WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Get Stuff Free! Register now for the Chris Anderson WebEx Event

According to Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired, one of the reasons “free” works in a digital age is that with digital goods, you can give away a huge portion of your product for free, without any cost for those goods.

That's just one of the ideas included in his new book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price." Chris is speaking via WebEx this Wednesday, Feb 3 at 10am PT and the first 150 attendees will receive a free copy of his new book!

Register Now

So how does this affect you? Free is big, and the list of who's giving it a try grows daily. We pulled together a few examples of free things you can try today. The idea is to get you thinking about free and how it might be a business solution for your company.

Email and Calendars
Yahoo, Google, Hotmail all offer free email services typically supported by advertising. You can also find free calendars associated with these email services. The business strategy: multiple “hooks” make it harder for you to live without them.

Want even more "free" - check out this PC Magazine article
with the best free of 2009. It includes things like
 Audacity, iTunes, Winamp, TweetDeck, Google Chrome and more.

Back-up Services

This is one of the most important tools most individuals and small businesses need to insure their intellectual assets. If you need to manage costs and only need to protect a limited amount of digital assets, you can get 2GB of protection free from companies like SugarSync or Mozy. Business strategy: the minute you hit 2.1 GB, it will be too hard to switch to another vendor or manage multiple “free” accounts.

Virus Protection

This one is special and brand new – Facebook is offering its members six months of free virus protection from McAfee in response to security breaches the social networking site has experienced (you can see a list of other free virus protection services here). The business strategy: partner offers a service that has value (and responds to a PR issue) and in time, the user will agree and begin paying for the service.

Guess What? WebEx has Free Too!

And of course…we offer free WebEx events to help you learn more and stay on top of current events! You can even use the WebEx trial absolutely free (business strategy – when you experience an online meeting, we think you’ll like it!).

Be sure to join us for Chris Anderson’s talk on Wednesday. Register today!

Details
Wed, February 3, 10am PT  |  1pm ET

[Please note: the non-Cisco companies listed in this article were used as examples only, they aren't endorsements of their service. We encourage you to take a look and judge for yourself - that's the very nature of "free"!]
  

Getting to "Free": Does the Apple iPad Make the Case? Wired's Anderson Explains at Free WebEx Event

 The Apple iPad is a perfect example. An example of innovation that is supported by free.

Oh sure, you'll have to pony up to buy an iPad, but you can bet, just like the iPhone, there are application developers our there already working on apps they will let you have "free". And it's a business model that can be very lucrative.

Why is "free" so important?

On Wednesday, February 3, WebEx is hosting Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson, Editor -in-Chief and author to explain why "free" matters. In his new book, Anderson talks about the business models behind free and the new opportunities it creates. As an added bonus, the first 150 event attendees will get a complimentary copy of his new book, "Free, The Future of a Radical Price."

Register Now.

Free, or another term you are likely to hear - freemium - is as edgy and changing as the Internet itself. With old paradigms crashing to the ground like newspaper and textbook publishing, new models are emerging and instead of talking revenue, you might first look at market share. That's where "free" comes in.

If you want some good examples of how things are changing, take a look at the Freemium blog written by Peter Froberg. He cites examples of how industries are changing and where the freemium model is offering new ways to reach new markets.

If you aren't considering "free", it's time to start thinking differently.

Come to our "free" event with Chris Anderson and see what he has to say.  Register now.

Details:
Wed, February 3, 10am PT  |  1pm ET  Click here to register.

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WebE Ideas in Motion events are offered regularly to help you get the ball rolling on new ideas. If you haven't visited us lately at PasstheBall.com, come on over and see what's new. New ideas, new events, new ways to help you succeed.

Upcoming Event: Is "free" the future of business? Wired's Chris Anderson Shares New Models for Success

Join us on Wednesday, February 3 when Wired Magazine's editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson takes on "free" in a WebEx event. The first 150 attendees will get a complimentary copy of his new book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price."

Register Now.

If you have been watching how the Internet is impacting business, you understand the idea of "free" isn't new. The challenges facing "old style" businesses are many. Fostering questions like can you put a price on value? Are their models that work with "free" as port of entry?

Chris will speak to the generational and global shifts that are increasing the demand for free. He'll also discuss how to profit with indirect sales model like cross-subsidies and "freemiums".

Sign-up now to reserve your spot.

The rapid pace of technological change are pushing businesses to evolve. Chris Anderson will start you thinking in new ways. Don't miss this event.

    Details:
    Wed, February 3, 10am PT  |  1pm ET  Click here to register.

WebEx Ideas in Motion events are offered regularly to help you get the ball rolling on new ideas. If you haven't visited us lately as PasstheBall.com, come on over and see what's new. New ideas, new events, new ways to help you succeed.

Blunders and Gaffs Part 2: More Ways to Avoid Online Meeting Mistakes!

Yesterday I shared one of those never-forget embarrassing moments that happened to me in an in-person meeting. It was my little introduction to a discussion of online meeting mistakes that, thankfully, can be avoided.

This is your chance to tell us your stories as well. Misery loves company and if you have a story to tell, we’d love to hear it. Don’t forgot to share any lessons you’ve learned!

I Wasn’t Talking to You!

When you are on a WebEx and things are really humming, it’s natural to want to have a sidebar conversation with another person to add your two cents, or point out a related idea. One way to do that is to use the chat function. Only sometimes you can end up chatting with more than your coworker.

There is nothing more embarrassing than watching someone else think they are talking privately to a coworker via chat but in fact, they are including “all participants.” It’s super important that you make sure when you chat, you choose exactly who you want to chat with!

Oops! I Forgot I Was Broadcasting

One of the things I really like about WebEx is getting to see people I work with who I wouldn’t otherwise get to see – like folks in Europe or even in another state. Webcams are great and they do more than a photo – you get to see how they laugh, what they look like when they think, all those subtleties that make a person more real.

But sometimes, people forget they are on camera. This seems to happen most often to folks when they are telecommuting. They are in a home office or on the road and they forget we can see them do everything within the scope of that camera! I have done some dumb things while the camera was on so I had to create a gimmick to help me remember. When I am broadcasting from my webcam, I have a mirror I put up near the camera so I can see myself and remember I am live! I have heard other folks have a special light they turn on to remind them or a big Post It on their computer screen. Whatever works for you!

Shoot! I Forgot to Log Out!

This one’s a classic. Meeting went great, everyone is excited, you hang up the phone, but you forgot to log out of the WebEx and anyone else who forgot to log out watches as you start sending emails, fire up your Facebook or, god forbid, kill someone in Mafia Wars. This can be particularly bad if you are recording your meeting and have an open microphone in a meeting room picking up the post-meeting chat! Yikes!

Don’t forget to log out! It’s as easy as closing the window in the upper right corner. Why, you might ask, doesn’t the meeting auto close when people hang up? Because sometimes people hang up by accident and that can’t be the trigger to end a meeting. Some people use WebEx to record an in-person meeting because it’s such a good way to capture important things that are happening. It’s just important to note when the meeting is over and the off-the-record conversation begins!

  

Blunders and Gaffs: Avoiding Embarrassing Online Meeting Moments

One of my worst meeting memories was not during an online event. Nope. It was during an in-person meeting. I would have paid good money to have been on WebEx instead.

I was asked to present my proposal during a lunch meeting. “Sure,” I said, “happy to.” That's the moment I want back. What was I thinking? I went, a lunch was passed out to each of us and I started presenting. I didn’t really look at what I had been “assigned” because I was pumped to pitch my proposal.

Mid-talk, one of the senior members at the table said, “Stop a minute and eat with us. Take a break.” And so I did and that’s when I realized someone had ordered a spinach salad for me. Spinach. One food that automatically triggers my gag reflex. (Bytheway, for those of you like me who have been yelled at for years for not eating your spinach, science has finally proved we aren’t nuts – check it out here!).

I sputtered, I vamped, but mostly I nearly ya know in front of my most important prospects at the time. I have never pushed more leafy vegetables around while hunting and pecking for croutons, walnuts and cranberries. Time stood still. Thankfully, I didn't get sick but I am pretty sure my cheeks were bright red for the next four hours. And I did get the job!

Has It Happened to You?

This is all to say, everyone makes mistakes or can be caught off guard. And just like any technology (who hasn’t “replied all” via email when that really what you wanted to do), WebEx users have reported some gems. So in the spirit of making sure this doesn’t happen to you, we thought we’d share a few! We have two examples for you today – come back tomorrow for a few more…

The Desktop “Over” Share
Desktop sharing rocks: it speeds communication and let’s everyone look at the same thing at the same time. But recently, on Twitter, we heard about one presenter that kind of forgot what he was doing: “Our presenter just started answering email during the @webex! We saw the whole thing! He forgot he was sharing!” Yikes. When you are desktop sharing everyone can see everything. If you don’t think you can stop your impulses, consider using application or document sharing. That limits what others can see.

“Is This Thing On?” or Learn to Mute
 I was in a meeting of about 30 people all listening to a presenter tell us how to improve our business skills. Suddenly, over his voice, the most adorable ring tone went off. And then, “Oh hi pookie,” said an adorable voice. “I didn’t want to wake you up this morning. You looked so cuddle-uggums in that bed. I know; the blankie was so soft.” Oh please, someone make it stop – what is she going to say next!?! WebEx provides a mute button if you don’t have one on your phone. It’s either that or make sure you cell phone is far, far away and officemates aren’t’ going to pop-in to chat.

Click here to get to part two, where I share a few more blunders that you can avoid. In the meantime, I want to hear your stories – from any type of meeting. Nothing makes people feel better than knowing they aren't the only one that has goofed up!

   

Seven Steps for Engaging People during an Online Meeting

Today in part two (read part one here), our WebEx guru, David Goad, offers a set of steps to help multitaskers (yourself included) stay engaged during online meetings. Click here to read David’s delightful perspectives on other aspects of life!

You could yearn for the nostalgia of the old days and label everyone “rude,” OR you could use this as a barometer of your own performance and run your meeting in a new way. In Dead Air Dynamics, I talked about a few ways to earn focus at the beginning of a meeting. Now let’s talk about how to maintain focus throughout your meeting. Of course the size, length and purpose of meetings varies widely, but these general principles apply to most of the meetings I run or attend:

1)  Make a commitment. Sincerely thank everyone for the time they are investing and ask them for their “focus investment” as well. Explain the purpose and then commit that you will help navigate to that goal as quickly and efficiently as possible.

2)  Prepare and organize your content. How many meetings have you attended when the host was winging it? It’s hard to stay focused on a target when it is not clearly visible.

3)  Establish rules of engagement. “I have prepared a 10 minute overview that will bring everyone up to speed. At the end I am going to ask you a few questions.” Every teacher knows the threat of a pop quiz will snap students to attention.

4)  Use stories to bring it to life. Even a finance presentation can be made more interesting with an occasional metaphor or personal anecdote. You can also ask your audience to provide color, “Does anyone have a story that supports or refutes this point?” This temporarily shifts the burden of engagement from you and lets people know they could be called on next.

5)  Take a breath. People enjoy monologues on the Tonight Show, but not in meetings. If you don’t want or need dialogue, why did you call a meeting? You should be asking a question (and listening) at least once every 5-7 minutes. If you want to give a speech, record and send it to them so they can listen at their convenience. Better yet, send it in advance of the meeting so the group is ready to discuss.

6)  Loosen up. I used to be extremely uptight about people not looking at me or responding to me when I presented. Once I was giving a marketing overview to a group of sales reps in a conference room. As soon as I sensed the eyes starting to drift down into digital world, I stopped cold and announced a crackberry break. “You have 5 minutes to check your inbox and make one quick call. Then I ask you to come back and give me your full focus and feedback… Go!” You should have seen the look of relief in the addicts’ eyes as I let them have their fix.

7)  Give online participants a voice. The most common question I hear is… “If I can’t see someone’s eyes or body language, how do I know if they are paying attention?” There is one simple way to know – ask them. WebEx provides you with a list of participants by name. It’s not just a nebulous conference call where you have to guess who’s lurking in the background. Go down the list and include every person in the conversation, especially the silent one who is probably sitting on the best idea waiting to be asked.

My final bit of advice is something that has helped me tremendously in my career. Work on your presentation and listening skills, and practice outside the business environment. I became active in Toastmasters five years ago to raise my game and this kind of coaching could pay off for you too. When presenting face-to-face, your body language needs to be consistent with your message. When presenting online, your voice takes the lead role and needs to be delivered with the power and passion of a great radio talk show.

People are judging your content and communication style every second that your mouth is open. If they sense even for a millisecond that you are boring or disconnected from them, they will tune you out… and they SHOULD. The truth about multitasking? It’s a symptom of a greater illness. Take it as valuable feedback from your meeting audience and tighten up your show.

What tips can you share about making meetings more dynamic? 

(Please submit in Comments below.)

Happy New Year! You Have My Divided Attention!

Time to get back to work, optimize your synergies, strategize your outcomes, deliver your deliverables and we thought a few tips from David Goad, WebEx guru (and blogger) might get you off to a fresh start. In part one, David talks about the challenges of multitasking. In part two, he has a list of seven ways to engage multitaskers during your meetings.

Multi-tasking is not a crime. 

For knowledge workers today, it is a survival skill. If you can’t manage and filter streams of data coming at you from multiple synchronous and asynchronous channels, you are doomed to drift aimlessly at sea. The ability to keep swimming in a somewhat forward direction requires tremendous effort, and the ability to ignore as well as pay attention.

Time has always been talked about as the most important commodity, with hundreds of books written on “time management.” With knowledge workers struggling to deal with today’s digital avalanche, I propose that “focus” is the new most important commodity.

If you want focus from colleagues or subordinates on what you have to say, you cannot just demand it anymore. You have to earn it. And you have to compete with omnipresent digital devices that make your audience smarter, blur the lines between business and personal communication, and quite frankly, may be more interesting than what you have to say at that moment.

So what can you do about it? 

Let’s talk about focus in meetings. I define a meeting as a gathering of people with a need to collaborate to achieve some common business purpose. In the old days (choose your own pre-90s decade) mono-tasking people would sit together in a conference room and talk, maybe with a few whiteboard drawings to punctuate important points. Common courtesy required that you looked at who was talking, listened, waited your turn and then volunteered your opinion. 

Let’s be honest. This courtesy is not common anymore. 

People (myself included) not only talk all at once, they bring their world with them to meetings in the form of iPhones, blackberries and laptops. Even though it is valuable to have knowledge at their fingertips, they also have the temptation to sneak quick looks at unrelated items in their inboxes. 

Extending your reach to remote participants via WebEx is a wonderful thing, but presents the challenge of not even being able to see when your audience begins to multi-task. They are sitting in front of computers with other business, entertainment and social media distractions waiting in the wings.

Read part two: Seven Steps for Engaging People during an Online Meeting.

"Companions in Courage" help Santa Visit Hospitalized Kids via WebEx

Today's guest post was written by LeAnne Schrotzberger, public relations manager for Cisco and was originally published on the Cisco Collaboration blog.

A few years ago, I had the privilege to participate in a wonderful program I’ll never forget.

The Cisco Santa Connection lets children who are unable to leave the hospital for the festive holiday period to share in some of the Christmas spirit. Using WebEx, the children can visit with Santa and share their Christmas wishes with him. Santa comes down from the North Pole and visits the Cisco headquarters to help make this happen.

Volunteers who are either in person with Santa or at the participating hospitals work as quick communicators, gathering information about the children such as names and ages, from the parents and caregivers. Santa is then able to have a warm, personal conversation with each child. I got a huge chuckle when one of the kids asked Santa, “How do you know everything about me?” A coworker of mine, Mark Leff, saw a parent of a bone marrow patient hug one of the volunteers after their child’s spirits had been lifted tremendously by talking with Santa.

Companions in Courage works with the Cisco WebEx team to make this happen each year. The Companions in Courage Foundation was originally founded by former NHL Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine in 1997. Mr. LaFontaine started opening “Lion’s Dens” in hospitals as part of this program, and many of the Santa Connection visits take places in these wonderful rooms.

This year, Santa was able to visit with 32 children ranging in age from 2-15. The program brought Santa to Maria Fareri Hospital in Valhalla, NY; Roswell Park in Buffalo, NY; Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, FL, Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, NY; Huntington Hospital in Huntingron, NY; and Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York.

As we head into the holidays, I highly encourage you to explore this program more thoroughly. I don’t think there are many more things in life that are better than an expression of delight on a child’s face, and this program delivers this unfailingly. Happy holidays.

  

The New Math: Converting to Green While Gaining Business Benefits

With folks meeting in Copenhagen and the world looking for ways to lessen its impact on the planet, Jeff Weinberger has a little fun with finding the opportunties while pleasing TPTB (that's The Powers That Be).

I suppose it’s pretty obvious to say that, with a few exceptions, air travel is getting harder, less pleasant, and more expensive. And there does seem to be a never-ending stream of announcements emanating from the major airlines about new costs, service cutbacks, and the like.

It’s not my goal to pick on any one airline, but I will use American Airlines to make a point. Like so many others, they charge for every checked bag (not just the extra bags that have carried fees for some time). Their pricing is $20 each way for the first bag, $30 each way for the second, and it goes (way) up from there. This means that if you check 2 bags for your round-trip, you will pay $100.

Which led me to ask: How can I spend my $100 better and maybe even greener? 

• Plant 25 carbon-absorbing trees with CarbonFund.org and also help reduce soil erosion.
• Offset at least 1,000 Metric Tons of carbon emissions (varies based on CFI contracts on the Chicago Climate Exchange).
• Pay for a month of venti lattes.
• Take your team out for celebratory drinks.
• Buy two tanks of gas for your mid-size car (OK, those weren’t so green). 
• Skip the trip completely and buy two months of WebEx – you can have that meeting and as many more meetings for that month as you want on-line. Zero carbon (almost), zero hassle, zero checked bags.
• Buy two webcams – one for you and one for your client – and meet “face-to-face” on WebEx.
• Buy a nice catered lunch for your client, have it sent to him or her, and have the "meeting" part via WebEx.

Pick any one, then go show your boss the ticket you didn’t buy and get extra brownie points for saving the company money. Then relax knowing you have no airport hassles to deal with, and go home in time for dinner.

Jeff Weinberger leads the Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives for Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group.

Guest Post: Dead Air Dynamics (or Help! My Meeting is Dying!)

Today we bring you the brilliant insights of one of our WebEx meeting experts. Expert because he, David Goad, works for WebEx and as you might imagine, spends a great deal of time in meetings. Lots and lots of meetings. 

So come with us now to read more about the dynamics of "dead air" - that interstitial time when the actual meeting isn't happening but people are present - and find out how David handles the situation..click here to read his blog!