax Day, reality is front and center. Good times are rewarded with large tax bills and lean times are met with mixed emotions… smaller payments to Uncle Sam, and more conservative financial behavior.

Have fun at your local Tea Party!

Microsoft vs Apple, Round 2

Microsoft is, once again, trying to break into a market a little too late. They have a new phone in development with the project code-name "Pink." The purpose of this phone? To allow fast, efficient access to social media. This would have been a good idea around three years ago when the iPhone was released to allow some kind of competition, but right now it seems to be Zune vs iPod again. There are millions of consumers who know exactly what an iPod is, but have never heard the word "Zune" in their lives. Why? Because Microsoft tried to break into a market Apple already had locked down.

The iPhone, the iTouch, and the iPad all have apps that allow the same kind of access to social media Microsoft is talking about. Apple has three years of product development on them, and that's even mentioning the plethora of smart phones out there offered by other giants (Google's Nexus One, for example) Microsoft has to compete with. It's true that the Zune already offers social media support, but that's not the same as integrating it into a phone.

Microsoft seems to be continually looking at what other companies are doing and simply re-packaging their products (Windows 7 feels very much like Snow Leopard, for example). They need to start innovating or they're going to be taken over very quickly, if it's not too late already.

Statement Of Purpose & Dedication

Given my relative youth in comparison to the other officers of the company, a Myers-Briggs certified inability to execute repetitive tasks, and my compulsive need to be funny, I was tasked to manage our social media presence as well as cultivate a social media plug-in for our services. My interest in the phenomena made me excited about the opportunity. While equipped with a few preconceived notions about various social media platforms, I tried to begin my education with an open mind.

As I approach the 1 year anniversary of my employment at 3D Virtual Events and what I know now to be my toe dip into the constantly evolving social media community, my only conviction is that I understand less about it now than I did with solely my preconceived notions.

However, my experiences and the subsequent realization that I hope drives entries to this blog is that our definition of community is transitioning from the real into the virtual. With each new user ID, we as individuals become denizens of a community whose requirement for citizenship is nothing more than a valid e-mail address. In return, we are given the freedom to engage IP addresses across geographic, ethnic, and religious borders. A freedom that allows us to portray ourselves not as the people we really are, but as the firewall protected personas we want to be.

So while we are trimming our autobiographies to 160 characters and carefully selecting our profile pictures, we are not just leaving out possible arrest records or unflattering candids. Also left out is the trust that can only be built when we see it, hear it, or touch it ourselves. A trust that without, will leave us incapable of genuinely feeling connected.

The purpose of this blog is to explore how technologies both hard and soft are enabling the transition into virtual communities and what the human experience may have gained or lost as a result.

I will also try to be funny.

To conclude, I would like to dedicate this blog to Professor Patrick Riley who inspired my passion for the relationship that exists between individuals and their social environments. While at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was privileged to be a recipient of both his incredible knowledge as well his enthusiasm to share it with others. While not pretending to have any Tuesday's With Morrie-like relationship, my appreciation for the perspective he has given me warranted, if not a New York Times bestseller, TV movie, or Broadway play, at least a blog dedication.

Virtual Integration Part I

A new definition of team work and a pathway to new opportunities.

In Michael Hammer’s authoritative work – The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade – he puts forth the concept of Virtual Integration. He suggests that for a company to succeed it must embrace his “radical” vision of virtual integration which includes doing the following:

1. See your business not as a self-contained company, but as part of an extended enterprise of companies that work together to create customer value.

2. Define your company in terms of the processes you perform, not the products or services you create.

3. Identify and strengthen the key processes at which you excel.

4. Outsource everything else to someone better equipped to do it.

5. Learn to work closely with others, not just on your own.

6. Be prepared to rethink your company’s identity and strategy in fundamental ways.

Now, in the spring of 2010, the way we strive to outsource non-core processes is a standard practice. We run our companies around our core competencies and off-load the rest in order to grow more quickly and profitably. When we see an opportunity to offer new, complementary and innovative services to our customers, we form a “strategic partnership” so that our customers can access these new services. This enables our customer to receive more value, while maintaining a relationship with a team of people that is very familiar with their business needs.

Virtual Integration also enables our team to grow and learn from others. As Keith MacFarland states in his book The Breakthrough Company :

Breakthrough companies seek to integrate new tools, processes, and ideas to help them better manage the growing complexity of their worlds, without, at the same time, losing the firm’s unique aspects that inspire people to give their best efforts.

We are always looking to prepare for the future, anticipate where our industry is going and how we can gain a competitive edge against our competitors. Most organizations look to a “product” or specific “tool” to help them succeed in their future endeavors. And, traditional planning processes assume we can predict the future. Neither of these premises hold true in today’s economy.

What companies that want to succeed must do today is to create a more “agile” organization that is responsive to customer needs and adaptable to market changes.

The World Is Smaller Now

Twitter has released an option to translate the language of tweets around the world to your native language. At first thought, this isn't really a big deal. We've been able to translate web pages for years, why does this matter?

The people who publish the web sites we can translate are, for the most part, professionals in a particular field. This means the site performs a very specific task, and shares very specific information.

Having automatically translated twitter feeds brings the world closer yet to full globalization. We can't think of this as a change that means you know what someone in France is eating for breakfast. This is interesting at first, but wears quickly. What's far more interesting is that we know what information people around the world are spreading. News will be spread faster than ever before, and from anywhere. Twitter has become, more than ever before, a global news feed.

No longer will we have to rely on CNN, the BBC, the Associated Press, or any other worldwide news network to know what's going on in the world. What we had before from English speaking countries will now be received from everywhere. We won't be viewing world events from the eyes of organizations that may have biased spins (intentionally or unintentionally) anymore, but a vast amount of personal accounts with which we can form our own opinions.

Of course, there are going to be issues. Twitter users in Italy misspell words and use slang as often as those of us in the US. That said, it's still a start, and an exciting one.

To Tech or Not To Tech...

That seems to be the question that everyone is trying to answer. Well, maybe the question really is how tech is too tech but that isn't a one-off of Shakespeare and therefore not worthy of a blog title.

But back to the premise.

As someone who has sites like Engadget, the Boy Genius Report, and CNET bookmarked in their multi-browser synced toolbar, I have been asking myself that question a lot lately. Don't get me wrong, I have accepted my geekdom. Heck, I even try to embrace it in a Rivers Cuomo horn rimmed rocker kind of way. But just when I feel like I have all of my technology firing on all processors, a new piece of hardware or web service comes along that makes me want to forsake everything and start all over as just a 31 year-old boy with an iPad and a dream.

Well my friends, and I call you my friends because that is pretty much the only people who follow my blog, that ends today.



As amazing as it sounds, I think I have finally formulated a new rule as it pertains to the pursuit of technology (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Technology would have been a much better blog title, well, too late). And like any good rule or instructions for assembling furniture from IKEA, it's pretty simple. Don't be first.

I know...I know...I know...In our culture, telling someone not to be first is as ridiculous as informing them that Mountain Dew is not actually part of a balanced diet. But as a life long early adapter to just about everything that I thought would make girls like me more, I have come to the conclusion that the first generation of most technology stinks.

Overpriced, underpowered, incompatible, and usually replaced by 2.0 in a few short months, I have received far fewer longing glances from impressed passer-byes than I have "How do you turn this (explative) thing on?" from my wife.

Two acronyms, kids: HD DVD.

As a conferencing service provider, I have sat in on countless sales calls where someone from my team refers to our committment to advancing technologies, points at me, and then just keeps going like I was a 7th ballot inductee to a hall of fame there for the appearance fee and a free buffet. Because in the corporate environment, things just need to work properly. We've reached an era of technology in which I have actually heard a mother form a decent justification for giving her 10 year-old an iPhone. Wireless signals started at A, slid to B, hopped to G and has now hightailed itself to N. However, when a conference call has to go right, you'll find me on my landlocked office phone line and an ethernet cable nestled into my beta-less HP desktop replacement. Oh, and huge props to the ad exec who coined that phrased when asked "What the heck do we call an 8lb laptop?"

Now, there's no need to pass this blog along onto anyone you think might be pitching their tents to get in line for an iPad. However, if you know of any fence sitters, please send this their way. Hopefully, I can clear out a few weak willed suckers who might be in the line in front of me.

Just kidding.

But no, really, forward this to them. Now.

Have I Reached The Party To Whom I Am Speaking?

There is no disputing that a company can save megabucks by outsourcing their tech support to Asia where wages and operating expenses are cheaper. What does bear looking at is the non-monetary, difficult to define “impression” that Americans are left with after they experience talking to one of the multiple offshore locations that are serving up consumer phone technical support today.

The typical American caller isn’t a candidate for the Geek Squad. They use technology terms incorrectly and refer to their devices (and their various pieces and parts) by slang or even profane euphemisms. By the time this typical caller attempts to reach tech support, they are frustrated and angry. I believe when they hear a foreign accent answer their call, that anger connects with something deeper in their gut that isn’t associated with their current technological problem.

According to the Washington Post, “The customer satisfaction score for overseas PC call centers was 23 percent lower than for U.S. call centers.” and consumers reported that the agent they were talking to either didn’t seem to understand them or they couldn’t understand the foreign accent. While I’m sure there are often miscommunication issues that arise (American English can be a quirky language) perhaps some of the “misunderstanding” that happens generates from a knee-jerk reaction that the middle-class consumer has as soon as they hear that foreign voice over the phone. It’s not bigotry or prejudice, it’s something more difficult to define that many of us might not even realize we are experiencing.

In today’s weakened economy, where the middle class is taking a particularly brutal and sustained hit to their overall net worth, talking to a foreign voice only slaps us in the face with one of the realities of the current recession: Americans have lost jobs and this foreign voice HAS a job working for an American company. Most of us couldn’t carry on an intelligent debate about why the economy is suffering but we know our 401Ks have dwindled in front of our eyes. We write letters to our congressman asking why we are bailing out banks and insurance companies who continue to hand out ludicrous bonuses to the bad guys that we are told are partially responsible for this mess in the first place. We feel helpless and out of control and we are angry. Deep in our American psyche, we are angry.

The majority of Americans personally know several and maybe many people who are currently unemployed. Regardless of the reasons why a tech support operation is located overseas, the average American can’t help but wonder if the “foreigner” they are talking to is a person who stole a job from their unemployed son, daughter, brother-in-law or neighbor.

In June 2009, MediaPost News reported that, “Domestic (tech support) reps were rated 84 out of 100, while offshore reps were rated just 62. And respondents say that call centers in the U.S. resolved their problems on the first call 68% of the time, versus 42% for offshore.

I believe that given equal circumstances, the vast majority of foreign technicians can resolve a tech support issue equally well as their American counterparts but as long as Americans are scared and angry about their future and the economy, they will think more with their gut and their gut tells them that they hate talking to an offshore call center. No matter how good a technician might be, they will never be able to be good enough and offshore call centers will continue to be an annoyance that we can't quite put our fingers on.

It’s a perception that tech companies might consider paying attention to as the viral negative fall-out might last long after the recession is over. Perception is a powerful thing with us angry Americans and it will be interesting to watch and see if those companies that offer American tech support come out the winner in the end.

Internet For World Peace

CNN has an article up concerning the nomination of the internet for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Because the internet is inanimate, I think the chances of it winning are extremely small. Also on that list of nominees are many of the great minds responsible for the creation of the internet, I find it more likely that one of them will get it instead if the internet is deemed worthy of such a prize.

That said, let's entertain the scenario where the internet does win. Why would the internet win? What would that mean?

Let's think about all the good things the internet is currently responsible for. Instant access to worldwide news, shopping for anything from any location, video chat, keeping in contact with friends, spreading ideas across the world, sending aid to countries/organizations/people located anywhere, job searching, online gaming, having music and videos from anywhere in front of you in seconds, the list could go on for a very long time.

Now what about the bad? Child pornography, software/entertainment piracy, easy identity theft, easy stalking, degradation of face-to-face social interaction, increased laziness, false information proliferation, easy access to material unsuitable for minors...this list too could go on for a long time.

The internet is neutral to everything. Summed up, it's purpose is to allow worldwide interaction for better or for worse. We're talking about a technology that has single handedly connected one out of every 4 people in the world, and that's only growing. Even if it can be used for bad just as easily as for good, surely that single accomplishment is worthy of the award.

What would that mean for us if a technology won an award historically, with no exceptions, given to human beings? Maybe nothing. Perhaps we accept that, at this point in humanity, technology is just as prevalent in securing world peace as any person can be.

Deadly Status Updates

The Associated Press recently posted an article about an Israeli raid being called off when a soldier involved in the raid leaked information. He named the time and location on his Facebook status, saying they were "cleaning up" the village.

Currently, Facebook has over 400 million active users. That means one out of every seventeen people on the planet regularly checks it. Now, this blog post isn't another story about why you should be on Facebook because it exposes your company to one out of every seventeen people in the world. Instead, it's about how public your personal information is, not just your company's.

We've all heard stories about employees who talk bad about their jobs or their bosses in their status updates on Facebook, only to be fired the next day because a friended co-worker rats them out, or the employee forgot they were friended by their boss. What users don't typically think about is that their social media content is open to far more than just other users. In the case of the Israeli soldier, it was enemy intelligence.

There are entire sites dedicated to posting embarrassing, unintelligent photos, statuses, and comments from various social media sites. These sites try to keep anonymity by blurring out last names from comments and statuses as well as blurring eyes from photos, but if there are sites willing to jeopardize even a little bit of that anonymity, there are certainly sites that would offer full disclosure. It doesn't stop with social media either, even embarassing text messages can be submitted and posted online with an area code attached to them.

My point is, if you have any information surfing the air waves or cables there is no guarantee whatsoever that only your "friends" will be able to find it. What's worse, once it's out there it's there for good, and who knows who will see it? With one out of seventeen people on the planet checking Facebook, it could be found anywhere.

Does this mean you should cut yourself off from social media? Absolutely not. It's a great tool to keep in touch, collaborate, and promote yourself. Just keep in mind that if you can promote yourself, you can just as easily condemn yourself. While we may not like that nothing online is truly private, it's the world we live in and to ignore it (while it may not be as fatal as leaking military intelligence to the enemy) could have terrible consequences. Be careful with what you put online.

Technological Travesties

Microsoft Windows has come a long way since its release in November of 1985. Under the leadership of William Henry Gates III, Microsoft grew at a phenomenal rate. By 1998 Windows was the default OS of all x86 PCs. From there, Microsoft continued on to become the Belphegor it is today. As of October 2009, Microsoft had consumed 91% of the market share.

It seems that, after being a market leader for so long, Windows has lost its impetus and tenacity. It almost feels like Microsoft has become complacent. For instance, after the release of Microsoft Office 07, Microsoft didn't update their software, even after major defects were identified. Microsoft instead, waited for a 3rd party programmer to fix the afore mentioned Office 07 issues with an unsupported patch. Microsoft did eventually release a similar patch, albeit conveniently after someone else had already solved the Office 07 problems.

Recently, I was assaulted; again made a victim by Microsoft's supine and lassitude nature. Microsoft has found itself the center of controversy before; but, this latest offense committed by Microsoft is inexcusable. This insult goes far beyond Microsoft's secret anti-Semitism, their pact with the devil, or even when they rewrote the Metric system. This has to do with a basic program that has been available on all Widows OS since the early 90s.

While I was enjoying a relaxing game of FreeCell, this happened to me:



Now glitches happen, I understand this. While it does bother me that glitches still occur in a program that's been around since 1978, the travesty Iím referring to struck once I clicked on the help button.



Apparently, Windows couldn't be bothered to actually make help software that recognized itself. But as you can see, Windows does offer a patch. (I am a little curious who wrote it for them) But if Windows wants to stay a market leader, this ready, fire, aim twaddle has got to go.

~ Kyle Jackson

4 Types of Online Meetings and, a Neologism, Defined!

1. The Web Conference… as defined by Wikipedia
A web conference is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees' computers or a web-based application where the attendees access the meeting by clicking on a link distributed by e-mail (meeting invitation) to enter the conference.

The companies listed below (as well as other less well-known) provide competing web conference platforms. They differentiate their offerings with special application-specific software integration features, network facilities and a variety of on-premise and, increasingly, new SaaS delivery models.
• ADOBE
Acrobat Connect
• CITRIX
GotoMeeting
• CISCO
WebEx
• IBM
Lotus Sametime
• MICROSOFT
LiveMeeting

NOTE: In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" was often used to describe a group discussion in a message board and therefore not live. The term has evolved to refer specifically to live or "synchronous" meetings.

2. The Webinar… as defined by Wikipedia
A webinar is a neologism to describe a specific type of web conference. It is typically one-way from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast. A webinar can be collaborative and include polling and question & answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the presenter. In some cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, while pointing out information being presented onscreen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, speaker phones allowing the greatest comfort and convenience. There are web conferencing technologies on the market that have incorporated the use of VoIP audio technology, to allow for a completely web-based communication.

NOTE: A neologism is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.
Neologisms often become popular through meme tics, by way of mass media, the Internet, and word of mouth, including academic discourse in many fields renowned for their use of distinctive jargon, and often become accepted parts of the language. Other times, however, they disappear from common use just as readily as they appeared. Whether a neologism continues as part of the language depends on many factors, probably the most important of which is acceptance by the public. It is unusual, however, for a word to enter common use if it does not resemble another word or words in an identifiable way.

When a word or phrase is no longer "new", it is no longer a neologism. Neologisms may take decades to become "old", however. Opinions differ on exactly how old a word must be to cease being considered a neologism.


3. The Web Cast… as defined by Wikipedia
A webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, webcasting is “broadcasting” over the Internet.

Webcasting is also used extensively in the commercial sector for investor relations presentations (such as Annual General Meetings), in E-learning (to transmit seminars), and for related communications activities. However, webcasting does not bear much, if any, relationship to web conferencing, which is designed for many-to-many interaction.

NOTE: The largest "webcasters" include existing radio and TV stations, who "simulcast" their output, as well as a multitude of Internet only "stations". The term webcasting usually refers to non-interactive linear streams or events. Rights and licensing bodies offer specific "webcasting licenses" to those wishing to carry out Internet broadcasting using copyrighted material.


4. Virtual Shows & Briefing Centers… as defined by Wikipedia
A Virtual Event is a gathering of people sharing a common virtual environment on the web, rather than meeting in a physical location. Virtual events are highly interactive, looking and feeling a lot like their physical counterparts. Popular uses of virtual events include:
• Virtual tradeshows,
• Virtual job fairs,
• Virtual conferences, and
• Virtual company-wide gatherings.

Virtual events are used to deliver presentations, trainings, departmental meetings and sessions led by stakeholders from company executives to product management and human resources.

Virtual events can offer a number of ways for participants to connect and communicate. They can include Webcasts with live presentations or pre-recorded videos where the presenters are available for questions and answers at the end of the session – a technique called Simulive. Virtual booths, forums and designated meeting places allow participants to connect with event staff or fellow attendees using online chat, video and voice. Or, participants can leverage their social network within the event to form interest groups or find like-minded individuals. They can also share the findings with their online communities, often creating a viral aspect for an event.

Each of the emerging software companies listed below provides competing virtual event platforms. They differentiate their offerings with application-specific features as well as registration and attendee analytics that enable users of their software to build deeper relationships as well as communicate messages in the mode most attractive to each participant.
• InExpo
• ON24
• Stream57
• UnisFair


Note: Virtual Events v. Virtual Worlds
One of the key differences between virtual worlds and virtual events is that a virtual world is available as a persistent environment, even after the live part of the event is over. Many organizers are moving from episodic events to a continuous virtual engagement of their customer and prospect communities. This permits attendees to return to parts of the event to see a complete session again, review content or gather additional information. Typically, virtual event organizers allow attendees to store the information gathered in a virtual briefcase, which can contain marketing collateral, as well as contact information of people they met, presentations they attended and content of conversations they held.

Virtual Reality

What's the difference between reality and virtual space? What's the difference between interacting with people face to face and avatar to avatar? Why are experiences in real life often considered more valid than experiences in a virtual environment?

I won't drop names, but there are people who passed away and played games like Second Life and World of Warcraft whose physical funerals were attended by very few people. This is understandable, because their interactions with the real world most likely stopped outside the workplace with an exception of keeping in contact with family. That said, those same people have had funerals held for them in their respective games that were attended by hundreds.

Clearly they had an impact on the lives of other players. It may not have been physical, but what about emotional? Does physical reality take precedence over mental reality? What is reality?

That's a very large, cumbersome topic. In a topic such as "What is reality," I feel use of 1999's The Matrix is necessary, in which Morpheus states, "If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." The truth is there's no way to know for certain that when I touch my keyboard it feels the same as if you were to touch it, there's no way to know our brains are interpreting those electrical signals the same way. We've come to an agreement that sandpaper is rough, but we can't know that we have the same sensation when we touch it. A good example of this is taste. Maybe the reason some people like tomatoes and others hate them isn't because they disagree about what sensation equals "tasting good," but because they don't taste the same thing.

I would argue the only things creating "reality" are the experiences we have. If the response to a virtual world is that it's not real because you can't touch and feel the chairs in the room, what about those who can't feel any sensation? Because they can't feel the chair, is it any less real for them? What about the blind, who can't see their objects to interact with them the same way the sighted can? Is it any less real for them? When you start to remove the individual senses, what you're left with are a set of experiences that define reality.

Put that in the setting of a virtual environment. Just because an attendee is experiencing something a different way doesn't make that experience any less real. There's still a mental experience occurring. In some ways, there's even a physical experience occurring as the users touch their keyboards. In another way, like the sandpaper example I used earlier, what if two avatars shaking hands is a physical experience because we agree that it is? Some would already argue that when they enter a game the avatar is not a representation of them, it is them. When those Second Life and World of Warcraft players died, did their avatars not die with them? They're no longer playable, not without account information. It's an extension of their being. I have a feeling that as the virtual experience becomes more commonplace, so will the acceptance of these virtual realities as truly real experiences.

(technorati claim token PVV4XSAFATEN )

26-year-old MLB Star Makes NFL Coach Look Like a Rookie.

I commute between Cincinnati and Minneapolis every 2-3 weeks for business. Being the avid sports fan that I am, I enjoy following the professional MLB and NFL franchises in each city. The Cincinnati Reds and the Minnesota Vikings are my favorites, but the Bengals and Twins get ample attention and discussion around the water cooler, too (as well as part of my annual sports entertainment “spend”).

That is why the recent article in “The Fan Issue” of ESPN – The Magazine caught my attention. The author – Ryan Hockensmith – sent out 479 letters to a variety of professional athletes and coaches in an effort to find the most fan-friendly star in sports. In his piece, Thanks for Writing… Hockensmith shares the highlights – and low-lights – of his efforts to make a connection with a sports star during summer of 2009.

Surprisingly, it is Joe Mauer, the 26-year-old MVP catcher of the Minnesota Twins – with some help from his Mom, Teresa – that earned the Joe Phan Inaugural Favorite Athlete of the year.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly to those of us who follow the Cincinnati Bengals, the author was not impressed with the response he received from Coach Marvin Lewis of the Bengals. Hockensmith’s letter to the Bengals Coach/GM/Franchise Demigod Marvin Lewis was retuned 12 days after it was sent out last June 17th with a letter directing him to the Bengals online pro shop where he could purchase Coach Lewis’ signature. Disappointing is the kindest word I can use for Coach Lewis’ response, arrogant is more accurate, but the most articulate is Hockensmith’s:

THE BIGGEST LOSER IN THE JOE PHAN PROJECT? THE BENGALS, WHO SUGGESTED I PAY FOR THEIR HEAD COACH'S AUTOGRAPH.

As a business person who sells every day and strictly adheres to “the customer always comes first” mantra, it boggles my mind that any organization – least of all a professional sports franchise that relies upon fans for its very existence – can respond in as unfriendly a manner as the Bengals and Coach Lewis.

Building a connection with your stakeholders – whether it is a fan base or a customer base – is critical to success in every aspect of business. In contrast, the other major professional sports franchise in Cincinnati - the Reds – is very good at this. The Reds conduct a REDS CARAVAN each January to re-connect with their fan base. It has become an annual “rite of winter” and is a fun way to excite the fan base and it generates goodwill for the team and lets the fans know the team cares about them.

It’s the little things that make the difference between winning and losing. Small steps build momentum. Coach Lewis and Joe Mauer both know this, but their interactions with fans reflect vastly different priorities, interpersonal skills and respect for those who pay their salaries.

Recommended Reading: The Little Red Book of Selling – 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness.

"iPads? We don't need no stinkin' iPads"

While I have heard numerous people and pundits shower Steve Jobs with deity-like praise for the impact he has had on the computer, music, and telecom industries, I've never been eager to join the chant. Don't get me wrong, my media is in iTunes, I tolerate AT&T for my iPhone, and I am using my MacBook to write this. I always thought Jobs was just taking the next logical technology step and slapping an aesthetically pleasing silver casing around it. However, after Wednesday's introduction of the iPad, I am prepared to sculpt his likeness out of some old Macintosh IIes and display it in my front yard.

Now before you assume that I plan on dusting off a lawn chair, give my "The Truth Is Out There" t-shirt its annual wash and wear, and emotionally prepare myself for hours of World of Warcraft banter to get my hands on Apple's latest and greatest, I have no intentions of buying an iPad. The reason for my new found Jobs fanboy status has nothing to do with the what he has brought to market. Instead, it's his unmatched ability to stir a world wide audience into a year long, Jonas-brother-to-a-12-year-old-girl-like psychosis over an iPod Touch for giants that will pull you in even closer to his digitally licensed and restricted retail world.

Thousands of chat threads with specs speculations, hundreds of grainy photos of possible prototypes (why do tech spies always have the worst cameras?), and numerous blogs leaking any minute detail they can dig out from their best friend's sister's boyfriend who works at an Apple Genius Bar.

I can empathize with Mugatu. I too feel like I am taking crazy pills.

Listen up, everyone! It's a laptop without a keyboard running dated software. That's it. Cool looking? Yup. A platform on which new applications for a portable computing device can grow? I guess. But a bargain starting at $499? Uh, no.

The man in black mock turtleneck, and again to his credit, has generated so much market credibility as an innovator, nobody actually stops and asks if his newest endeavor is really innovation or proliferation. Maybe its just another device that will spin his followers around so many times that they'll be too dizzy to realize that they're paying an extra $0.30 for their favorite Miley Cyrus track. Or better yet, too blinded by the glowing Apple on the back to see they're coughing up $2.99 for an episode of Archer that Hulu will let you watch for free (at least until they start charging subscriptions fees).

I could probably go on for a few more paragraphs about Jobs, the iPad, and definitely Miley Cyrus (apparently she's never even heard a Jay-Z song nor does she even the know title of one because "I don't listen to pop music."), I simply will encourage everyone to realize that just because something is new, it isn't necessarily innovative. Well, I guess if you looked up innovative in the dictionary, new is in its definition. But just like a dictionary, why buy a new one if it hasn't changed any of the definitions.

There's an App for That

I have had a vision of the future, it's the new iPhone commercial.

Have you ever been stuck in a massive earthquake, broken your leg, suffered a laceration to your head, lost your glasses, and had to field treat your own wounds so you could survive for 65 hours without food, water, or sleep? There's an app for that.

Wait, WHAT?!

Apple has found itself the center of controversy several times in the past few months. Most of this controversy was stemming from what can only be called laziness on the part of Apple and the iPhone App Store. After the colossal embarrassment from apps like I Am Rich and Baby Shaker Apple was due for some good PR.

Dan Woolley has about the most amazing survival story I think I have ever heard, his spectacular tale even rivals that of Aron Ralston. Woolley was filming a documentary about the current poverty level in Haiti. After returning to his hotel from a day of filming, he found himself in a magnitude 7 earthquake with nothing but his iPhone.

The dust settled and Woolley had sustained a compound fracture in his leg, a severe laceration to his head, and to top it off, Woolley is severely near sighted and he lost his glasses. Using his iPhone camera, equipped with an SLR focusing light, he took pictures of his surroundings. Using these pictures as his eyes, he was able to find his way to an elevator shaft. After reaching the elevator shaft, he used a First Aid app he had downloaded onto his phone to help him bandage his leg and head. Once he had patched himself up, Woolley continued to read about his injuries. The app informed him to keep himself awake, just in case he was suffering from shock. Woolley then set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes. This is how he was able to survive for 65 hours when a 6 story hotel crumbled around him.

There is even more to this amazing story and I believe even the most hardened person will be stirred emotionally by this tale's heart-warming conclusion. I truly hope that everyone reads this amazing account of survival. Not because there's such a thing as an iPhone whose battery somehow lasted longer than 6 hours, but because it demonstrates how beautiful the synergy between spirituality and technology can really be. The iPhone lasting that long alone, suggests divine intervention.


~ Kyle Jackson

Technology Today

Over the last few days I've been working in a program called Adobe Flash CS4 to create a corporate video introduction. After completing the video I intended to turn it into a standard Quicktime video, like most things you view on the internet. When I tried to export it, however, the video looked terrible. Parts of it were missing entirely. So I looked it up to find some help, and as it turns out there's a problem in the program that happens with Macs. It's been like this since its release, and Adobe is showing no intent to change it.

Whenever I purchase a product these days, particularly concerning electronics or programs, I more or less expect something to not work properly. I expect to have issues connecting to the internet, or not having a touch pad work all the time, or having a program auto-quit on me in the middle of working. These are things commonly accepted in today's world of technology...they're bugs, they happen. My question is, why is it accepted?

Why is it acceptable for a company to put out what is, essentially, a defective product? The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If my grandparents bought a product a mere thirty years ago and it didn't work exactly as intended they returned it, no questions asked. With electronics, for the most part, we don't. We suffer through the technical problems by trying to find the solutions ourselves or listening to a support line. What happened between then and now that allowed developers to get away with releasing products unfinished?

My gut reaction is that we're dealing with products far more complicated than ever before. One coding mistake, one misplaced wire, among the millions of code lines and thousands of circuits, can cause a slew of problems. It must be extremely difficult and time consuming to make sure all those parts are in order. That said, isn't it the developer's and manufacturer's jobs to make sure they are? I find it difficult to excuse those mistakes knowing someone gets paid to ensure it.

Is it about the rush to get the product out, do we have to blame ourselves for some of this? Not only for becoming okay with shoddy work to begin with, but for needing everything on demand so badly that it pushes companies to rush out their products? I look forward to the day when I can purchase an electronic product and not only expect it to work as reliably as a swiss army knife, but hold it to those expectations instead of letting its failures slide simply because it's electronic.

Crimes Against Humanity...

...well mine at least.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have been surprisingly successful over the past couple of years. While these social networks have grown at an exponential rate, I have developed reservations about Social Media and Web 2.0. Not because of the tools themselves, but because of the way people are using them.

I have received far too many invitations to pointless apps whose only feature is to, “poke” my friends. The most advanced of these apps allows me to, “buy,” my friends, and make them, “poke,” each other. The best thing about these apps is that when I run out of fake money, they will gladly take my credit card number in exchange for more friend, “poking,” goodness. Even worse are the countless poorly written surveys that tell me, “Which character from Twilight are you?” (I’m Carlisle by the way)

This atrocious behavior is viral. E-chain letters and endless reposts of the same quiz for months at a time are growing at an alarming rate. I love those instances where I send my friends a great joke (and I only forward the very best) and they turn it around and copy it back to me (along with 225 of their closest friends). At the very least, my, “friends,” could listen to the words of Emily Post, “Don't send the joke back to the original sender.”

I can’t delete my, “Friends,” fast enough.

But I have had a slight change of heart over the past couple of days. On January 12th, 2010, a massive earthquake devastated the impoverish country of Haiti. Phones, power, and water were inaccessible for many of the citizens of Haiti, but surprisingly, internet access remained intact, and accessible, that is for anyone lucky enough to maintain power.

When hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, communication was not available for several days. There were even cases with Katrina, where people could not reconnect with loved ones for months after the natural disaster. Residents of Port-au-Prince were able to communicate with relatives and friends outside Haiti, via Facebook and Twitter. Using this amazing tool, people with friends and/or family living on or visiting Hispaniola, were able to re connect with loved ones hours after the disaster, instead of days. Even more incredible, many people in Haiti were able to communicate with the outside world during, and immediately after this natural disaster.

If that wasn’t incredible enough, posts like this, "Text 'Haiti' to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross for relief. It'll add the donation to your phone bill,” spread to all corners of the social media network. Within 48 hours, this social media campaign had raised over 3 million dollars for the Red Cross and the Haiti relief effort.

This Recent series of events have shown me that if used properly, Social Media like Twitter and Facebook can be really incredible. But please, for the love of all that is holy, quit telling me the latest thing your dog, “Snuggles” ate from behind the refrigerator. If this abuse of social media continues, you’ll leave me no other choice but to help the Bilderberg Group achieve their "goals."

~ Kyle Jackson

Trendspotting

Brent Shiely, iMarketing Technology Manager and Planner at General Mills since July of '09, has been kind enough to write a guest blog for us on trendspotting. His background includes over a decade of consultation work and internet marketing, and we are very happy to have his extensive knowledge available to us here where we can share it with you. Without further ado:



Predicting the future is the golden ticket to success! One talent to perhaps get you closer to becoming a fortune teller is Trendspotting – identifying trends as they happen with measurable data. It’s one thing to have talent, it’s another thing to have theory. This article attempts to tackle the theory behind Trendspotting.



We all want to get in front of something just as it’s about to happen. People have stories of purchasing stock before it “went big” like Google and Microsoft. Originally, I was going to write this article about something even bigger – Chinese business. It occurred to me that Chinese business is a perfect example of a Trend. Rather than writing about a specific trend, I’d rather “go big”!

I define a Trend as a measurable event that can be sampled over a time range. For example, business bankruptcies month over month – bankruptcies would be the event, month over month filings would be the sample, and data from the past six months would be the range. Often people look at events when trendspotting. Here are some examples:

• Annual number of children born in Brazil between 1997 and 2007.
• Annual total employed in China from 2005 to 2007.
• Monthly number of new business licenses filed in Russia between 2000 and 2008.
• Monthly revenue from mobile phone companies in India between 2005 and 2009.

The power of data to support your trendspotting is critical. Intuitive observations can often be brought to form with staticstics and data. Most good trendspotting starts with intuition, but you’ll need impartial data to back it up. One thing to be aware of, not all observations you see are trends. Be prepared to accept your observation was an outlier and more rare than you thought. Some examples of impartial data sources to support your intuition:

The Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook – Yeah, I know what you’re saying. CIA?! How are they impartial? Turns out the US Government hires the best and brightest people to research and assemble factual data about every country in the world. If you want to learn about a far away place, the Factbook is a wonderful place to start.

The United States Census Bureau – I recall assembling data for a client to demonstrate the size of a market in the United States. Up until factual data was presented, his colleagues would use data like, “huge” and “massive” – not “45.5 million households”.

Google Scholar – Opinions from learned professionals have been indexed and made available to the general public. Often a trend has data and research that you can quickly obtain.

National Bureau Of Statistics in China – The Chinese Government publishes data much like the USA. Chinese population, for example, is still growing (1/2 of 1%), but the Tiger is still roaring.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) OECD – The data available here can help you pinpoint samples and ranges to support your events.

Benefits of Trendspotting
I’ve been very lucky with identifying trends only from my intuition. I learned the theory behind Trendspotting while getting my MBA at UCLA. Let me save you the tuition. You can use trendspotting in:

• Daily Business – You’re in charge of performing while on the job. You know the events you’re seeking to grow/shrink/etc. – identify measures to start sampling. Once you sample the events – measure it and identify a trend.
• Career Development – Thinking of a career change? What are events occurring in growing frequency where your talents are needed?
• Investing – This has been the big payoff for me. I invested in Brazil, Russia, India and China long before my friends. These countries are growing in personal income and productivity. Those are leading indicators to energy consumption.
• Education – What fields will be relevant over time? What events require professional expertise to make the events successful?

A 3dve Industry Perspective

Companies we follow in the conferencing & collaboration industry.

Business Model – Challenged Companies…
These companies (see below) are “established” players in the conferencing industry. Their services are heavily-laden with legacy infrastructure costs, traditional sales models and a “transaction-based” service mentality. While they appear to be embracing some new technology tools, their ability to implement new offerings is constrained by their organizational dynamics and limited capital resources.

Ultimately, all of these companies have pieces and parts of a solution that are valuable, but their challenge is whether they have both the management expertise as well as the financial flexibility to make the shrewd decisions that the current market dynamics require.
• ACT Teleconferenicng
• CITRIX
• GLOWPOINT
• ILINC
• INTERCALL (a division of WEST Corp.)
• OnStream
• PGI (PremiereGlobal)
• ConferencePlus (a divison of WESTELL)

Transformative Technology Players…
We watch these companies (see below) with a careful eye… in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their product offerings. So, that when our clients find ways to derive value from them.
• ADOBE
• AKAMAI
• CISCO / WebEx
• FACEBOOK
• GOOGLE
• LINKEDIN
• TWITTER
• SALESFORCE

And, finally, there are the 800-Pound Gorillas of the industry – a mix of “Telecoms” & “Tech.”
These companies live to commoditize (or “dumb-down”) services. If you work with any of these companies, please call us – immediately! Their products and services are not designed to meet your unique “needs,” but rather, they are set-up to optimize their low-cost provider business model.
• ATT
• BT
• GLOBAL CROSSING
• HP
• MICROSOFT
• POLYCOM
• TANBERG
• VERIZON

Counterpoint

As much I respect my associate's opinion, I'm not prepared to stand on my chair and applaud Coke and its $2.5B advertising budget for coming up with a clever way to engage the community and get them to try a new Diet Coke that isn't actually Diet Coke because it tastes more like regular Coke after they changed back to the old recipe.

Instead, I'd like to share an anecdote about a friend who manages an amazing hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Unlike much of his competition, his hotel isn't part of a chain with an established brand identity reinforced by a multi-market advertising campaign or episodes of Mad Men. He has one line on a modest P&L that represents the entire means with which he can attempt to persuade people to stay at his hotel.

We hadn't spoken for a while when I received his invitation to become LinkedIn. While I was prepared to brush it off as simply a friend who was virtualizing their rolodex (a sporadic but increasingly common occurrence), within minutes of my acceptance, I got an e-mail from him asking me to call him when I got the chance.

I gave him a ring later that day and with very little friendly of our customary banter consisting of NBA talk and Clark Griswold misquotations, he told me that he was looking for some contacts to help him with a social media campaign. And while I was going through my virtual rolodex, he indulged my curiosity and began to explain his new found interest in the medium.

Paraphrasing up to the border of complete fiction without actually touching it, he said that as a hotel spending a dime to every dollar that his competition is spending, social media offers him the greatest return on investment and most level playing field. While his competition was airing commercials and filling up business periodicals, his hope was to leverage his hotel's impeccable reputation into a network that continues to gain the attention and credibility of the consumer market. Or, to plagiarize, engage the community as a call to action. A call that would hopefully be answered by a greater awareness of his hotel and increased room sales.

That's why I enjoy social media at this stage in its development. For now, it's a community of merit. Like something? Tell your friends. Shoot, they'll even give you a free upgrade/month of service/discount to do so. Don't like something? Tell everyone and watch the company that is paying attention respond to fix it. Or, even better, watch the company who isn't watching lose sales without even knowing why. That is until we completely botch net neutrality legislation but lets not digress.

So sure, maybe Coke deserves a little kudos for its efforts. It's scary for a company, especially one with so much at risk and the bank account to hire even the most endangered Polar bear to a talent contract, to blow up the water wings and jump in at the deep end of the growing social media pool. But as people like my friend have begun to realize, the fact that those with so much are still reluctant makes it even more valuable for those trying to compete with less when they do.

Doppelganger

In October Coca-Cola began gathering data for a facial profiler that allows facebook users to find their look alikes around the world. The purpose of this advertising method was to show the similarity between Coke and Coke Zero, but what the web site does is unrelated to their product. Instead, Coca-Cola is offering customers and curious people (some who may not even drink Coke, like myself) something beyond their product. They're providing a source of entertainment. This is an example of an advertisement method that is meant to break Coca-Cola into a community. Instead of looking like a corporation that only pushes product, they've come up with a method to engage the community so the product pushes itself.

This is an extremely important thing for companies to do, that is, engage their community. Just selling products doesn't cut it anymore. Offering something more than your competitors as a differentiator is getting there, but it needs to be more than even that. Customers and potential clients need to know there's a face to your company, they need something they can connect with that doesn't make them give you money but does give you their time. Why spend the resources on such an effort?

You reach a larger audience. If you're only marketing your products, you won't be reaching the millions (billions?) of people who have no interest in what you do or sell. Now at first glance that may seem like a good thing, why spend resources on something that's not targeting your consumers? Think of it this way, if you own an MP3 player have you always thought you needed one? Was there ever a point where you didn't want one at all? When that changed, what was the first one to come to mind? Probably the iPod. This is because Apple made you aware of their product's existence so that when you did have the need they were waiting for you.

I learned something very important from an old professor of mine, Nancy Rice (founding partner of Fallon and advertising legend), advertising is not about trying to get someone to purchase a product. She referred to it as a call to action. It's making people aware your product exists so that when the time comes when they want something you sell, they go to you.