Seeing the Light Yet?

As a conferencing company, it’s in our nature to promote the benefits of being able meet with people located all over the world without leaving your desk. You can see from several of our other blog posts that we’re not big on travel and truly embrace the benefits of being able to stay home (the whole work/life balance thing).

CareerBuilder recently conducted a survey to find out what kind of travel plans companies had in 2010. They found that three-in-ten (30 percent) companies said they cut back on business travel last year, and of those companies, more than one-third (37 percent) said it negatively affected their business.

When asked how fewer business trips affected their bottom lines, companies reported the following:

• Less effective internal communication – 12 percent
• Fewer sales – 11 percent
• Less effective execution on internal business initiatives – 10 percent
• Less customer loyalty – 8 percent

Many companies, though, are starting to see the light. Using audio conference calls, web conferencing and video conferencing are some ways companies are reining in their travel budgets. Forty-two percent of companies said they rely more on phone/web conferencing now to conduct business with clients, with 31 percent saying they get just as much out of virtual meetings as face-to-face meetings.

And here’s the part I love: The most unusual experiences when traveling reported by the respondents.

• Woman next to me asked me for a drink from my water bottle.
• Our plane was stormed by the Columbian military who thought there was a drug lord on board.
• A client mooned the plane.
• A naked guy tried getting in my cab in Indonesia.
• A drunken passenger next to me insisted my headphones were a bomb.
• U.S. marshals arrested a passenger when the plane landed.
• A guy next to me had a carry-on bag filled with candy, which he kept offering me over and over and over again.
• A woman gave birth on the flight.
• After waking up, I accidentally walked into the hotel’s hallway instead of the restroom in my underwear. Got locked out and could be viewed by the elevator which was all glass windows.
• Manager punched a co-worker on the plane.
• Fell asleep in the airplane restroom.

What does your company have planned for travel in 2011? Do you find that reduced travel has the same effects as those reported by the respondents? Has your company adopted more conferencing in order to battle the budget crunch?

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.

You Know Everybody Does It

No not that! I’m talking about multitasking. We all do it. Why? To get more done in less time. Multitasking seems to creep into many parts of our day, from the extreme case of texting while driving to the less hazardous act of getting hair and nails done at the same time while balancing the checkbook. However, multitasking can be more counterproductive because the brain can only focus on one thing at a time.  

One popular opportunity to multitask is during a web meeting. Why do we think that behind the web conferencing “curtain” we are protected from getting caught multitasking? But yet we do it and at times get caught. How many times have you heard someone say, “Sorry, can you repeat that question?” That’s a sure sign of someone doing more than one thing at a time.

Here are my top tips to help minimize multitasking and maximize effectiveness of your web meetings:

1. Make sure the right people are attending the meeting.
   Most web conferencing solutions integrate with your Outlook® or Lotus® Notes Calendars. Not only can you send out your connection details using your calendar but also take the time to state the purpose of the meeting, who is key to the progress of the meeting and why. All this is contained in one meeting request which has a better chance of getting read compared to just another email.
2. Put the agenda up on the screen. 
   Prepare a PowerPoint® slide or application share a document outlining the agenda and goals of the meeting.  This keeps your meeting on track and also alerts your meeting participants to when their key topics will come up for discussion.
3. Do some online polling or surveys to get immediate feedback from your participants.  Keeping them engaged or better yet “on their toes” to make decisions minimizes the chance for their minds to wander to something else.

Lastly, multitasking is a hard habit to break, so to be on the safe side—record those meetings as a back up. You never know who may need a “review” of the information and a recording saves you the time of repeating yourself.

What other tasks are you doing or know others are doing while attending a web meeting? Have you ever been called out?

Sarah Murphy is a marketing manager at InterCall. With over ten years of experience in the conferencing industry, Sarah has worked with customers and products that cover all segments of conferencing, including traditional operator attended services, video and online meeting solutions.

Bluwhath, I Can’t Talk Today – Part 2

In my last blog post, I talked about some techniques to use when you are feeling tongue-tied and just can’t get your mouth moving the way you want it to.

In addition to warming up with tongue twisters, here are two other things you can do to make sure you sound clear and confident in your next meeting.

Proper Breathing Techniques: Breathing from the Diaphragm  (from Susan Berkley)

No matter if you are a public speaker, voice-over artist or anyone who wants to sound their best, proper breathing is key. To help you discover how to breathe for good speaking (and good health), Susan talked with respiratory therapist Peggy Nicholson, a leading expert on proper breathing technique. According to Peggy, to enhance our performance we should breathe deeply from the abdomen or diaphragm, whenever possible. But most people have no idea what this means.

Here's how to find your diaphragm:

1. Place one hand just above your stomach and the other on your upper chest.
2. Purse lips slightly as if to whistle.
3. Exhale slowly through pursed lips while slightly contracting the stomach muscles. It's not necessary to force all the air out.
4. Inhale slowly through the nose.
5. Pause slightly to allow for better oxygen exchange in the lungs.
6. Repeat. Exhalation should be slightly longer than inhalation.

The diaphragm should do at least 80% of the work of breathing. In order for you to get the most out of this muscle, you should practice breathing from the diaphragm several times a day to ensure that you are not breathing superficially from your upper chest.

Complete Word Production Exercises

Improve the clarity of your speech by completing the words below so the final consonant sound really pops at the end.  It might feel like you are exaggerating or speaking artificially at first and that is OK—any change feels odd in the beginning. Practicing a strong final consonant will allow you to use varying degrees of intensity to suit your needs. These exercises are from a wonderful book called The Voice Book by Kate Devore and Starr Cookman. 

stop	bob	ripe	ebb	right	ride
help	tube	keep	stub	concept	load
late	bold	felt	loved	awake	big

Next, practice using the sounds /t, d, l, n/.  When these sounds appear at the beginning of a word, most people form them strongly, so we are going to focus on the middles and ends of words, where people tend to let these sounds slip.

T	beauty	eight	later	bright
D	meadow	divide	tidy	invaded
N	Phoenix	been	sunny	fireman
L	alligator	wall	biologist	feel

Last, practice the following words with final consonant clusters:

act	under	looked	end	raked	kindly
inject	fender	balked	binding	liked	winding
stopped	build	kept	kneeled	slipped	fooled

Put it all together!  Practice the above pronunciation techniques in the following paragraph:

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow.  The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors.  These take the shape of a long, round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon.  There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end.  People look, but no one ever finds it.  When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Tip! You don’t want to sound like you are over-pronouncing your words when you are speaking naturally but these exercises will bring awareness to complete word production. 

So what do you think? Have you tested these techniques to see if they make a difference for you?  Do you have other suggestions about things you’ve used?

Kate Nelson is a Speech Analyst and works out of the West Point office and is a member of the WP Training team. She works with the North American and Indian call centers and provides speech, voice, and accent modification training for all employees. She is a graduate of Auburn University with a BS in Speech Pathology and Audiology and is a certified Compton P-ESL (Pronouncing English as a Second Language) trainer. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Auburn University. She is married and has a 5 ½ yr. old son. She is a self-described “word-nerd” and loves music, oenology, studying other languages, and being with her family.

Bluwhath, I Can’t Talk Today – Part 1

Do you ever feel tongue-tied, out of breath or sloppy when you speak?

We all have had those moments, and this feeling can occur at the most inconvenient times—an interview, a conference call, a meeting with clients for the first time. Many psychological factors contribute to feeling tongue-tied:  a case of the nerves, inadequate preparation for a conference call or face-to-face meeting, lack of confidence when you are in a public speaking environment and so on.  No matter what you do, speaking is probably a regular part of your job; we use words everyday and it’s frustrating when those words become obstacles that we can’t seem to overcome. Why is it that you can speak eloquently one day and the next you feel as though each statement takes extra effort? 

Susan Berkley, a well known voice over artist and CEO of The Great Voice Company, is a big believer in the connection between psychology and voice. The two are more intertwined than we realize. We sound the way we feel; something in our voice may give away our emotions or we may stumble, become tongue-tied or draw a blank when a word is on the tip of our tongue.  Luckily, these issues do not affect us every day, but when they do, it’s embarrassing and we hope our audience does not walk away with a bad impression of our speaking abilities. 

Below are some tips on how to avoid becoming tongue-tied:

• Tongue twisters are a GREAT way to warm up the voice and all the muscles you use for speaking (there about 72 of them).  Warming up these muscles, along with practicing clear pronunciation and proper breathing, will help you sound articulate and polished.  
• Proper breathing techniques – these help us relax and are good to practice before that big presentation!  Once you learn how to breathe properly while you’re speaking, you’ll feel more comfortable in your speaking role and your confidence will increase.
• Complete word production (CWP) exercises – these help us articulate each word clearly without over-pronouncing the final sound.  Speech clarity improves greatly when we consistently pronounce final consonants.  Final consonant deletion (FCD) is a quality killer but is an easy mistake to correct. 

Tongue Twisters! 

Let’s start with some tongue twisters.

How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.
Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?

Read these for accuracy, not speed.  If you can read them accurately with a fast speech rate then more power to you!  Here’s a link to find more to practice (you can even read them in your native language if it isn’t English): http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/. Bookmark the site and use it before your next big presentation or if you are feeling a little nervous.  Have fun!

Kate Nelson is a Speech Analyst and works out of the West Point office and is a member of the WP Training team. She works with the North American and Indian call centers and provides speech, voice, and accent modification training for all employees. She is a graduate of Auburn University with a BS in Speech Pathology and Audiology and is a certified Compton P-ESL (Pronouncing English as a Second Language) trainer. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Auburn University. She is married and has a 5 ½ yr. old son. She is a self-described “word-nerd” and loves music, oenology, studying other languages, and being with her family.

Look Who’s Talking

As the winter storms crisscross the Midwest and East Coast they have brought travel to a standstill and have many of us working from home. Just the other day I was on an audio conference call and the leader’s cat was meowing in the background. As an animal lover, it made me smile; however, not all interruptions are like a meow—some are more of a roar.

We’ve all experienced “those” interruptions. You know what I’m talking about, things like:

• Interference from the participant using a cell phone in a wind tunnel.
• Unexpected broadcast of hold music from the participant who pressed hold instead of mute.
• Stopping every couple of seconds to ask “Who just joined?” after the “beep beep”.
• Calling out for input from a specific participant only to learn they left the call early.

The list goes on and on. So what can you do as a meeting leader to minimize, or dare I say prevent, these common interruptions? Use a web conferencing solution that has integrated online audio controls.

I know, when you hear the term “web conferencing” you automatically think of having to show or share something online for your audience to look at. These days, though, the web part of conferencing means so much more. It allows you to SEE your audio conference. See who’s talking. See who’s just joined. See whose line the background noise is coming from. See who’s on the call in real time.

What’s more, not only can you see your audio conference, you can also control it with a click of your mouse! Mute those lines making noise, lock the meeting for extra security, easily identify who is speaking, know who you can call upon for questions and even turn off those “beeps”!

So why not take the next step and use the web to manage a better audio meeting? Any experiences you want to share about how having this functionality would have made your meetings more productive?

Sarah Murphy is a marketing manager at InterCall. With over ten years of experience in the conferencing industry, Sarah has worked with customers and products that cover all segments of conferencing, including traditional operator attended services, video and online meeting solutions.

Be Considerate of Your Fellow Conferencers

We get questions all the time from customers wanting to know etiquette and best practices for audio conference calls, web conferences and video conferences. This week, Twitter was a flurry of tweets from people talking about a recent article from Inc. Magazine, 11 Do's & Don'ts of Video Conferencing Etiquette. I thought they were right on and wanted to share them.

While these tips specifically address video conferencing, may apply to audio conference calls or online meetings using web cams. I’ve listed them below, but you might want to also check out the pictures that go along with each point—they give you a little context and a chuckle (my favorite is the picture that goes with tip #5 that shows people making shadow puppets from the projector light).

Do be courteous to other participants
Be punctual and introduce yourself before speaking so that everyone knows who’s talking and can address you by name. Take note of the other speakers so that you can also address them by name. Lastly, turn off the sounds on your smart phone and absolutely no texting.

Don't make distracting sounds
Your focus should always be on the person or people at the other end of your video conference. Avoid typing on your keyboard, turn off all sounds on your phone, and close yourself into a room with no or minimal background noise.

Do speak clearly
An audio check should be done before the virtual meeting begins to ensure that everyone can hear you. Know your material – uncertainty will cause you to mumble. Speak naturally but slowly and annunciate each word.

Don't shout
Avoid screaming. If someone can’t hear you, then adjust the level on the microphone and make sure it’s not covered by your clothing or something else. Yelling will cause viewers to turn down their volume and potentially miss what you have to say.

Do keep body movements minimal
If you’re someone that talks with your hands, practice keeping them put. Hand movements can distract your audience. Also, keep head movements to a minimum as well as jerky movements forward or back.

Don't interrupt other speakers
Wait for an opening in the conversation before putting in your two cents. Cutting other speakers off is rude. Another option is posting pending questions by instant message so that every comment is addressed.

Do maintain eye contact by looking into the camera
Keep your focus on the camera. The worst thing is having your audience look at the top of your head because you’re typing or looking down at notes – or worse – at your Blackberry.

Don't carry on side conversations
Chances are if you wouldn’t do it in a face-to-face meeting, then you shouldn’t do it in a virtual one. That includes tuning out of the present conversation to talk to someone else sitting next to you, on the phone, in an IM chat, anywhere and anybody not in the current meeting.

Do dress appropriately
Striped shirts or shirts with intricate patterns do not transmit well on camera, because they are visually distracting. Red, white and black are also poor choices. Go for a pastel or other light colored shirt.

Don't wear noisy jewelry
Jewelry should be small and simple. Big jewelry can be distracting to those tuning-in and it can also bump against your microphone. Also, stay away from dangling ear rings and shiny eyeglass frames.

Do be yourself and have fun!
Relax and have a good time. Be lively, break the ice with a joke, and make viewers laugh. It’s uber easy to tune out in a face-to-face meeting, so imagine how easy it is in a virtual one. The more fun you interject, the more people will stay focused and interested in what you have to say.

Think this covers it? What else would you add to the list?

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.

It’s about the People, not the Place

According to an article on NewObserver.Com, about 2.5 million people, excluding the self-employed, work from home. And some studies estimate that up to 50 million American workers could easily telecommute to work.  It is expected that twice as many public sector employees as private sector workers will telecommute during the next several years.

There’s no doubt that companies of all sizes are increasingly beginning to understand the business value that comes along with remote working environments. New Media Campaigns, a Carrboro-based web development company experienced this first-hand. When confronted with the possibility of losing one of their top website developers, they had two options: 1.) let him go and spend time and money on replacing him or 2.) allow him to telecommute from his out-of-state home. Ultimately, the company chose the latter in order to keep their talented employee. Since this time, they have opened the door for other employees to telecommute and even view the virtual office as the ‘cornerstone of the company’s long-term success.’

Unlike New Media Campaigns, many companies are still skeptical of telecommuting, believing that it will impair the productivity, company culture and work environment. However, if telecommunication is done right, then employees can actually achieve better work performance and quality of life and save the company money. Here are some interesting findings from a recent Cisco survey about their employees:

• Employees spend about 63 percent of their time communicating.
• About 40 percent of its employees are not located in the same city as their manager.
• The average employee telecommutes two days a week.
• About 60 percent of the time saved by telecommuting is spent working, with the balance on personal time.
• Two-thirds of those surveyed said that their work improved.
• Four out of five respondents reported an improved quality of life as a result of telecommuting.

So, what is the key to success? First of all, hiring disciplined and self-sufficient employees is a must so you know they can be trusted to work on their own. Secondly, it’s important to keep the lines of communication open with the right remote meeting technology. InterCall's audio, web and video conferencing solutions  make it easy to do just that by providing you with simple and cost-effective solutions to connect with anyone in the world.

How about your company? Do you have success or horror stories about telecommuting to share?

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.

Keeping My New Year's Resolutions

As another year ends and a new one begins, I’m usually motivated to kick it off with a resolution or two. The resolutions usually involve some form of working out/eating healthy, getting organized, trying to save more money, etc. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that way. According to The Daily Press, the top 10 resolutions are: to diet, quit smoking, exercise, quit drinking, stop procrastinating, save money, go to church, wake up early, stop cursing and read the newspaper.

I tend to be super motivated about my resolutions for about a month and then they are quickly forgotten. This year I’m going to try and change it up. In the past, my resolutions have always been targeted more on my personal life and not my professional life. They are also goals that span the entire year. So in 2011, I’m going to focus on making month long, professional resolutions.

In January I’m focusing on starting the year on a positive note. First, and probably most important, I’m planning to spend time recognizing my team and their accomplishments! When we look forward to a new year, it’s usually all about what we are going to do for that year, what we can change, how we can be successful. I think it’s important to reflect on the year that just ended and recognize the amazing accomplishments that made it so successful. My team of 20 is very geographically dispersed, and because I prefer to communicate this type of message live as opposed to in an email, we tend to get creative in how we do this while using our audio and web conferencing services.

I really like to keep the calls fun and active, since this is usually the only time we all get together throughout the year. Two years ago I had each person send me a fact about themselves that no one else knew. I then created polling questions listing the fact and giving five people to choose from. Each of the team members had to guess who the fact was about. It was a quick activity that had some pretty funny outcomes. Last year, I had everyone send in something that they accomplished personally within that year, which ranged from getting married to participating in marathons to moving into a new house and more. I put those facts into the first five slides of the presentation and had them on automatic cycle for the participants to read as they joined the call. This year we’re going to use streaming. All my team members have web cams, so we’ll be able to actually see each other while we’re on the call and can toggle our cameras back and forth depending on who’s presenting at the time. I think it will be great for all of us to put faces and voices together!

So that gets me through January, and I’m vowing to not forget about my resolutions this year. What other monthly professional goals can I set for myself?  I’d love to hear what some of you are doing so I can replicate or build off of those. Please comment below!  Happy New Year!

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

Tips for the Holiday (or Everyday) Telecommuters

I love the week after Christmas because it finally feels like I can catch a breather at work. The emails and phone calls have subsided and I finally have time to focus on writing this blog post which I have put off for so long. Best of all, I knew the office would be slow today and with the snow starting to come down, I decided to stay at home and work remotely.

One great benefit of working for InterCall is that meeting remotely through audio and web conferencing solutions is an everyday business practice. Over two-thirds of respondents from a recent Cisco survey  believe their work improves when they work remotely. But, if you’re anything like me you may still need that little extra push and minimal distractions in order to be an efficient telecommuter. I’ve found all of these telecommuting best practices posted on NewsObserver.Com to be lifesavers, so I thought I would share.

• Have a dedicated place, preferably a separate room in your home or apartment, for an office. It's not a good idea to have an office near the family TV set.
• Forget about the overgrown lawn, some dead tree limbs, and a leaky faucet. Tend to these home chores in off hours or weekends, not during the workweek.
• When working at home, it's easy to become a round-the-clock worker. Make sure you take breaks. Go out and have lunch.
• Set a workday schedule, and try to stick with it. Some telecommuters work erratic schedules, but the more effective ones have a workday that is similar to the one they had at the office.
• Avoid being a home office recluse. Telecommuters should meet with associates and friends for coffee breaks or lunch.
• If you're a member of a professional or business group, continue to attend meetings. This is a good way to interact with others.

Do you find these tricks helpful when working remotely? Is there anything else you recommend to minimize the distractions that come along with working from home?

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.

Webinar Software Saves You Money

When you decide to host an event, whether it's a press conference, corporate announcement, investor relations meeting or a full-scale trade show, you'll find a lot of costs associated with the event—some obvious and some you may not consider. 

Travel cost (airline tickets, rental cars and hotel) is a no-brainer, but here are a few other costs associated with in-person meetings, even if business associates travel to your location rather than the other way around. 

• Audiovisual Equipment: Unless you have a full-scale teleconferencing room set up, expect to pay for audiovisual equipment rentals—and the people to show you how to use it. If you do have a conference room, will it fit the number of people you're inviting? If not, add the costs of renting a conference room in a hotel in addition to the audiovisual equipment and staff to run the equipment.
• Printed Materials: Planning to hand out press kits? Supplementary material? You want to make a strong impression, which might mean professionally-produced, four color brochures and other marketing material. All of this costs money. But if you host a webinar, no one expects to take home “dead-tree material.” You can show attendees anything you want through InterCall's sophisticated but easy-to-use webinar software, and they can print what they want.
• Petty Cash Expenses: Whether it's treating your visitors to dinner and drinks at the best steakhouse in town after the conference or paying for traveling employees' three dollar bottled water at the airport, travel and meetings cost money.
• Lost Productivity: A WorldCom study discovered that employees suffer 15 to 20 hours of lost productivity during each business trip, which averages out to a cost of $700 to $1000 per person.

Save Money with Webinar Software
Even top-of-the-line webinar software with all the features you need to organize and host meetings costs less than business travel. How much less? Why not use the InterCall travel cost calculator to find out?

Dan Uhlmeyer is a Sr. Product Manager and the "Web Conferencing" blogger.  He has nearly ten years of product experience in Web Conferencing and has managed several services at InterCall. When not punching on the keyboard, you can find Dan enjoying time with his wife and two children or running a marathon.