Archive for January, 2010

Online Web Conferencing

January 22nd, 2010
Nathalie Fiset asked:




Online web conferencing is seen by a lot of people today as the next evolution of business. Through This method opf communication, people are able to both network in order to increase the resources of their companies and still be up-to-date on the status of those companies in order to provide direction. There are, however, certain limitations to this relatively new piece of technology that few people learn to consider. As you may realize, knowing the limitation of a tool enables a person to know the fullest extent to which it can be utilized. This means that by assessing the limitations of this valuable tool, you will be able to use it in the best way possible.

One of the biggest advantages that people get from online conferencing is the ability to send data in different forms through long distances. People who make use of this method of conferencing often do so because phone conferencing may not be enough to meet their needs. Online web conferencing offers a variety of ways through which people may be able to send information.

You should first consider the fact that today, through VOIP technology the internet actually offers people a chance to use the internet as a cheaper phone solution. Voice over the Internet Protocol actually allows people to make use of their computers as telephones which can be a much cheaper option than making long-distance calls for a teleconference.

Speaking of options, the different types of long distance conferencing software today actually lets people share more than just their voice. With the different types of technology available today, people are actually able to minimize the effects of distance. They are able to communicate visually, using the web cam. They are also able to send various presentations and documents which could be invaluable in helping others understand the objective of their communication.

Through online web conferencing, you will be able to make sure that the people you want to understand and grasp the import of your message will be able to do so. As you may know, a great part of communication depends on how the receiver perceives a message. By making use of this very versatile piece of technology, you will be able to make sure that you did everything possible to send the message clearly.

This does not mean, however, that online conferencing is perfect. There are actually certain disadvantages faced by people who make use of this technology. The first disadvantage lies in the fact that the technology is still at an early stage of development. Despite the fact that a lot of people today use web conferencing technology casually, there are still a lot of bugs with the system.

Because of the fact that the technology used in an internet meeting is still quite new, people often find that the technology can’t exactly live up to their highest expectations. One example is with video conferencing. Today’s technology allows people to communicate through video. A lot of people expect the experience to be quite similar to actually talking face to face -an idea proliferated by many science fiction movies. However, we haven’t gotten that far yet with technology.

As of today, people still have not found a way of merging the camera and the display which means that you can’t really see eye to eye with whomever you are talking to through the web cam. This can present problems for someone who is used to communicating through eye contact. Online web conferencing just is not the same as actually meeting and talking to someone.

Another disadvantage of web meetings lies in the fact that not many people are proficient enough with the technology to make it practical for common use. This is the reason why a lot of companies still offer online conferencing as a service. Only a few companies have people who can actually set up online web conferences on demand. Others just have to rely on outside help.

When you avail of online web conferencing services, it is always important to make sure that you have technical support to help you out if you have any trouble with the technology. Other than that, you should be able to enjoy the advantages brought to you by the progress of technology.

Luis
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5 Tips For Successful Web Conferencing

January 17th, 2010
Tom Cruz asked:




Web conferencing is an amazing advantage to businesses of all kinds and sizes in the 21st century. The Internet and continued software development have risen to the occasion of meeting increasing market demand for being able to run virtual offices and host or attend virtual meetings to cut down very seriously on overhead, travel expenses and time, and food expenses. Web conferencing has become an integral part of this new way of doing business as fuel prices continue to stay high and it becomes harder to get large start-up business loans.

If you are going to use web conferencing technology, you of course want to use it right. Using technology can be a miraculous help, but using it in the wrong way or incompetently can be a dreaded nightmare and harm your business.

*When you attend a web conference, be serious just as you would in a real-world setting. Don’t think you can cut corners and goof off, or multitask. Turn off your cell phone. Shut down your e-mail. Do not playMMORPGs while pretending to attend. Dress appropriately and take good notes. No, you’re not going to have to pass a test or anything meeting’s end, but you will be quite embarrassed if the host asks questions then and you can’t participate.

*If you are hosting the meeting, you are the benevolent dictator. This is not a democracy free-for-all. You are the boss and the leader of the meeting, and those who are attending must be expected to comply with that or else they get kicked out. According to web conferencing expert JenniferDeVoe, the chief executive of White Horse in Portland, Ore., “Successful Web meetings require a good facilitator to promote the inclusion of diverse parties and to keep agendas and meeting goals focused. Keep the agenda very tight and on target. The designated facilitator should play an active role in keeping the participants involved and engaged.”

*When you’re preparing to host a web conference, imagine that you are going to be onstage, and that you are playing before a liveaudience . This means, do not say, write, present, wear, or do anything in this meeting that you would not do in a real-life meeting. Oh–and that includes shutting the door to your office!

*Web conferencing is not telephone conferencing. And at the same time, as real-life-like as it is, it’s still all being done via Internet. So, you have to be aware of these strictures. According to MattAbrahams, a former VP of education for Openwave , Inc., and someone highly experienced with web conferencing, “Both presenter and audience are better served by asking specific questions that are more likely to inspire a direct and useful response from the participants. For instance, does anyone have a question about the ‘X’ feature?” Most of these rules are learned with practice, which should be done internally rather than with customers or prospective customers”

So, follow these tips with your web conferencing. You’ll make your virtual meetings very successful.

Linda
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Web Conferencing – the Virtual Global Office Enabler

January 14th, 2010
Vinodh Pushparaj asked:




Online collaboration has begun to evolve from just being the Wow factor to something core that every business has to invest and have a plan for. Internet has changed the way we work and live, it has made virtual offices and work from homes possible. Web conferencing is one big tool that increases the productivity of the employees and the company as such. There are multiple products in this web collaboration segment out there from companies starting with Cisco, Microsoft to PresentPlus.com. These online conferencing products enable live meetings to happen in a virtual conference room. This is a Sci-Fi dream just a few decades ago, now it is a reality in high resolution video beamed across continents. The advent of high speed Internet and fantastic QoS (Quality of Service) implementations in the backbone networks has enabled these highly productive multimedia conferences. Typical conferences has always included a dull one way non-interactive lecture style over the phone meetings, remember Charlie’s Angels. Now it has evolved into something highly feature rich and highly productive.

Web conferences “NOW” enable online sharing of your presentation material and additional documentation that is needed for the meeting. Additionally it provides the collaboration aspects like shared white boards and live synchronized presentations. The other main core components are the audio, video and text collaboration. The traditional PBX audio has been replaced with the reach VOIP audio features and video has evolved from dull one ways to active speaker- grid solutions. Video has evolved so well that now you can have custom views for each person in the conference, each person can choose the endpoints or cameras they want to watch in addition to the capabilities like automatically getting the video from the active speaker in the conference. One of the much used features is the integrated text chats with emoticons. What a fantastic feature this is, along with the public chat modules the users get to have their own private chats. While you are in the online meeting you can chat with your co-worker on specific questions and get something cleared without interrupting the overall meeting. This is one thing that is uniquely possible in online conferences which is really an annoyance in real face to face meetings. How many times have you really wanted the mute button for the private conversation between 2 guys in a group meeting in parallel to the main speaker? This text capability has found really some interesting and useful twists like real time polling and online question submissions. Think about it, you can keep sending the questions you want to be answered in the final Q/A as and when it strikes you. These are typically added to a queue which can feed as the source for the Q/A session that typically follows the preso or meeting. This is very useful in lecture style meetings. Enough said about the features and let’s take a quick look at the business side of things.

Web conferencing products allow the businesses to setup virtual global office ready to meet with business prospects and clients at any time anywhere. When I say anywhere I mean contact any one through these online collaboration products having a rich experience like the face to face meeting without the costly Flight and Hotel expenses. These also present a great opportunity to telecommute without distancing yourself from your colleagues. More so often it happens that folks who telecommute are forgotten by most colleagues, these video and other real time capabilities gets these telecommuters closer to the rest of the team. One of the killer uses is webcasting which is organizing live events and broadcasting these events to employees and customers who are not able to attend the event. This is added with the capability to record these meetings with unlimited playbacks. Without much investment in terms of capital equipment you can get them as online services on a need basis from some of the good companies. One such company with many web conferencing offerings is presented to you below.

Denise
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Sales Conferencing – How To

January 10th, 2010
David CJ Jones asked:




The advent of the Internet has caused many ripples in the sales world, one of the major ones being sales conferencing. This is a method of conducting a sales presentation or sales demo using the Internet for the visual portion of the presentation over the Internet and the audio over the phone or the Internet.

Benefits to Sales Conferencing

There are many advantages that companies have found in doing sales conferencing for their sales presentations. The major one is the cost savings that comes with replacing traveling for in person meetings with this video conferencing sales method. A typical sales trip can cost anywhere from $500 – $1,000 per day with airfare, car rental, hotel room and dining as well as any other additional costs like parking and other amenities. The cost savings can be very significant if sales reps are required to take multiple sales trips per month.

Another great benefit to web sales conferencing is being able to do more sales presentations in a short amount of time. A typical sales trip maybe able to get in 3-5 sales presentations per day if the sales rep is efficient and packs his day in. By using this video conferencing sales method, you can drastically increase the number of sales presentations that you can do. Some sales reps are able to do sales conferencing sessions every hour if there are able to get attendees on.

One of the great challenges to doing web sales conferencing is that you lose a bit of that personal touch that comes with seeing someone face to face in their office. But many companies have found that the increase quantity of sales presentations they can do, even with a lower conversion rate, still increases their sales and revenue. And because you’re saving considerably on the traveling costs, there is a much higher return on investment even if the conversion rate is lower.

In addition, many companies still incorporate traveling as part of their sales model, but they use the sales conferencing method to qualify their prospects and warm up their prospects. If you do a sales presentation over a web sales conferencing webinar first before you see them face to face, it will dramatically increase the effectiveness of that in person meeting. The propsects will already get a good sense of what the product or service is like. Now you can just focus on them and how your company can help your prospect.

If a prospect as agreed to a in person meeting after they’ve already attended a sales conferencing session, it is more likely that they really need the product. I can’t say how many times I’ve gone to see a propsect only to find that they don’t really need our company’s services. It’s usually something I couldn’t have known from a cold call, but could have discovered during a sales presentation on a sales conference call.

How to Overcome Challenges

One of the greatest challenges in using the sales conferencing method is that the attendance rate goes down drastically. When some schedules an in person meeting, it is almost 90% certain that the person will attend, mainly because you’re going to their office with an appointment. People are more likely to keep a face to face meeting.

Sales conferencing is a bit different as you can imagine. Prospects who schedule a webinar will be a lot less likely to remember the appointment and a lot less likely to show up. Most companies using this method has discovered this problem and have take steps to overcome them.

The best and most simple way to overcome the attendance rate problem is to merely do a reminder and confirmation call. When the prospect is scheduled for a morning sales conferencing webinar, the sales rep should call them the afternoon before. If the webinar is on an afternoon, the sales rep should call that morning to remind them. I’ve seen companies’ attendence rate increase from 30% to 70% using this method.

The other challenge of course is the lack of personal touch and interaction. Again, you’ll find that this loss will be made up for more than enough by your number of conversions. Additionally, you can always choose to go see them at any point. Studies have shown that most sales are closed with 7 sales calls. It’s a more effective if you use web sales conferencing for one of those calls than to go see them each time or merely give a phone call.

Sales Conferencing Services

There are many great companies that offer video conferencing sales services. Webex and Go To Meeting are two good companies that I’ve used before. I won’t say how much I paid because their rates probably change with new technologies and changes in the market. Needless to say, their services are relatively cheap if you compare them with travel costs to see a prospect in person.

Marcia
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Six Ways Video & Web Conferencing Can Benefit Your Business

January 4th, 2010
Dan Richmond asked:




Are you really using the power of modern technology to make your business more profitable? Sure, you are using e-mail, you have a web page and you may be reaching your clients and customers with an electronic mailing list, but are you using web and video conferencing to hold virtual meetings with your employees, customers and clients in different geographical locations? Here are six ways how web and video conferencing can help you to increase the efficiency of your enterprise.

First however, it is important to know what web and video conferencing are. Web conferencing is when two or more people “meet” over the Internet to share information and ideas. Web conferencing systems typically provide tools that allow participants to perform “Online Collaboration” by working together over the Internet, sharing applications and documents.

Some web conferencing tools include the ability to share one’s desktop, allowing participants to “present” information, be it a PowerPoint Presentation, an Excel Spreadsheet or a Word Document with other attendees of their web conference. It is even possible for participants to remotely control other participants’ computers. Video conferencing allows participants to see and hear each other using head sets and web cams, and is usually included in good web conferencing system.

Now take a look at how some companies are already getting the benefits of this cutting- edge technology:

1. They are holding “web meetings” with prospects, customers, clients and fellow workers without having to incur any travel expenses. These face-to-face meetings are conducted using the click of a keyboard and the movement of a mouse.

2. They are demonstrating and supporting products and services without having to send people to far-flung destinations. Web conferencing can enable your staff to get behind the desk of your client and do the trouble shooting or give the training that you may be currently doing, without having to send your support staff out on expensive personal visits.

3. They are holding virtual training and classrooms for students, employees and clients. Schools and Universities in particular are using web and video conferencing to create “virtual classrooms,” while companies are training their employees at several locations using combined web and video conferences.

4. They are giving online web and video support to clients. Live chat boxes are great, I use them all the time, but the support you can offer when your technician can take over a client’s computer and really fix the problem is much more powerful. And, when your client can see who is helping him or her, it really adds a special “warm and fuzzy” touch.

5. They are saving thousands of dollars in travel costs by cutting down on commuting and travel and time spent out of the office. “As a result of this technology, our need to travel between offices has been greatly reduced, which has already saved us thousands of dollars,” says Saul Rothschild, Information Systems Manager at Steel Encounters, Inc.”

In times of rising fuel costs, web and video conferencing can really make a huge difference to a company’s bottom line. Companies using web conferencing are not only able to cut down on their travel expenses, but their sales representatives, trainers and support staff also get to spend more productive time in the office and do not lose valuable hours sitting in a car or on a plane.

6. They are thinking “outside the box” and devising new ways to work now that they are free of geographical limitations. The companies and organizations that have adopted web and video conferencing technology are marketing products and services, conducting training and giving support as if all their employees, prospects and clients were working together under one roof. Company meetings, sales meetings, employee training, and product launches are now being conducted with a new 21st Century flair.

So, consider your own business or activity and think of how web and video conferencing could help you to work more effectively with all your constituents without having to leave your office.

Scott
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