Huddle Up!

You’ve heard us talk about Huddle before, here and here, but in this blog post I’m going to share with you how the marketing team here at InterCall uses it. That’s right—not only do we offer Huddle, we also use it ourselves on a daily basis.

So what is it? Huddle combines the benefits of social networking with the efficiency of project management and document sharing, all provided as a service (or ‘in the cloud’). Integrated with InterCall conferencing solutions, it helps deliver a better overall meeting experience.

You can schedule phone and web meetings from within the Huddle interface, as well as share dial-in details, documents and meeting minutes. But that’s not all. Huddle also gives you a wide range of collaboration tools including online discussions, whiteboards, task calendars and document version management.

Here are some of the ways that we use Huddle:

• Collaborate with our marketing team members more efficiently thanks to version control
• Share information with vendors and partners outside our organization in a secure format
• Post completed and approved materials for marketing teams in other regions to access
• Work with product management on pricing and packaging documentation
• Submit items for approval to our legal team

The best part about Huddle is that it comes free with every Reservationless-Plus® account—no download or install required. What are you waiting for? If you are an InterCall customer, sign up for your Huddle account today!

If you want to learn more about Huddle, be sure to register for “The Future of Collaboration,” a virtual event occurring December 17 at 12 PM Eastern. The first 50 registrants get a $5 Starbucks gift card. See you there!

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Need to Meet? Try a Conference Instead.

Our own Kathleen Finato, senior vice president of marketing and business development, is today’s featured guest blogger on BusinessWeek’s Small Business tips blog. In the article, you’ll learn three common myths about replacing face-to-face meetings with conferencing.

“Myth 1: You always need to be in front of your customer in order to take care of business.
In a recent study by Wainhouse and InterCall, 56% of respondents felt that if more in-person meetings were replaced by conference calls, both parties would be able to get more done. Conferencing allows you to stay in your comfort zone and conduct meetings with anyone, anywhere. Being there can simply mean dialing a couple of numbers and making a few clicks.”

Read the entire article.

Have you found success and savings by replacing face-to-face meetings with conferencing? Let us know about it. We'd love to hear from you! 

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Do You Have a Pandemic Plan in Place?

The World Health Organization announced Friday that H1N1 cases are on the rise in China and Japan, while the virus is continuing to initiate an early start to the winter flu season in Europe, Central Asia and North America.

A quick check of Flu.gov, a comprehensive interagency web site, will provide you with a slew of information on ways to identify, prevent and treat the illness. Among the various recommendations, a few items that pertain to the workplace stood out.

Come up with a Plan
The site encourages businesses to plan appropriate prevention and response strategies in order to maintain business operations and minimize adverse effects.

At InterCall, we launched an internal plan last spring in order to protect our workers while still offering the highest degree of customer service and support. Because of the nature of our work, InterCall has the flexibility and capability to manage and support most operations remotely when necessary. We’ve even developed instructional programs in order for additional staff to be trained on essential operational duties in short notice, emergency situations.

Communicate Your Plan
Once you’ve established your pandemic strategy be sure to communicate it to employees and stakeholders. Flu.gov says:

• Establish and clearly communicate policies on sick leave and employee compensation
• Encourage ill persons to stay home during a pandemic and establish return-to-work policies after illness
• Establish policies for sick-leave absences unique to a pandemic (e.g., liberal/unscheduled leave)

Don’t Forget Conferencing!
Finally, in mitigation guidelines issued by the CDC, "teleworking" strategies are cited as an effective method for reducing contact among susceptible or afflicted individuals and groups. Flu.gov encourages businesses to limit face-to-face meetings and modify workplace practices by promoting the use of conferencing as an alternative meeting solution. In addition to reducing contact among those who may be ill, the site says that conferencing “would help employees balance their work and family responsibilities.”

Need to keep your germs to yourself? If you think you’re experiencing symptoms but still feel well enough to work, if you’re in the minimum 24-hour post-flu exclusionary/recovery period or if you need to stay home with sick kids, try a conference instead. With simple tools you already have at home—a phone, computer and Internet connection—you can hold meetings just as if you were in the office. You can get a free one month trial of InterCall Unified Meeting, our integrated audio and web conferencing service, to see how easy and convenient it is. Just visit our web site to get started today.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

5 Tips for Boosting Webinar Attendance

One of the biggest concerns for any webinar host is attendance. It is, for better or worse, the most common barometer for gauging event success. Of course, we all know quality prevails over quantity, right?

But as I’m sure many would have to admit, it’s nice to tout an overwhelming number of attendees. So how do you encourage both quantity and quality at your next online event? Here are some tried-and-true tips:

Be Considerate

When scheduling your event, make sure you’re considering what’s best for the audience. Would they be most likely to attend in the morning or in the afternoon? Midweek or on Monday or Friday? Are there any conflicts, like a big industry tradeshow or conference, which might interfere with attendance at your virtual event?

Make It Matter

Be sure you’re providing content and speakers that your audience is interested in. Has the speaker you hired delivered the same content multiple times for other companies who might share your audience? Are you continually offering identical webinars with just a different title? Mix it up, stay relevant and ask your audience who and what they want to see and hear.

Try, Try Again

Send multiple invites to get your audience to register: one a couple of weeks before, one a week before and maybe one a day or two before. Remove people who have already registered for the event before sending subsequent invites and try different email content and subject lines with each invite. You never know what’s going to grab someone’s attention. Increased registration should hopefully lead to increased attendance. But with industry average attendance rates at anywhere from 30-50%, you should do everything you can to convert those registrants into attendees!

Keep It Simple

Make registration easy. You’ll have an opportunity to gather information throughout the process, thanks to surveys and polls, so limit registration fields to the essential contact information–name, email and maybe a phone number. That gives you an opportunity to ask a couple more questions that can help you qualify leads and even improve your presentation. For instance, you could ask for registrants to submit questions ahead of time, which can help shape content and delivery to the expectations and needs of the audience. Be sure to incorporate this information as a way of letting your audience know that you’re listening to their needs. And don’t forget to send an immediate email confirmation.

That Reminds Me…

Speaking of emails, you have to remind your audience. Then remind them again. Make sure you send multiple email reminders with clear, easy to understand instructions on how to attend, a link to the event, phone numbers to dial in and support contact information--just in case they need it. And be sure to include a ‘save to Outlook calendar’ option.

Some other tips:

Cross promote – Post it on your web site, partner web sites, your blog, Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools that you participate in, or use free event listing services like EventSpan.
Use the force – Your sales force, that is. Have them add a link to their emails, make calls and ensure it’s top of mind for their clients and prospects.
Buddy up – Find a co-sponsor and have them promote the event to their database.
Reward the behavior you want to promote – Incentives can work. If your goal is to increase attendance, make sure the giveaway goes to an attendee–and perhaps announce it end of the event so the audience stays to listen to the entire presentation.

Finally, sometimes people just can’t make it. Be sure to record your event! You’ll increase the value of your event investment and continue to capture leads over the lifetime of the recording.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Own a small business? You’re using web conferencing, right?

There are many tools online to help the small business owner be successful. You can network, schedule meetings and manage your customers. But in the end, creating a successful business is about the relationships you are able to create and how well you communicate with your stakeholders. If you own a small business you should be using web conferencing. Why? Here are 3 things that web conferencing can do for you.

1. You save money.

Travel is expensive. There are flights, rental cars, hotel rooms and dinners out with clients.  When you use web conferencing, you save money. Instead of traveling to meet with potential clients, meet online. Hosting a virtual meeting keeps you focused on business instead of worrying about the ROI of the trip.

2. You look like a pro.

Integrating a conference call with web cam video or desktop sharing shows that you are a tech-savvy professional. With conferencing and collaboration tools, you can avoid emailing documents back and forth or using a subpar “free” conference call service that may not have lines available when you need them.

3. You can get started now.

When you use online collaboration tools, you are building a partnership with your conferencing service provider. That provider is partially responsible for your success. The great part about this is that you don’t need to buy any expensive equipment or consult your IT guy. It’s packaged and ready to start using the day you decide you need an audio conference or video meeting.

Now, I’m not a salesperson by nature.  But if you think you are ready to give web conferencing a try, we do have a nifty free trial offer available for you. Let me know if web conferencing does everything I’ve promised here. If it gives you other benefits (and it will) come back and let us know about them.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

8 PowerPoint Tips for the Online Classroom

Creating a presentation that is engaging, interesting and informative is often difficult, even for the most seasoned professionals! While presenting in a conference room or training facility, it’s easy to make sure people comprehend what you’re presenting.  However, it’s not always easy to do that in a web conference or online classroom. Every time I write a blog, I send the topic out to my team and ask them for tips, tricks and suggestions for the topic.  This month, Chris McLean, a product trainer who is getting his masters in organizational leadership with a focus on training, was quick to respond with the below tips.  I couldn’t have said it better myself, so for this blog you can credit the learning to him!

8 PowerPoint Tips for the Online Classrom

View more presentations from Intercall .

Keep these tips in mind the next time you create a presentation. Some of them may be challenging (I know I personally have a hard time with the 6 x 6 tip when I create content), but I guarantee in the long run it will make for more effective and engaging online training. What are some of your tips for content creation?  Let us know below!

  

Nicole Scheel is the Director of Training, and the “Tips & Training Blogger”. Nicole has been in training with InterCall for nine years and currently manages our internal and customer training departments, also known as InterCall University. When she's not training someone, you can find Nicole volunteering in her community or finishing her Masters in Training & Development at Roosevelt University.

Smart Companies Travel Less

In the current economic environment, businesses worldwide are tightening their belts in response to lower sales volumes. Locally, you may have a small business that’s been around for over 50 years closing down shop. On the national level, mainstream news coverage has major retailers and household names filing for bankruptcy. In the midst of the current crisis, companies are look at bottom line issues such as:

• Protecting profit margins and achieving positive cash flow

• Compensating for increased price of supplies and goods which translates to larger costs for the consumer

• Maintaining productivity with a reduced or frozen workforce

• Keeping good employees despite layoffs, frozen salaries and other reduced cost-reduction measures

Clearly, these are large challenges that require complex, indepth solutions. However, one piece of the puzzle that helps to solve all of these problems is travel reduction. Why does your company need to reduce travel? To answer this question, let’s first take a look at the monetary and morale costs of traveling:

Financial Costs

1. According to American Express, the average cost for a business trip in 2009 is expected to be more than $1000 a person.
2. The Washington Post reported that flight delays cost the US economy $15 billion a year.

Productivity Costs

1. 15% of business travelers surveyed said traveling  made them less productive.
2. More than 50% of business travelers admitted that some of their trips were not necessary.
3. Constant business trips take a toll on employee flexibility, and flexibility is known to improve employees’ job performance and satisfaction.

It’s quite costly to travel. The alternative, of course, is to practice travel reduction within your organization. By doing so, your company can:

Save Time—did you really need to visit that vendor last week to listen to him talk about his favorite vacation destinations? Probably not. This example, tied in with the unprecedented number of delayed flights and traffic can be a cause for concern. Don’t waste your time traveling when you can be more productive at your desk.

Save Money—as I mentioned earlier, it’s expensive to travel for business. For smaller companies especially, $1000 a person means your trip had better be worth it. Conferencing offers you easy-to-use collaboration and communication tools for virtually pennies a minute. It’s a no-brainer.

Save the Environment—you don’t need to be extremely interested in the environment to appreciate this: According to The Ecopreneurist, if every small business owner in the United States conducted one teleconference in lieu of a domestic business trip, it would save $25.4 billion in travel expenses and 10.5 million tons of CO2 in just one year. And all you have to do is conduct your business as usual without getting in a car or on plane.

So how does this really work? How can you skip the trip and use conferencing instead? Let’s take a look at how departments within your organization could get the same things done using conferencing instead of traveling.

Leadership—instead of your company CEO going around to the different sales offices to communicate new company policies, dial up a reservationless audio conference in seconds.

Marketing—make sure your new product launch gets all the attention it deserves. Instead of traveling around the globe, contact the media and launch it using a web streaming solution. This is the best bang for your buck because it can be watched live from anywhere in the world. An archive can also be made available to watch at any time, so you get more out of it than you would by doing on-site presentations.

Operations—new processes need to go into effect right away? Not a problem when you use conferencing. Share all important data with stakeholders easily and effectively with a phone and web conference.

IT: Out of the main office and having issues with your computer or network? Let IT handle the job—no matter where you are—by accessing your system remotely.

Training—so your company just hired 10 new people across all your offices and you’re wondering how to teach them the ropes. Don’t fly them in to your main HQ to be trained; instead, conference them in to save time and money. There are many ways to ensure and test retention while conducting online training.

Sales—do your customers need to know how to navigate their new service over the net? It’s easy when you have them join a web conference. Simply send them a hyperlink and you can show them what they need to know with desktop sharing. You can even give them presenter status so that they can control the application in real time.

Human Resources—our operations department needs a new director and your best prospects are in different areas of the country. Don’t waste time bringing them all out to see you. Meet all prospects face-to-face with a video conference.

But, are there adverse effects to reducing travel? Below I’ve listed a few common concerns about not ‘being there’ for meetings. If you have others, we’d love to hear about them

Myth 1: You always need to be in front of your customer in order to take care of business.

Conferencing products were designed specifically to confront this problem. In a recent study, Wainhouse and InterCall determined that 56% of respondents felt that if more in-person meetings were replaced by conference calls, both parties would be able to get more done. Conferencing allows you to stay in your comfort zone and conduct meetings with anyone, anywhere. Simply dial a couple of numbers, make a few clicks… and meet.

Myth 2: Bringing a new technology to the workplace will slow down employees

Conferencing is extremely easy to use, which is why it’s such an invaluable tool. For example,InterCall Unified Meeting is as simple as a light switch. Most conferencing providers also offer free training so you can get up and running quickly.

Myth 3:  It’s going to require a lot of time and energy to enact company-wide travel alternatives.

You don’t need to hire a private consultant to conduct a cost-benefits analysis. A great conferencing provider should have expert meeting consultants who can help you determine exactly what you need and exactly how you’d benefit.

All companies need to save money in order to do more with less, especially given the current economic conditions. If you have other ways to reduce travel, let’s discuss them below. Our meeting consultants would also be happy to assist you in developing a customized travel reduction plan for your company.

Daniel Carroll, is an Associate Marketing Manager and the company's resident competitive intel and market trends research guru. He earned a BBA in Marketing at Temple University. In his spare time he likes to swim, rollerblade and sample fine Italian cuisine.

Top 5 Conference Call Do's

Last week we posted The InterCall UniversityTop 5 List of Conferencing Don'ts. Now, we’re back with a few ideas on things you can do to make your conference a success.

1. Do announce yourself when speaking

During a question and answer session or discussion time, say your name before you start speaking. It allows presenters to refer to you in a more personable way and they’ll be able to reference you or your question later on, if needed.

2. Do check the placement of your headset

One of the most common pet peeves in meetings is hearing the ‘heavy breather’ for the duration of the call. Make sure your headset microphone is at an appropriate distance from your mouth or nose.

3. Do send a meeting request rather than an email

In that first meeting request, do your best to include all information including a dial-in phone number, conference code and a link to the web meeting. It can be annoying to get five updates with time changes, added web conferencing information or new numbers, not to mention that it gets confusing and potentially makes it difficult for people to join your meeting.

4. Do pay attention

When you’re not in a face-to-face meeting, it’s very easy to get distracted. Limit your multi-tasking while on conference calls. One of the most embarrassing situations that can happen is to be called on and either not respond or not have a clue what is being asked of you. Act as if your conference call is a face-to-face meeting (hopefully you wouldn’t be checking your email or sending an IM if people were sitting across the table from you) and you won’t get caught in this sticky situation!

5. Do learn the mute function

This was by far the most popular response from my team! We all know that there are a variety of things that can happen in the “background” of a conference call: dogs barking, keyboards being typed on, sneezing, children running around, loud speaker announcements at the airport, etc. So, it’s important to learn how to mute your phone. On the flip side of that, make sure you know how to un-mute it, too. If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Sorry, I was talking but my line was muted…” I’d be rich! 

Are there other things that you wish people would do on your conference calls? Tell me about them in the comments section!

  

Nicole Scheel is the Director of Training, and the “Tips & Training Blogger”. Nicole has been in training with InterCall for nine years and currently manages our internal and customer training departments, also known as InterCall University. When she's not training someone, you can find Nicole volunteering in her community or finishing her Masters in Training & Development at Roosevelt University.

Top 5 Conference Call Don'ts

As some of you remember, previously I wrote about how to avoid being annoying on a conference call (5 Annoying Conference Call Mistakes to Avoid).

Now, we’re back with more! I’ve mentioned my fabulous team of trainers before and, as usual, I turned to them for help in writing this month’s blog. With that being said, we’d like to introduce you to the…

The InterCall University Top 5 List of Conferencing Don’ts

1. Don’t join a large group of people from a sub-par speaker phone

It is very hard to be on one end of a conference call and to try to hear a group of people in a large room gathered around a conference phone. If you need to do this, make sure you test the phone and assign one person to repeat any questions or comments.

2. Don’t let someone dominate the call

Make sure that you are being respectful of others’ time. Don’t let one person go on a tangent and rule the call. At a pause in the speaking, ask that person if he will continue the conversation off-line after the conference call.

3. Don’t talk over people

We realize that it can be difficult to get used to being on a conference call and not physically seeing when someone is about to talk. However, for that reason, you need to allow for the appropriate amount of silence before talking. If you’re asking for questions, allow your audience time to think. If you’ve talked over someone, allow that person to repeat what they’ve said. If you have a large group of people attending a call, I’d suggest using Operator Assisted or Direct Event conference calls so that an operator can facilitate the question and answer portion of the meeting.

4. Don’t stray from the agenda

This one is easier said than done! A good tip is to make sure that you have an agenda for every meeting. That way, if you get off task, you can always refer back to the agenda to get everyone focused. To start off on the right foot, either send out the agenda prior to the meeting or show it during your web meeting.   

5. Don’t be late

While the InterCall Lounge is fun to listen to while waiting for the call to start, it’s not professional to leave your audience waiting for more than a few minutes. Make it a practice to arrive at least three minutes before call start time. If you’re invited to a meeting, make sure to be on time. It’s disrespectful to leave a group of people waiting. 

By learning from your conferencing service and paying attention to these few tips, you’ll be conference call pro in no time! Is there a conference call don’t that really gets you going? Tell me about it below. 

  

Nicole Scheel is the Director of Training, and the “Tips & Training Blogger”. Nicole has been in training with InterCall for nine years and currently manages our internal and customer training departments, also known as InterCall University. When she's not training someone, you can find Nicole volunteering in her community or finishing her Masters in Training & Development at Roosevelt University.

3 Things You Should Know About Webinar Chit Chat

Chatting. We all do it. Some of us do it by the water cooler in the break room. Others send an instant message to a co-worker and chat it up.  And from what we’ve seen on Twitter lately, many people send tweets or chat during conference calls and webinars. I admit I have been guilty of sending a quick message myself. 

However, when you’re putting on a webinar or web conferencing event, do you really want to encourage your participants to chat amongst themselves? Many virtual events use Twitter to take questions during their session, which generally results in a bit of banter. But, a public forum within your presentation dedicated to chit chat could be damaging. Here are a few reasons why.

You Will be Sharing Attendee Information

If you’re publicizing audience information during your web meeting (for example, the attendees’ first and last names or even email addresses), what’s to stop a competitor who may be in attendance from looking up that person or their company? With today’s social media tools, it’s not too difficult to find people online. Another concern is that if you have less than anticipated attendance, allowing attendees to 'see each other' highlights that there is a small audience, potentially discounting the quality and importance of your message.   

Not All Chatting Will Be Safe for Work

Chat panels are frequently used for support, meaning audience members can type in questions about the materials or speaker. If the moderator posts a private response to those individuals, other audience members could be left with the impression that those questions were ignored. Any time there is a public forum, you run the risk of less savory attitudes being on display. I have even seen some ambitious sales people post their contact information in the chat panel. No one wants to be spammed when they’re trying to focus on the speaker’s presentation.

Your Audience Will Be Distracted

Finally, there’s the distraction factor. If you have an important message to deliver, you probably want your audience to focus on the speaker and the content rather than to carry on side conversations that may veer off topic.
These problems underscore the advantage of hiring an event management professional. Event managers can walk you through all the possible event scenarios and help you make decisions that ensure the success of your event—like whether to use public or private chat. They can also provide assistance behind the scenes of your live event by monitoring chat logs, replying to technical issues and forwarding content related questions directly to the speaker.

If you’ve experienced other issues with public chat functionality or have solutions to some of the problems I mentioned, please tell us in the comments section below.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.