ACT Conferencing Blog

Let Those Employees Work While They're Sick!

Now That's Using Your Noodle

The Noodles & Company Web site is fun. Where else can you visit Noodleville and sign up for Noodlegrams? Check it out at www.noodles.com. The Broomfield, Colo.-based company "uses its noodle" when it comes to running the business. With more than 200 restaurants in 18 states and counting, travel is out and conferencing is in (even in the kitchens, where the mute button comes in handy). With an average of 150 audio conferences a month – shareholder meetings, vendor calls, internal business conversations and annual meetings – the company is conducting business in a way that’s good for the environment and the bottom line. Read the Noodles conferencing case study to see what's cooking and why ACT Conferencing is part of the recipe.

Why wouldn't you want DIY conferencing?

 

I'm very much a DIY kind of person.  In fact, if I can't order online, I tend to procrastinate and may not even order at all. Perhaps I'm a little anti-social, perhaps I just really want to do it myself, but I think it is more likely that I'm not very good at saying "no" to sales people. I can't tell you how many unnecessary extras I've ended up with by the time I hang up the phone.

But, even I can appreciate that there are some things that you really need an expert for.  A reservationless audio, video, and web conferences can get you through most of your day-to-day meeting requirements.  Team meetings, project meetings, updates, meetings with clients, meetings with vendors, most of the time you don't need a meeting expert to get your message across.

Sometimes, however, how you present your message and the impression you make as the message is being delivered is so important that you don't want to leave it to chance. E.g. will someone be rustling paper in the background? Will someone have problems using the web conference? And how do I even dial out using a video conferencing system? (see my earlier post http://blog.actconferencing.com/post/2009/03/26/Ite28099s-all-about-the-meetinge280a6.aspx)

Unified Communications: Clash of the Titans

Don't know if you've noticed, but all the big boys are now very interested in conferencing services. They don't call it conferencing; the new term is "Unified Communications". Regardless of what you call it, ACT is in the business of enterprise communication and collaboration - and that's a space that is being eyed by Microsoft, Cisco, HP, Citrix, and IBM (among others). How will we survive this clash with the titans? Make no mistake; we intend to not only survive, but to thrive in this new world of Unified Communications. My thoughts on the subject - we must accommodate, innovate, and integrate.

ACT has always been a "high-touch" provider of conferencing services. Our employees are more akin to those in the hospitality industry than those in the telecommunications industry. We need to maintain this intense focus on customer service. This extends beyond delivery of the phone conference or video conferencing service to every aspect of customer experience. That means billing our customers as they want to be billed, not as our systems want to bill them. It means changing pricing structures so that they are more rational and predictable; and it means allowing customers self-service options for account management. Count on all of this from ACT.

In addition to maintaining and improving our high-touch approach, ACT must bring new innovative products to market. Technology has created the opportunity for significant improvements in the way we all communicate and collaborate with our colleagues and customers. The economy has recently forced companies to focus heavily on cost savings; traditionally travel is one of the first expenses that the Fortune 500 cut back on. Powerful mobile devices such as the Blackberry and iPhone are ubiquitous. All of these factors are creating the perfect storm for innovation in communication and collaboration. We are starting to see some amazing new products released such as HP's Halo Telepresence service. Over the next 5-10 years we'll see even more exciting innovations. Products which will make us all more productive and believe it or not - even more plugged-in than we are currently. ACT plans on being in the thick of this innovative environment. Currently, we're retooling so that we can innovate rapidly and deliver exciting new solutions to market in 2010.

Finally, ACT must seamlessly integrate into existing enterprise infrastructures. The desktop battles may be over or they may be starting anew, that's not our concern. What is certain is that one productivity application is enough for anyone. If you use MS Office, you want your communication & collaboration functions integrated into Outlook. If you use Lotus, you want those functions there. If you use a Mac or Linux, you want these connectivity features plugged in to your productivity tool of choice. No one wants to learn how to use another tool. ACT doesn't have a horse in the desktop race - we don't care what productivity suite you use - plan on us integrating with them all.

What makes ACT different from the new goliath vendors in the conferencing space is that we are agile and we enjoy close relationships with our Fortune 500 customers. These differences are our core strengths - enabling us to deliver customized conferencing solutions for the needs of our enterprise customers. So what do you want to see from ACT? What problems do you face when communicating and collaborating today? What problems can ACT solve for you? Send me an email at nbobbin@acttel.com.

Stretching Your Business Muscles

In today's world, flexibility is so important. I don't mean touching-your-toes-flexibility. I mean flexibility in business. Competition forces us to be more flexible and creative with customers. After all, if you won’t do what someone is asking for, chances are, someone else will. The challenge for companies is that if you are too flexible, you end up creating a lot of one-off or bespoke solutions that are not scalable or supportable long term.

If you look at our case studies, http://www.actconferencing.com/downloads/ACT-Amro.pdf or http://www.actconferencing.com/downloads/ACT-Makovsky.pdf, you will notice that our customers are talking a lot about flexibility and customization.

So, how does a conferencing company offer flexibility to customers?

1. By providing a different types of services for different types of meetings – Reservationless conferencing is not the perfect solution for every meeting. Fortunately, there are choices: Elite conference calls, Streaming, Web Casts, Video Conferencing, etc. Although more and more people like DIY conferencing, larger calls and higher profile events require a different level of service. Why not let us manage the call and make you look good?
2. By giving users the ability to meet at a moment’s notice - Reservationless audio and web conferencing make arranging a meeting a snap. Didn’t plan on web conferencing, but realize half way through that your team really needs to see the application you are talking about? No problem. Just fire up a web conference. (I will add that I totally agree with a post from Jeff a few weeks ago, http://blog.actconferencing.com/post/2009/04/02/other-web-conferencing-services.aspx. If you don’t have a web conferencing service that starts up quickly and easily for all participants, jumping on a web call is more like watching the Six-Million-Dollar Man jumping in slow motion.. .ch..ch..ch..ch..)
3. By giving its employees permission to be creative and fostering an environment focused on customer service – many of our employees have been working for ACT for a long time. We know our systems and products inside and out, and because we are working with them all the time, we can often find a creative solution that meets our customer expectations but isn’t unscalable. And most of us love a challenge!

Regardless of what conferencing solution you use or the conferencing company you choose, hopefully you find that conferencing allows you and your company to be more flexible with and responsive to your customers. So, limber up your business muscles and create some happy customers!!

How to Prepare Slides for a Successful Online Event

By means of a quick Google search, you can find many good resources with tips on preparing and delivering great PowerPoint presentations. A good example is this site, where Garr Reynolds discusses slide tips and presentation basics. Delivering presentations through online media is an easy and effective way to get your message out to a broad audience. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when preparing for your next web conference or webcast event.

Know Your Medium

Presenting a PowerPoint presentation through a web event is quite different from hooking your laptop up to a large presentation screen directly. In general, your uploaded slides are reduced in size to fit within the application window, and are often converted to static image files, like JPEG. This will result in:

1) Smaller slides, which may be difficult to read if not prepared with care; and

2) The elimination of customized builds or animations embedded in the slides

You can take following steps to maximize the legibility of your presentation and communicate more effectively:

• Be sure your presentation has a 4:3 aspect ratio (the default is 10" x7.5")
• Use larger type than you normally would
• Use simpler design elements and solid color blocks than you normally would
• Break out animations into separate slides (animations must be expressed as individual slides in a sequence)
• View your slides in PowerPoint at 40-60%. This will simulate your viewers' experience.

Things to Avoid

As a general rule of thumb, it is best to avoid the following when preparing slides for an online event:

• Small type (17 point font and smaller is too small)
• Embellished type (shadows, bevels or special effects)
• Textured or gradient backgrounds
• Sounds, music or voice narration
• Animations & slide transitions
• Embedded Excel files, audio, video or flash

For truly successful online presentations, keep your slides simple, consistent and clean, use stardard fonts (Sans-Serif fonts recommended), and select colors that are bold and that reflect your corporate identity. And remember that with any presentation, your slides should embellish your speech. By limiting the amount of information on each slide, the audience will be able to focus more on what you're saying than trying to read what's on that slide. Happy presenting!

Irene Psimenatos is the Web Collaboration Product Manager at ACT Conferencing (irene.psimenatos@canada.acttel.com)

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Meeting Overload – Multi-Taskers Beware!

Most people know that conferencing does wonders in terms of improving time management and efficiency. Instead of one or more days of travel for a single meeting, have many in just a few hours. I’ve seen coworkers on two conference calls at once! Now that’s making the most of your time… or is it?

As you conference more and more, you would think you would just be getting more and more efficient. The trap - multi-tasking! It starts innocently enough. You call in to an audio conference call, and while you are attentively listening to the discussion or presentation, someone instant messages you. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to respond? After all, no one can see you and your phone is muted… It’s a slippery slope from there. Before you know it, conference calls are more like background noise while you are trying to get your work done (“can’t those people be quiet?… I can’t concentrate on my email”). Everyone multi-tasks sometimes, and sometimes it is very necessary. In today’s economy, there’s always more to do and fewer people to do it.

So, the question is, if you are the meeting organizer, how do you ensure that your meeting is the one that people “really” pay attention to?A few suggestions:

1. If your conference is an interactive session, solicit feedback from your conference participants at random points during the call. (“What do you think, Sue?”) No one wants to be the person who has to say “could you repeat the question?” because they clearly haven’t been listening. Harsh? Maybe, but you’ll only have to do it a few times…

2. If you don’t like calling people out, set and distribute an agenda before your meeting. If possible, assign portions of your agenda to individuals on your conference or indicate where you will be looking for specific contributions from individuals.

3. A web conference can keep your listeners more engaged - a few graphs, maybe share your desktop. Just make sure you aren’t reading your slides verbatim into the conference call! Nothing loses an audience faster.

4. People are less likely to multi-task when people can see them, so set up a video conference.

And if you are a multi-tasker trying to reform? A few tips: Email and instant message are huge temptations. If you are on an audio conference, try turning your chair to face away from your computer –OR- If more than one person from your office is on the conference, suggest using a speakerphone together (added benefit, if you or someone from your company is hosting the conference call, you’ll be saving your company money!) – OR - Volunteer to be the minute taker for the meeting -OR- Finally, try blocking time out on your calendar each week to “work” uninterruptedly.

Conference calls are all about giving us back time and allowing people to communicate more easily. And let’s not forget the environmental impact we have by reducing travel. Yes, conferencing is good. The goal is to keep the balance between efficiency and overload!

Why Do We Still Travel?

Reading Paul Waadevig's latest article about the travel/hospitality industry attempting to save business trips, I was struck by how we have seen this type of industry self-regulation before. (If you haven't yet read the article, Paul discusses the US Travel Association's "self governance" guidelines in response to the recent government crackdown on corporate travel.) I find it very interesting that businesses wait until they face a crisis to react, and we always get the same reaction -- with the threat of official regulation looming, industries are desperate to police themselves.

Take the MPAA movie rating system, for example. The United States movie industry waited far longer than most other countries to start classifying their content to help people know which films were appropriate for themselves and their children. It wasn't until the late 1960s, after several landmark court cases and pressure from activist groups, that the Motion Picture Association finally responded with a ratings system. Better to control your own actions than to be legislated out of existence. But the question remains: Why must companies wait until they have no choice? Wouldn't it be better to be proactive about doing what's best?

I suppose my point is not so much about the travel industry, but about the companies relying so heavily on corporate travel. It's no secret that travel is expensive... very, very expensive. Why is it, though, that companies have only recently begun to cut travel budgets? Like every other problem, companies wait until there are no other options before doing what could have saved money all along. Seems to me that if you can take care of an important meeting with a 2-hour video conference instead of spending two full days flying to meet in person, that would make a lot of sense. You would get two more days of productivity from those workers and save thousands of dollars.

Sooner or later, the economy is going to start its slow upward climb. I'm no financial guru (in fact, I don't think I'm any kind of guru, except possibly 90s music trivia), but it doesn't seem like an economic recovery is too far off.  When that happens, are travel budgets going to expand back to their pre-recession levels? History says yes. I'm saying... why? Start policing yourselves before the next problem hits -- it will save a lot of headaches.

ACT Conferencing Launches Spanish Website

I'm happy to announce the launch of ACT's new Spanish-language website offering audio, web and video conferencing information for Central America/South America: www.ACTaudioconferencias.com.mx

As part of our continuing effort to expand ACT's global web presence, this new site provides details on ACT's conferencing services and customer service contacts.  Whether you are looking for conferencing services in Mexico, conferencing partners in Latin America, or video conferencing solutions for South America, the information is available here.  What's more, our customers take comfort in the fact that ACT was rated one of the top conferencing providers, and we are thrilled to have a website supporting that same great service the CALA region.

How Secure Is My Meeting Content?

I'm often asked about meeting security and data integrity as it applies to web conferencing. Ever since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11 2001, and the advent of the US Patriot Act, web conferencing users are becoming more and more concerned that their data may be compromised.

Happily, I'm here to offer some reassurance that with ReadyConnect Web Meeting, your data is secure. Here are some tips for how hosts can have peace of mind around the content they present during a web conference.

Lock Your Meeting and Eject Uninvited Participants

A simple but effective way of protecting your content is to lock your meeting. With ReadyConnect, you can do this for both your audio and your web conference, ensuring that your content is seen by only those who you allow. And as a bonus, if an unwanted guest has managed to sneak into your meeting, you can just as easily kick them out!

Delete Your Uploaded Files

Another simple security measure is to delete any files you've uploaded to your web conference before leaving your meeting. As a convenience, ReadyConnect Web Meeting allows you to store documents on your account so that you don't need to upload them every time, and so that your files travel with you, no matter where you're taking your meeting. Hosts are able to manage these files and delete them whenever they are no longer needed. Once you delete a file, it's permanently removed from the web conferencing server.

Use Application Sharing for Highly Sensitive Data

There are times where you want to take no risks with the integrity of your data. For these cases, I recommend using Application Sharing to show your documents, rather than uploading them directly to your meeting. Application Sharing data is strictly real-time, and only participants who are connected to your web conference will be able to see what you're showing. When your meeting is finished, you can rest assured that no data has been left behind.

Irene Psimenatos is the Web Collaboration Product Manager at ACT Conferencing irene.psimenatos@canada.acttel.com