WebEx: Ideas in Motion

How-To Video: Record a WebEx

Did you know you can record your WebEx and share it with people who couldn't make it? It's super easy...

Next time you use WebEx, give it a try. And if you want to try WebEx absolutely free - you can! Get it here and start using WebEx today.

Guest Blogger: Use The Public Channel For Better Customer Service

This guest blog is by Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist with 19 years experience and a great blog, AVC.. He helps people start and build technology companies out of New York City – which he’ll tell you isn't the easiest place to build technology companies, but its getting better. We believe ideas get better when they are shared – so does Fred. Check it out…

One of Mike Bloomberg's greatest achievements is the creation of the 311 service here in New York City. These 311 services operate in many large cities in the US and in Canada. The first one was in Baltimore in the mid 90s.

Apparently Bloomberg is a huge user of 311 himself and he calls all the time as he is driving around the city, reporting potholes and such.

We had a pothole in our neighborhood that I passed every day on my way to the subway. It was a big one and I'd watch car after car pound the hell out of their undercarriage as they made their way from Hudson onto Bethune street.  One day I stopped and snapped this photo with my Blackberry and posted it to Flickr (and then automatically to Twitter):

I added the following to the Flickr headline which became the tweet:

It would be great if you could twitter these in like: @potholenyc corner of bethune and hudson

Of course I could have called 311, like our Mayor does, and reported the pothole. But doing it this way does a bunch of things;

1) It saves the cost of staffing large call centers because computers can handle most of the processing of messages like this. There will still need to be humans at some part of this process, but the front end can certainly be automated.

2) You get an image of the pothole which should help the crews who fix them evaluate the worst ones and prioritize.

3) The photo and the twitter message is out there for anyone to see. Ideally this message would get routed, via something like our portfolio company outside.in, to the various local media in the neighborhood. If the messages have enough metadata in them, you could even create pages of local media based on the most common neighborhood issues (crime, infrastructure, schools, parks, etc)

4) The public discussion about the photo and related posts could be aggregated to create even more metadata and further identify the highest priority issues.

We see this "public channel" in action already with services like Comcast Cares on Twitter. Anyone can pick up the phone and call Comcast and tell them that their cable service isn't working. But the only people who know about that are the person making the call and call center rep taking it. When someone posts on Twitter that their cable service isn't working and directs the message to Comcast Cares, many people see that. Some of them may be other Comcast customers who might find out that their cable isn't working either. And as Comcast Cares elevates the issue, gets it fixed, and reports back, everyone gets to see that too. It's a huge win for Comcast. Anything that can make a cable company look better is a great thing and the use of the public channel is exactly that.

The public channel is just developing. It's in its infancy. Services like Twitter and Facebook are building key elements of it. But we need a lot more infrastructure to make this happen. I do not believe that the way this will happen is the creation of "enterprise services" that will be sold to local governments. I think we'll see things like GetSatisfaction and Uservoice develop that are consumer facing first and foremost that governments will be forced to adopt.

My friend John Geraci, co-founder of Outside.in, is developing a non-profit called DIYcity that is attempting to spearhead a movement along this idea. If you are interested in working on projects in this area, you should join DIYcity and start collaborating with others who are working in this space.

The public channel is the right channel for business and government. Most "customer support" issues are not confined to one person (just look at the comments on my American Express post for proof of that). So we should be using a public channel to talk to companies and institutions. They'll benefit and so will we.

Thanks Fred for a great post! We’d love to hear your ideas for making things better. Share then at PasstheBall.com  and follow us on Twitter. Ideas get better when they are shared.

“Communication is crucial for managers in a recession”

That’s right. “Communication is crucial for managers in a recession,” according to an expert featured in today’s Calgary Herald.

“You have managers with great intentions, but doing more of the day-to-day activities than they used to do before," says Craig Brown, vice-president for Ontario and Western Canada with staffing firm Randstad. "You get that tunnel vision. It compounds the uncertainty because the person employees look to for leadership -the boss -might not be sharing as much information because they have less time and more work, too.”

He makes a great point. We are all trying to do more with less and that’s when communication tends to get traded off for pressing deadlines, the need to prove you are doing a good job and generally being overwhelmed. Add the complexity of having to work with people that aren’t sitting near you – and the difficulty is exponentially increased.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you haven’t tried WebEx, you don’t know what you are missing. It works like you do:

1. Want to eliminate confusion – you need more than a teleconference – WebEx lets you share your desktop, literally type words that might be misunderstood of you are audio-only and work together on projects everyone can see the outcome at the same time.
2. Need to work with someone who’s at home, in another country or on the road, WebEx has minimum technical requirements – it’s so easy I can get my mom on it and that’s saying something – all you need is a browser and the meeting URL or number.
3. Need to a personal touch – use your webcam so people can see your face and read your expressions.

But here’s the most important thing, you can try it free. It’s kind of fun and you’ll be surprised what it can do. You get to share your desktop and files, you can use the WebEx phone bridge or just call direct. The result is you will get things done much faster than doing it the “old fashioned way” and your team will thank you for helping them get the job more efficiently.

“There's great potential in these times to have even stronger teams,” Craig Brown says.

Don’t let hard times keep you from communicating with your team. Give WebEx a try.

How-To Video: Free trial will let you get the job done much faster

One of the best things about a WebEx is the ability to share you desktop.

It lets the person you are talking to see exactly what you are talking about. And in my case, it often means I can edit a PowerPoint while my colleague is on the phone looking at the slide and watching me work my magic (while pointing out every time I make a typo!).

It's fast, efficient and even kind of fun. I know it has saved me hours of collaboration time and eliminated a lot of misunderstandings (ever been on a telecon and you simply can't understand what the other person means?).

Here's a quick look at desktop sharing to show you how it works...

Still not convinced? You can try WebEx absolutely free and see what you think.

Here's a really important thing to know - asking someone to join you in a WebEx is an easy thing to do. When you use the trial, simply invite the person you want to meet with (you will get instructions) and they can click and join. They don't have to have anything except a browser. You don't have to use the WebEx bridge unless you need a bridge - you can simply call your colleague and work together in WebEx to get the job done.

Have questions? First impressions? Let us know...

Great Idea: iPhone Game Gets Kids into the (Hidden) Park

Springwise ferociously tracks more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities with digital cameras at hand to bring brain food to entrepreneurial minds! To get your daily dose, you can subscribe here and in the meantime, enjoy this great idea for improving sports.

Released early this month by Australian developer Bulpadok, The Hidden Park is a computer game for young families that makes the most of the iPhone's features as it leads children into a fantasy world of trolls, fairies and genies. Families begin by downloading the app from Apple’s App Store for USD 6.99 and then heading to a nearby park—currently, the game supports a select group of parks in nine major cities around the world, including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.

From there, children navigate their way through the real park by following a magical map that reveals where mystical creatures live. As kids move past landmarks in the park, the map tells them where to go next, with puzzles and riddles to solve in order to save the park from greedy developers. Children also take photos of various landmarks—and of the magical creatures who are said to live nearby—and can store those photos in a gallery for an album of their adventure that day.

Taking full advantage of Apple's technology, the Hidden Park uses the iPhone’s A-GPS feature to accurately pinpoint each player’s movements within the park and plot them against the interactive map that forms the heart of the game, for example. Through Location Based Services (LBS) technology, the game triggers particular animations and tasks as the user reaches key points along their journey. The phone's accelerometer, meanwhile, allows users to shake the device to scatter mystical characters over any photographed image.

The Hidden Park was created in collaboration with WSP Environmental. And while the game is currently focused on a set of key major parks, it can be adapted to others—in fact, the company is now working on a park builder that will allow parents to set up the game in their local park and share it with other parents. In the meantime, Bulpadok is also accepting nominations for additional parks to support in the game.

As developed nations around the globe fight childhood obesity, there's no doubt games like this will be welcomed with open arms; improving mobile technologies, meanwhile, are making more and more possible. How could *you* put the iPhone to work to slim down and entertain the world's kids...? (Related: Gyms for kids use gaming to keep them hooked.)

Do you have an idea aimed at improving education? Come share it at PasstheBall.com. If you don’t, you can rate the ideas that are already there.

Ideas get better when they are shared.

Three Hot Ideas to Bridge the Gen Gap and Keep Older Americans Working!

When Obama announced his huge plans for having a trained work force in America last week, we asked our visitors to tell us their ideas for improving the job market. One set of ideas focused on the challenges facing older workers who face some unique challenges in finding new work.

According to a Voice of America article, “With U.S. unemployment at a 25 year high, older workers say it's becoming increasingly difficult to compete for jobs against younger counterparts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says workers ages 45 and above are staying unemployed longer, about 22 weeks compared to 16 weeks for younger workers. Although many of the so called "baby boomers," [born between 1946 and 1964] are now in the prime of their careers, many have to confront age bias in a dismal job market.”

In Washington State, they are finding “State projections show that 15,000 students will enroll in Washington’s community college retraining programs starting this fall, more than double the head count from two years ago. Two out of three students getting retraining in have already turned 35,” says an article in HeraldNet.

So what can be done?

Here are some good ideas from the WebEx community – ideas that change the way we might think about our “older” workforce.

Idea #1: Create a Senior Academy
Ed Wurster of Voorhees, USA, suggests rewarding companies for retaining senior workers as company instructors, who pass on valuable skills to younger workers and teach the unemployed. (Comment on Ed’s idea here).

Idea #2: Create a plan for senior workers that allows for them to “modify” their jobs rather than face layoffs.
Rococo from Campbell, California thinks we shouldn’t layoff senior workers – what a mistake – we should develop a system that moves them to a position that allows them to transfer knowledge, train new employees and add value. This should include honest discussions of salary. If a senior worker is “expensive” but incredibly capable, it is crazy to fire that person to save money. Businesses need to think about ways to renegotiate their employment agreements and use older workers to help their companies succeed. (Comment on Rococo’s idea here.)

Idea #3: Get generations to work together to learn new skills.
SantaCruzMom from Santa Cruz, California says the older generations know the basic principles of business but less about technology, the web and social media. The younger generation understands all the tools but don’t understand business. Bring the generations together to get them to collaborate and work together to train one another. (Comment on SantaCruzMom’s idea here.)

It’s not too late to share your ideas with us.

We are working to share them with the Obama Administration as well and leaders in the community who are looking for ways to create new jobs and revitalize our economy. We are also inviting guests to speak on the topic. If you know someone who would like to lead a discussion on older workers, retraining or something similar, please reply (via commenting) to this blog.

Obama: "Cisco...Working With Community Colleges" on Job Training

On Tuesday, July 14th, President Obama announced his $12 billion American Graduation Initiative (fact sheet here) that focuses on using our community colleges to educate (and reeducate) workers for our future.

During his talk, he referred to Cisco as an example of a company partnering with schools to deliver programs that will train workers for new jobs. Here's a snippet from that speech.

If you are interested in learning more about the Cisco program, visit this site.

And if you have ideas for the President, corporations or others about what they can do to help train people, share your ideas with us. We want to hear from you.

If you don't have an idea but what to know what others are thinking, check this out. You can rate, comment or share the ideas you see there.

Great Idea: Pop-Up Learning Tool Teaches in Tiny Bites

Springwise ferociously tracks more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities with digital cameras at hand to bring brain food to entrepreneurial minds! To get your daily dose, you can subscribe here and in the meantime, enjoy this great idea for improving the environment.

"Divide and conquer" is a strategy that can be just as successful for tackling a task as it is for gaining power: break it down into small parts, and you have a better chance of succeeding. Such was the thinking behind DailyLit's books delivered in bite-sized portions, and a similar notion appears to be at work in Popling, a new online educational tool.

 

Users hoping to learn something new—whether it's French or trigonometry—begin by signing up for free with Popling and installing its Mac or Windows desktop software on their computer. They then subscribe to specific "poplings," or topics they want to learn. There are more than 150 poplings currently available, including 11 languages and topics in math, business, science and technology, among others.

 

Based on their choices, Popling's desktop software will display pop-up flash cards on their computer throughout the day, timed to the frequency they choose. A language card, for example, might display a new vocabulary word, or quiz the user on one they've already learned. If the user ignores a pop-up it will go away, but if they click on it, they can see the full version and answer the question it contains. Popling is also available in an ad-free subscription for USD 20 per year.

 

Easy-to-digest tidbits cater to consumers who seek gratification in smaller, easier-to-handle bites. Why not apply that to education, where the flash card already has a long history? Next, how about rolling out localized versions of Popling, tailored both to language and to culturally relevant topics?

Do you have an idea aimed at improving education? Come share it at PasstheBall.com. If you don’t, you can rate the ideas that are already there.

Ideas get better when they are shared.

 

Free Webinar: Expanding the Classroom with Online Learning

In this free webinar, you will learn how WebEx can help you engage online learners with lively, interactive instruction. It will be broadcast tomorrow, Thursday, July 16th.

We know social media and technology are making their way into the classroom. Tot that end, our presenters will explain:

1. How to share presentations and stream media modules or live video
2. How to set up hands-on labs so students can practice and review before, during, or after your class.
3. Methods for tracking performance with robust testing, grading, and polling tools. Then create an archive of your online class for self-paced study on demand.

This event is hosted by University Business editor Tim Goral and a panel of online learning practitioners.

• Extend learning beyond the four walls of the classroom to serve the growing population of non-traditional students.
• Create an online learning experience that mirrors the classroom experience.
• Foster remote collaboration among students and faculty across different buildings or campuses.

If you work in any aspect of education and are looking for ways to leverage new ways to embrace online learning, we believe you will benefit from this event

Speakers include:

	Tim Goral, Editor, University Business Magazine - Moderator
	Dominic Lau, Director, Instructional Operations, University of Southern California
	David Goad, Senior Marketing Manager, Cisco WebEx

DETAILS

Online webinar: Thursday, July 16, 2009, 11am PT   |   2pm ET
Register now!

Putting Americans Back to Work: Do You Have the Answer? Tell Us...

Being out of work totally sucks. I know. I have been there.

My whole team was laid off in 1998 and we were completely caught off guard. There was no economic decline and the dot-com bust was still two years away. But it still hurt. No matter when it happens, looking for work is hard.

Interestingly, one of the most powerful ways we motivated ourselves was getting together – our group of laid off people – and coming up with ideas about how to move forward. Many times our ideas didn’t work for us, but they were perfect for someone else. When we shared our ideas, they simply got better.

It’s time to share your ideas.

If you are out of work, we want you to tell us what needs to change to help you find work.

If you are in a job you hate but know changing jobs right now is not possible, we want your ideas about how your company could make things better so you could be a better contributor.

If you are working and happy but share the burden of having a friend or family member who is out of work, we want to know what you think can be done to make their search easier.

The President’s taking action, so can you.

In his speech yesterday, Barak Obama said, “My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe.” We think the same goes for all of us.

In these times, we all have to pull together to help one another. We will be sharing your ideas with people who can make change happen. We want to see what you have to say – both your ideas and your comments on the ideas that are already posted – and we will be working to make change on your behalf.

And for every idea you share with us, you will also be “doing good.” We are making a contribution to Teachers Without Borders when people share, rate or comment on ideas at PasstheBall.com.

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Looking for Work: Cisco Networking Academy Job Training Program

Yesterday, President Obama referred to high tech training programs to help retrain the workforce. Here’s the scoop: the program is designed to upgrade skills and create new job opportunities and will focus on broadband, network security and health care IT training. See the press release here.