New Android apps bring full functionality for Webcast Studio, virtual environments to mobile users

There was some very welcome news recently announced for InterCall customers who use InterCall Webcast Studio and/or virtual environments while mobile. Both products are now available as Android apps through the Android Market.

What that means is a lot more users will now be able to use their mobile devices to attend webcasts and access their organizations’ virtual environments anywhere they happen to be. And they’ll be able to do it with all the functionality they’ve come to expect from their Android devices, such as pinching and swiping, rather than having the limited functionality that comes with using a mobile browser.

Android dominance

The announcement is particularly timely given the recent surge in market share for Android devices. Android continues to be the leading smartphone operating system, now owning 52.2 percent of the market according to research firm comScore. In addition, research firm Strategy Analytics group says that Android now accounts for 41.3 percent of the worldwide tablet market, up from a 29.2 percent share for the same period the year before.

By making the Android app available, InterCall has greatly simplified and enhanced the mobile experience for users. Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights.

Webcast Studio

One of the most significant capabilities the new Webcast Studio Android app gives users is the ability to view slides and video at the same time. That gives presenters a lot more flexibility in how they prepare their presentations. They can use audio, slides and/or video in any combination with confidence that all attendees will experience it the way they would on a PC, with robust functionality and full-branded, custom elements.

The app is also able to remember recent events users attended, allowing them to re-enter immediately as long as they click on the app rather than the event’s URL. If you have to jump off momentarily to take an important call you can get right back in quickly and easily.

Of course, by leveraging pinch and swipe capabilities built into the device users can now change the size of type or focus in on a specific area – critical capabilities, particularly when viewing detailed slides on a small smartphone screen. Swiping allows users to position information the way they need it, or move easily between the Android app and other information that may have been sent separately.

Virtual environments

For virtual environments, the Android app allows mobile users to enjoy full navigation throughout the environment. They can easily view webcasts, interact with other visitors in the networking lounge, chat with booth reps, participate in discussion forums and access all on-demand content.

All the customized elements are intact and active as well. And again, pinching and swiping makes it easy to move from an overall view to a focus on a specific element and back again.

The InterCall Webcast Studio and virtual environment apps are available free through the Android Market. If you’re frequently on the move, as I am, you’ll want to download them soon. I’ve tried them and they definitely create a better user experience.

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Eric Vidal is a Director of Product Marketing at InterCall and is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

InterCall Wins Silver for Company of the Year in Best in Biz Awards 2012

The 2012 winners of the Best in Biz Awards have been announced and I’m happy to share that InterCall took the Silver in the Company of the Year category.

We’re proud of all the awards we win, regardless. But bringing home a victory like this is especially exciting. It’s not every day that InterCall as a whole brings home an achievement. Sure, each of our lines of business has their awards and honors to show for themselves over the course of each year. But being acknowledged for our collective efforts is something exceptional.

This particular submission process took an in depth look at our achievements in the past year. While many awards focus on individual product/service offerings or singular highlights submitted on behalf of each company, the Best in Biz Awards look for a comprehensive view of what sets a company apart. Hence the ‘best in biz’ name.

Additionally, the Best in Biz Awards require some citation to back up the claims made in the achievements submission. They won’t let you get away with saying you were the first company to beam a webcast back from Mars without having something to prove that’s the case (hasn’t happened yet, but give us time).

Lastly, the Best in Biz Awards take into consideration a company’s history as a whole. Where they are and where they’ve been play a critical role in where they are going.

It’s also worth noting that the Best in Biz Awards’ judges are a top-notch group of individuals from publications and analyst firms. Judges include representatives from ABC, BusinessWeek, Computerworld, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Inc., Network World and more.

So let me finish by just saying thanks to everyone across all our lines of business. We’ve had a successful year and we already know one of our goals for 2013… go for the Gold.

Eric Vidal is a Director of Product Marketing at InterCall and is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

InterCall Wins Gold for Best Marketing Impact in 2012 Brandon Hall Excellence Awards

One of the most exciting things for any company is to receive recognition from the thought leaders and pillars of research in its industry. InterCall has been pleased to receive accolades in the past from Brandon Hall Group and we’re pleased again to share some exciting news.

InterCall has won the Gold for Best Marketing Impact in the 2012 Brandon Hall Excellence Awards for a client’s use of InterCall Virtual Environments for networking with customers and prospects to bolster their marketing efforts and drive lead generation.

Specifically, Brandon Hall Group presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in establishing marketing initiatives and goals, effectively connecting with the target audience and realizing measurable results based on performance.

InterCall’s Virtual Environment Platform allows clients to create and manage branded, interactive, web-based events and learning centers to engage and connect with any number of clients and prospects – anytime and from anywhere around the globe. 

One of our clients took this concept to new heights by opening a Virtual Event Center in 2010 which offers new ways of networking and learning for clients and prospects. The client’s corporate marketing team planned this environment to handle a variety of event types including product launches, solution briefings, and client and channel education.  A number of permanent event spaces - such as virtual briefing centers - provide a robust location to host webcasts and allow easy access to subject matter experts.

The Virtual Event Center proved successful for our client’s marketing group during the launch in 2010 and utilization has grown constantly over the past three years. Through the Virtual Event Center, our client has touched over 100,000 customers and prospects through more than 300 virtual events run from 44 countries. Visitors downloaded more than 170,000 assets, spending an average of two hours on the virtual platform.

All of us here at InterCall appreciate this award and are happy for the success it has brought our clients.

Eric Vidal is a Director of Product Marketing at InterCall and is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

InterCall Charity Drive: The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless

As we enter the holiday season, we are grateful for the comfort of our warm homes and the joy of our loved ones. Unfortunately, for some, the holidays are a painful reminder of hardships they have experienced over the last year—job loss, eviction, illness or separation from family. The greatest gift we can give this holiday season is hope. Help us spread holiday hope this winter by giving gifts of comfort and joy to our community’s most vulnerable families and individuals.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless houses 2300 families and individuals on any given night, and we see many more each day through our programs and services. The leading causes of homelessness are job loss, domestic violence and health crises—each situation is unique and each family or individual has their own set of needs in order to overcome homelessness and remain in stable housing. Unlike a shelter or soup kitchen, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless works toward lasting solutions through the provision of housing, medical and mental health care, and supportive programs such as employment, substance treatment services, case management and early childhood education. The Coalition has a success rate of keeping nearly 90% of the people they work with housed, but families are losing their housing at a much faster rate due to high unemployment rates and increasing rental costs.

So that’s why the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless exists! During the holidays, they collect specific items for several groups:

• Those moving into a home from a shelter or the street
• Adults who remain homeless during the winter season
• Children who are in shelters or have entered Coalition housing

InterCall is a company that does more than just connect business people through communication services, we also help connect and support our community. So you know we had to take action with our very own InterCall Colorado Annual Charity Drive!

• Who: Any InterCall employees, teams, friends and/or family
• What: Donations for homeless Colorado families (see the lists below of things in need, but any and all items are welcome!)
• When: November 19 - December 14, 2012
• Where: There will be donation bins in both the Westminster and Highlands Ranch office kitchens. Please place your donated items there. All donated items will be taken to the Homeless Coalition on December 15, 2012.
  • Contact us if you need directions to either office to make your donation
  • For those outside of Colorado interested in donating, you can make your donations online

And we invite you to take part in our initiative so that we can really make an impact for this worthwhile cause! Visit the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless website for details on how you can donate as well!

Donation Requests:

Home for the Holidays Basket

• Household Cleaning Supplies
• Mop and Broom
• Bucket
• Laundry Detergent
• Laundry Basket
• Toiletries
• Grocery Store Gift Cards
• Hangers
• Alarm Clock
• Door Mat
• Calendar
• Kitchen Towels

Warm Winter Package

• Sleeping Bag
• Blanket
• Adult Backpack
• NEW Socks (wool)
• New Boots
• Quick Service Restaurant Gift Cards
• Hats, Gloves and Scarves
• New or Gently Used Coats
• Hand and Foot Warmers
• Travel Size Tissues

Gifts of Children’s Cheer

• Children’s Books
• Puzzles
• Outdoor Play Items (i.e. balls, hula hoops, sidewalk chalk)
• Infant Care Items (i.e. wet wipes, baby powder, diapers)

There's great joy in giving to those in need and if you, family or friends are in a position to contribute, it would be much appreciated!

Happy Holidays from InterCall

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 and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Where can small businesses network, receive exclusive offers and view original content?

InterChange - The Intersection of Commerce and Collaboration

InterChange is a virtual community designed to help your small business flourish. It's FREE to join and accessible 24/7.

Within InterChange, you can:

• Engage with prospective customers, potential investors and highly influential decision makers in the Networking Café and community storefronts.
• Attend exclusive webcasts, monthly small business webinars and specially sponsored programs in the Event Center.
• Explore special offers and exclusive discounts in Enterprise Exchange and West Central showrooms.
• Discover collateral, white papers, research studies and presentations that benefit your company in the Resource Library and community storefronts.

This week we will feature a variety of webcasts in the events center including:

Tuesday, September 25

• Get to the Point (And Get People to See Things Your Way) with Terri Langhans at 1:00 PM Eastern

Wednesday, September 26

• Perseverance, Success and You! with Brian Patrick Jensen at 2:00 PM Eastern

Thursday, September 27

• Sins and CEOs: Lessons from Leaders and Losers That Will Change Your Career with Richard A. Moran at 3:00 PM Eastern

Friday, September 28

• Growing Your Business with Mark LeBlanc at 12:00 PM Eastern

Plus, you’ll be able to interact with InterCall staff in the West pavilion.

Sign up today!

Tonya Hottmann is the director of marketing at InterCall, responsible for small business marketing. Before joining InterCall, Tonya ran a boutique marketing consulting firm for 10 years. An avid baseball fan, she enjoys reading, traveling, exercising and spending summer days at the beach.

The week, InterCall announced a new release of our webcasting platform, InterCall Webcast Studio. The platform has improved on its market-leading self-service, micro-site, mobile and peer-to-peer multicasting capabilities and gives companies multiple ways to connect with their targeted audiences for greater impact and business results.

If you are an event planner, corporate communications manager, trainer or marketer, this new service lets you create and manage your own webcasts with much greater flexibility, control and speed. It has a simple, easy-to-use reservation process and tight integration with InterCall Virtual Environments for cross-utilization. InterCall’s technology makes it easy for mid-size to large enterprises to create and broadcast impactful, rich media presentations on the web and connect with more people around the globe. The platform is an ideal solution if you need to broadcast your messages to the widest audience possible for events such as investor relations calls, press conferences and other high-impact events. The webcasts can be broadcast live or archived for later playback, and can include basic desktop or high-end video.

Learn more about all the new webcasting platform updates>>

Have you tried webcasting before? What did you think? Our goal is that this new platform will create a better expereince for hosts and participants, and we welcome your feedback.

Eric Vidal is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

On October 5, the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit wrapped up in Laguna Niguel, CA. This world-premiere gathering brings together women leaders in business, government, academia, philanthropy and the arts. 

If you’re like me, you probably couldn’t make it to the live event. But, being a woman in the business world, I still wanted to see what it was all about and maybe gain some inspiration. Luckily, InterCall was chosen to host the event on our Virtual Environment platform. I was able to get an inside look into the event as all plenary sessions of the summit were streamed; I could network with other virtual participants and get questions answered by leading subject matter experts.

The event brought together some of the most prominent women leaders to share their personal stories in building businesses and making a difference in the world. Among those women who presented were:

• Glenn Close, Actress and Producer
• Arianna Huffington, President and CEO, AOL Huffington Post Media Group
• Chelsea Handler, Author, Actress and Comedian
• Ellen Kullman, Chair and CEO, DuPont
• Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico

InterCall was honored to support Fortune in this exciting event by enabling greater visibility and reaching an additional 6200 participants through the virtual platform.

Did you miss the event? As of today, you can now watch the archived events free of charge. To register and view the world's premiere gathering of women leaders, visit the virtual event site to log in.

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

We’re celebrating InterCall’s success over the last 20 years with a trip down memory lane, sharing the experiences of some of those who have been with us from the very beginning. Thinking back on how InterCall started got the memories flowing for some of our employees who have been here the longest—from InterCall’s humble beginning as a small, one room company in the basement of a telephone company to now a global, billion dollar company.

Mandy Cochran, rate and contracts manager, literally grew up with InterCall, starting when she was just 16 years old! She actually shared a desk with Bob Montgomery, who was president at the time and gave her some valuable words of wisdom: “My name is Bob, not President. Your job is as important to me as mine. If someone wasn’t doing what you do, how would we send out the invoices to get paid? Everyone has to do their part and if it is done with greatness, InterCall will thrive.”

Over the course of 20 years with that same goal in mind, InterCall upgraded from a basement with just four bridges to a building right across from railroad tracks. Oh and by the way, the move also took place in the middle of the night. This building had one step leading to another area of the building. Traci Crosby, Reservationless Plus support manager, remembers the running joke of referring to it as “the upstairs”, as in "I’m running upstairs and will be back in a minute.”

From writing down each and every participant’s name to keying in all usage data in time for billing at month’s end and cancelling and completing all calls manually, managing and mastering the “domino effect” certainly paved the way for continuous innovative communication. Amazingly what still resonates deeply with the “1992 Babies” (as they call themselves) is the sense of being a part of the InterCall family and the love they have for this business. Tracy Brumfield, senior scheduling manager, summed it up well. “I am truly very fortunate to work for InterCall. You never have to worry about my dedication and loyalty to this company. I feel as if this is my company, that I own it, and I take pride in it.”

Molly Fulghum, who has the honor of being recognized as InterCall’s longest tenured employee, humorously shared how she initially applied with the phone company who passed her resume on to InterCall and brought her on as an operator right out of college. She candidly described the somewhat chaotic process of taking each reservation, actually executing the call and then typing up on plastic wallet cards customer marketing materials. This all took place in one room of course, the basement. Fast forward 20 years and the now senior director of customer care explained, “While it was at times excruciatingly painful because of how fast InterCall grew, it’s also been such an exciting time to be a part of, too.”

As we continue to forge ahead in the industry today, Kathy Coker, call execution manager, shared another profound Bob Montgomery saying: “Change is good, it builds character.” A true testament to the InterCall vision and our commitment to leading the way with conferencing services for another 20 plus years, all while doing it with forward thinking employees who embody knowledge, experience and dedication.

Jill Huselton is a senior marketing manager at InterCall. She's been in the conferencing industry for nearly 15 years, working in operations, account management and marketing, mainly based in Colorado. Before leaving the Mile-High City, she hiked a 14er, one of her top accomplishments. Now she's traded the mountains for the beach and works from a home office in North Carolina.

Next week, InterCall is headed to Orlando for the Fall 2011 COMPTEL PLUS Convention and Expo, October 2-5. If you’re not familiar, COMPTEL PLUS is the premier networking event for innovative communications companies—providing attendees the opportunity to learn about new products, services and industry trends to help them in their sales initiatives.

InterCall’s channel team will be in attendance showcasing our industry-leading channel program. Through a partnership with InterCall, you can leverage the experience of a proven leader in the conferencing and collaboration space to expand your product portfolio and grow your revenue. InterCall’s program for resellers offers:

• Innovative products and services
• Flexible billing solutions and competitive buy rates
• Dedicated sales and integrated back office support

WIN AN IPAD! Meet with InterCall while at the show and be entered to win an Apple iPad. To schedule time, please contact your channel manager or email us at wsinfo@intercall.com.

To learn more about InterCall’s channel program, visit us at www.intercall.com/wholesale.

Hope to see you there!

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

This month, InterCall marks our 20th year of offering the best conferencing and collaboration services in the industry.

We’ve come a long way over the last two decades, from a small team scheduling and connecting operator assisted calls through what was at the time a novel idea of toll-free numbers to thousands of worldwide employees offering reservationless audio calls, web meetings and video conferences and virtual events, not to mention the new frontier of unified communications.

In the early 1990s, we had a plan, but we never imagined that we would grow to a global company that provides businesses of all sizes with critical communication tools. InterCall launched in 1991 and provided services to facilitate conference calls for sales managers with their direct reports. Since then, we’ve grown into an industry leader, serving organizations in 179 countries.

Just look at what we accomplished in 2010:

• Executed over 20B minutes
• Generated over $1.2B in revenue
• Supported more than 75,000 organizations and over 1.7M unique conference leaders
• Hosted 115M conferences globally

All of this could not have happened without our outstanding teams and valued customers. So as we celebrate this occasion, we humbly thank everyone who has been a part of InterCall over the last 20 years. We also look forward to our next decade of service and offering customers access to the most innovative and broadest product set available.

Scott was recruited to the president and COO role of InterCall in 1998 when the company’s revenues were $48 million. Prior to joining InterCall, Scott held executive positions in the voice and data communications industry, with companies such as AT&T, Decision Industries and U.S. Sprint. Scott serves on the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Dean's Advisory Council, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Advisory Board, and on the Board of Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. He is also a member of the Economic Club, Big Shoulders Foundation and the Executives Club of Chicago. Etzler holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University and an M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Scott and his wife Becki reside in Winnetka, Illinois, and have 2 children - Erin and Andrew.

Introducing InterChange

Where can small businesses network, receive exclusive offers and view original content?

InterChange - The Intersection of Commerce and Collaboration

InterChange is a virtual community designed to help your small business flourish. It's FREE to join and accessible 24/7.

Within InterChange, you can:

• Engage with prospective customers, potential investors and highly influential decision makers in the Networking Café and community storefronts.
• Attend exclusive webcasts, monthly small business webinars and specially sponsored programs in the Event Center.
• Explore special offers and exclusive discounts in Enterprise Exchange and West Central showrooms.
• Discover collateral, white papers, research studies and presentations that benefit your company in the Resource Library and community storefronts.

This week we will feature a variety of webcasts in the events center including:

Tuesday, September 25

• Get to the Point (And Get People to See Things Your Way) with Terri Langhans at 1:00 PM Eastern

Wednesday, September 26

• Perseverance, Success and You! with Brian Patrick Jensen at 2:00 PM Eastern

Thursday, September 27

• Sins and CEOs: Lessons from Leaders and Losers That Will Change Your Career with Richard A. Moran at 3:00 PM Eastern

Friday, September 28

• Growing Your Business with Mark LeBlanc at 12:00 PM Eastern

Plus, you’ll be able to interact with InterCall staff in the West pavilion.

Sign up today!

Tonya Hottmann is the director of marketing at InterCall, responsible for small business marketing. Before joining InterCall, Tonya ran a boutique marketing consulting firm for 10 years. An avid baseball fan, she enjoys reading, traveling, exercising and spending summer days at the beach.

New Webcasting Platform Gives Organizations Better Options

The week, InterCall announced a new release of our webcasting platform, InterCall Webcast Studio. The platform has improved on its market-leading self-service, micro-site, mobile and peer-to-peer multicasting capabilities and gives companies multiple ways to connect with their targeted audiences for greater impact and business results.

If you are an event planner, corporate communications manager, trainer or marketer, this new service lets you create and manage your own webcasts with much greater flexibility, control and speed. It has a simple, easy-to-use reservation process and tight integration with InterCall Virtual Environments for cross-utilization. InterCall’s technology makes it easy for mid-size to large enterprises to create and broadcast impactful, rich media presentations on the web and connect with more people around the globe. The platform is an ideal solution if you need to broadcast your messages to the widest audience possible for events such as investor relations calls, press conferences and other high-impact events. The webcasts can be broadcast live or archived for later playback, and can include basic desktop or high-end video.

Learn more about all the new webcasting platform updates>>

Have you tried webcasting before? What did you think? Our goal is that this new platform will create a better expereince for hosts and participants, and we welcome your feedback.

Eric Vidal is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

A Virtual Look into Fortune’s Most Powerful Women

On October 5, the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit wrapped up in Laguna Niguel, CA. This world-premiere gathering brings together women leaders in business, government, academia, philanthropy and the arts. 

If you’re like me, you probably couldn’t make it to the live event. But, being a woman in the business world, I still wanted to see what it was all about and maybe gain some inspiration. Luckily, InterCall was chosen to host the event on our Virtual Environment platform. I was able to get an inside look into the event as all plenary sessions of the summit were streamed; I could network with other virtual participants and get questions answered by leading subject matter experts.

The event brought together some of the most prominent women leaders to share their personal stories in building businesses and making a difference in the world. Among those women who presented were:

• Glenn Close, Actress and Producer
• Arianna Huffington, President and CEO, AOL Huffington Post Media Group
• Chelsea Handler, Author, Actress and Comedian
• Ellen Kullman, Chair and CEO, DuPont
• Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico

InterCall was honored to support Fortune in this exciting event by enabling greater visibility and reaching an additional 6200 participants through the virtual platform.

Did you miss the event? As of today, you can now watch the archived events free of charge. To register and view the world's premiere gathering of women leaders, visit the virtual event site to log in.

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

A Trip Down Conferencing Lane

We’re celebrating InterCall’s success over the last 20 years with a trip down memory lane, sharing the experiences of some of those who have been with us from the very beginning. Thinking back on how InterCall started got the memories flowing for some of our employees who have been here the longest—from InterCall’s humble beginning as a small, one room company in the basement of a telephone company to now a global, billion dollar company.

Mandy Cochran, rate and contracts manager, literally grew up with InterCall, starting when she was just 16 years old! She actually shared a desk with Bob Montgomery, who was president at the time and gave her some valuable words of wisdom: “My name is Bob, not President. Your job is as important to me as mine. If someone wasn’t doing what you do, how would we send out the invoices to get paid? Everyone has to do their part and if it is done with greatness, InterCall will thrive.”

Over the course of 20 years with that same goal in mind, InterCall upgraded from a basement with just four bridges to a building right across from railroad tracks. Oh and by the way, the move also took place in the middle of the night. This building had one step leading to another area of the building. Traci Crosby, Reservationless Plus support manager, remembers the running joke of referring to it as “the upstairs”, as in "I’m running upstairs and will be back in a minute.”

From writing down each and every participant’s name to keying in all usage data in time for billing at month’s end and cancelling and completing all calls manually, managing and mastering the “domino effect” certainly paved the way for continuous innovative communication. Amazingly what still resonates deeply with the “1992 Babies” (as they call themselves) is the sense of being a part of the InterCall family and the love they have for this business. Tracy Brumfield, senior scheduling manager, summed it up well. “I am truly very fortunate to work for InterCall. You never have to worry about my dedication and loyalty to this company. I feel as if this is my company, that I own it, and I take pride in it.”

Molly Fulghum, who has the honor of being recognized as InterCall’s longest tenured employee, humorously shared how she initially applied with the phone company who passed her resume on to InterCall and brought her on as an operator right out of college. She candidly described the somewhat chaotic process of taking each reservation, actually executing the call and then typing up on plastic wallet cards customer marketing materials. This all took place in one room of course, the basement. Fast forward 20 years and the now senior director of customer care explained, “While it was at times excruciatingly painful because of how fast InterCall grew, it’s also been such an exciting time to be a part of, too.”

As we continue to forge ahead in the industry today, Kathy Coker, call execution manager, shared another profound Bob Montgomery saying: “Change is good, it builds character.” A true testament to the InterCall vision and our commitment to leading the way with conferencing services for another 20 plus years, all while doing it with forward thinking employees who embody knowledge, experience and dedication.

Jill Huselton is a senior marketing manager at InterCall. She's been in the conferencing industry for nearly 15 years, working in operations, account management and marketing, mainly based in Colorado. Before leaving the Mile-High City, she hiked a 14er, one of her top accomplishments. Now she's traded the mountains for the beach and works from a home office in North Carolina.

See You in Orlando

Next week, InterCall is headed to Orlando for the Fall 2011 COMPTEL PLUS Convention and Expo, October 2-5. If you’re not familiar, COMPTEL PLUS is the premier networking event for innovative communications companies—providing attendees the opportunity to learn about new products, services and industry trends to help them in their sales initiatives.

InterCall’s channel team will be in attendance showcasing our industry-leading channel program. Through a partnership with InterCall, you can leverage the experience of a proven leader in the conferencing and collaboration space to expand your product portfolio and grow your revenue. InterCall’s program for resellers offers:

• Innovative products and services
• Flexible billing solutions and competitive buy rates
• Dedicated sales and integrated back office support

WIN AN IPAD! Meet with InterCall while at the show and be entered to win an Apple iPad. To schedule time, please contact your channel manager or email us at wsinfo@intercall.com.

To learn more about InterCall’s channel program, visit us at www.intercall.com/wholesale.

Hope to see you there!

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

InterCall Is 20!

This month, InterCall marks our 20th year of offering the best conferencing and collaboration services in the industry.

We’ve come a long way over the last two decades, from a small team scheduling and connecting operator assisted calls through what was at the time a novel idea of toll-free numbers to thousands of worldwide employees offering reservationless audio calls, web meetings and video conferences and virtual events, not to mention the new frontier of unified communications.

In the early 1990s, we had a plan, but we never imagined that we would grow to a global company that provides businesses of all sizes with critical communication tools. InterCall launched in 1991 and provided services to facilitate conference calls for sales managers with their direct reports. Since then, we’ve grown into an industry leader, serving organizations in 179 countries.

Just look at what we accomplished in 2010:

• Executed over 20B minutes
• Generated over $1.2B in revenue
• Supported more than 75,000 organizations and over 1.7M unique conference leaders
• Hosted 115M conferences globally

All of this could not have happened without our outstanding teams and valued customers. So as we celebrate this occasion, we humbly thank everyone who has been a part of InterCall over the last 20 years. We also look forward to our next decade of service and offering customers access to the most innovative and broadest product set available.

Scott was recruited to the president and COO role of InterCall in 1998 when the company’s revenues were $48 million. Prior to joining InterCall, Scott held executive positions in the voice and data communications industry, with companies such as AT&T, Decision Industries and U.S. Sprint. Scott serves on the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Dean's Advisory Council, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Advisory Board, and on the Board of Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. He is also a member of the Economic Club, Big Shoulders Foundation and the Executives Club of Chicago. Etzler holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University and an M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Scott and his wife Becki reside in Winnetka, Illinois, and have 2 children - Erin and Andrew.