WebEx Interactions: A Web Collaboration Blog by WebEx

Presentation Advice from an Expert

The Wired How-to Wiki has a good article on delivering dynamic presentations based on the advice of Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design. Duarte Design consults on executive presentations and keynotes, the most notable would be the presentation Al Gore delivers in An Inconvenient Truth.

Advice includes the tried and true, know your audience and memorize your message. The importance of this latter point shouldn't be confused with mistaking presenting by rote. Presenting should be a learning process, including learning from the audience so each time the presenter delivers similar material, he or she is better prepared for audience feedback and questions.

Some technical details worth noting, use 24pt or larger type, which can be seen in the An Inconvenient Truth presentation. As most of us don't have the time or ability to create high quality animations, high quality images, particularly photos, are a good alternative.

For those that build slide decks as a substitute for a memo, per corporate culture: This advice shouldn't go out the window in those instances, but slides have to be denser than Al Gore's example. Since they will be read rather than presented, they need to stand on their own. Still, Al Gore's presentation does stand on its own.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx. 

Multi-tasking - virus or just endemic human trait?

I've been in a good number of training sessions and meetings the past few weeks, so in catching up on my reading, I saw this apropos post from Nicholas Carr about the multitasking virus. Josh Waitzkin (of Searching for Bobby Fischer fame) initiated the discussion on Tim Ferriss' blog. Christine Rosen also weighs in at The New Atlantis.

The idea behind Josh Waitzkin's post, his experience watching today's students multitasking during a lecture from one of his favorite professors, has strong correlation to meeting behavior both in-person and online. We've all seen people bring their notebook PCs into a meeting. The rest of us are left wondering if they spend the time checking email, chatting in IM, and watching YouTube.

Bringing a notebook PC to a meeting is akin to chewing gum in same, so if you bring one, plan on sharing. Last week I participated in a couple meetings in which all the participants hunkered down for a couple hours at a stretch in a conference room to work on a project. We all brought our notebooks, but we actively used Meeting Center to share content, co-edit and transfer files. It definitely streamlined the process.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

WebEx Helps Commuters Dump the Pump

It is no secret that gas prices are at all time high, causing big concerns for individuals and business around the country. In order to help raise awareness of the public transportation options available to help commuters reduce carbon emissions and conserve fuel, the American Public Transportation Association has designated tomorrow, June 19th, "Dump the Pump Day" and is encouraging commuters to fight pollution by making clean air travel choices.

During National Pump the Dump Day, public transportation agencies from coast to coast will join together to offer free ride public transportation instead to provide an extra incentive for commutes to park their cars and avoid using gas.

Cisco is showing support by encouraging workers to skip their commute and work from home with free, web-based, collaborative meetings from WebEx.

Hundreds of businesses already rely on WebEx to help offset carbon emissions and make it easy for employee to eliminate the need to commute to work or travel for business. Check out the carbon calculator to see much money and carbon you can save by reducing or eliminating your commute.

Colin Smith, Dir., Public Relations, WebEx

Travel During the Summer of 08

I don't travel much and the previous few trips I did take all had direct flights. So when I flew last week (and had a connection each way), the number of issues that came up reminded me how frustrating air travel can be. And while I don't mean to just complain, the delays I experienced have me thinking that I'll need to evaluate the whole experience before booking any flights going forward.

All four flight segments of my trip had problems, when I arrived at the airport to depart for each flight, the computers weren't working. The second flight of the first segment, a smaller plane arrived for the flight and suddenly there were more passengers than seats. Luckily a number of passengers from City Year took the airline up on the offer of a free ticket, but it still took over an hour to find and issue new seats.

On the second leg of my return flight, the plane experienced a malfunction during take-off. So the plane went back to the gate and the airline found another plane for us. The delay impacted the flight status of some of the crew, so another delay to find replacements for those crew members. Weather caused an additional delay as the flight waited to get in queue to route around thunderstorms through Canadian airspace. In total I lost 7 hours to delays.

Ironically, as I sat in the airport on Friday morning for that return flight, the news playing at the gate was all about new fees for luggage and beverages. On the face of it, the unintended consequence will have to be delays at check in, security, and boarding. The passengers who check a bag now have a credit card transaction to complete, slowing down check-in. A certain percentage of passengers who would otherwise check a bag will now try to carry more on the plane to avoid the fee.

So even though I participate in a lot of web meetings, I can expect to get in one or two more through the rest of the year. For those instances that require being there in-person, I'm just going to have to pack lighter.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

A Month of Meetings

I suppose it’s pretty obvious to say that, with a few exceptions, air travel in the US 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 hard to pick on any one airline, but Wednesday American Airlines took the “new cost” lead by announcing that they would be charging for every checked bag (not just the extra bags that have carried fees for some time). Their new pricing is $15 each way for the first bag, $25 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 $80.

Which led me to ask: How can I spend my $80 better, and maybe greener? 

• Plant 22 carbon-absorbing trees with CarbonFund.org and also help reduce soil erosion.
• Offset 1,000 Metric Tons of carbon emissions (based on today’s opening price of CFI contracts on the Chicago Climate Exchange).
• Pay for a month of lattes.
• Take your team out for celebratory drinks.
• Pay for a month subscription to the Wall Street Journal.
• Buy a tank of gas for your mid-size car (OK, those weren’t so green). 
• Skip the trip completely and buy one month 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 a lunch meeting on 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, relax knowing you have no airport hassles to deal with, and go home in time for dinner.

Jeff Weinberger, Chair, WebEx Green Initiative, WebEx

Collaboration and Community around Shared Experience

Wikipedia, as an example of community collaboration, continues to provide interesting fodder for discussion, including Nicholas Carr's take on the speech Clay Shirky delivered at the Web 2.0 Expo.

Clay Shirky's speech discusses the interaction between the traditional consumption of information (in this case through TV) and the interest some consumers of information have in contributing back via the Web.

The "Wikipedia's take on Gilligan's Island" example in Nickolas Carr's post provides an interesting view on the new roll of media. My view of the subtext in Clay's speech is that if you want to immerse someone in information, you should give them a mechanism to respond. Only then do both parties win. This could be any interaction, sending an email, giving a presentation in a web meeting or teaming on a document.

The micro-communities that drive media creation on Wikipedia ultimately create a more interesting experience as our perception of information changes. Clay Shirky provides a great example:

You may remember that Pluto got kicked out of the planet club a couple of years ago, so all of a sudden there was all of this activity on Wikipedia. The talk pages light up, people are editing the article like mad, and the whole community is in an ruckus--"How should we characterize this change in Pluto's status?" And a little bit at a time they move the article--fighting offstage all the while--from, "Pluto is the ninth planet," to "Pluto is an odd-shaped rock with an odd-shaped orbit at the edge of the solar system."

When it comes to information, most of us consume more than we produce but in communities of interest -- be it work or a hobby -- people want to share their knowledge to create a more complete view. When selling a widget, work with the prospect to make sure using the widget will add some new value. When creating content, solicit feedback from peers and interested parties to ensure the information has relevancy and interest.

To get back to Clay Shirky's speech on media, there's a reason people with DVRs forward past the ads, the ads lack information and entertainment value.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

Marketing Webinar: Casting a Wider Web

On Wednesday May 14, WebEx and MarketingSherpa are teaming up to present Casting a Wider Web. This 2008 Marketing eSummit includes a series of webinars from experts at Marketo, Wainhouse Research, the American Marketing Association and Loomis Group on using the latest online marketing technology. In addition to these best practice and advice webinars, marketers from Cisco and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange will also talk about their real-world experience.

Two of the sessions focus on presenting research. In the first, Stephan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa and John Miller from Marketo will discuss trends for 2008. In the second, Andrew Nilssen and Alan D. Greenberg, both senior analysts and partners at Wainhouse Research as well as Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the American Marketing Association, will present survey results about the changing nature of online events.

The 2008 Marketing eSummit is a virtual event – in addition to the participating in the webinars, attendees have the ability to interact in real-time to discuss what they’ve seen and talk to presenters between sessions. The full program for the event is available here and registration for the event is here.

Marc Blakeney, Sr. Marketing Manager, Consulting Services & Event Center, WebEx

Happy Earth Day!

How are you celebrating Earth Day? According to the Earth Day Network, Earth Day 2008 is expected to be the biggest in this event’s 38-year history. There are events of all sorts from celebrations to volunteer opportunities all over the world. You can find more than you ever thought possible with a simple Google search.

Take a simple step.

For the last few years, coincidentally, I’ve found myself flying somewhere on Earth Day (this year it was the day before). But whether I get on a plane on Earth Day or the day after (this year it was the day before) doesn’t matter much. What does matter is what I do all year. I may end up having a very-low-carbon-emission Earth Day this year, but if I go back to high-carbon-emission habits tomorrow, I haven’t really accomplished much.

Becoming greener and reducing your carbon footprint can be simple. Hold a meeting on-line (try it free). Work from home one day per week (or month if your boss doesn’t like the idea as much).

Check out what a few Cisco and WebEx execs are doing in their own lives to be just a little bit greener:

And if you are interested in how to get started, or in hearing how other companies are taking some simple steps, join us tomorrow for the Green Business Summit.

So whether it’s personal passion or pure profit that propels you to produce a bit less carbon, take one step today. And make it last all year.

I promise not to ask you to take another step…at least not until tomorrow.

Jeff Weinberger, Chair, WebEx Green Initiative, WebEx

Keep Your Meetings Despite Travel Hiccups

The recent disruptions in air travel, with planes grounded for inspections and a couple low-cost carriers suspending operations, should remind travelers that having a fall back plan to keep appointments can be pretty easy. While meeting with prospects and customers face-to-face is important, web conferencing provides a way to still keep a meeting when getting on a plane just isn't going to happen. Given how hard it can be to get on some people's schedules, web conferencing also gives travelers a way to connect even if they can't get to their destinations.

March through May usually make for easy flying -- much of the country enjoys reasonably good weather after the winter snows and the coming summer vacation rush has yet to begin. With these current disruptions in mind, this might be the perfect opportunity to perfect web-based training and web-touch sales skills for those planning summer travel for training and sales initiatives. Since summer travel usual involves over-booked flights and thunderstorm-induced airport gridlock, honing web collaboration skills now could pay dividends in the near future.

Michael Caton, Collaboration Evangelist, WebEx

Enterprise Cross Platform Support: Mac OS X to Mozilla

Last week Forrester Research released a report detailing the increasingly cross-platform nature of enterprise PCs. The report indicates that the enterprise market share of Apple's Mac OS X is growing as is the share of Mozilla's Firefox browser. According to the report, in 2007 Mac OS X share grew 3x to 4.2% and Mozilla nearly doubled market share to 18%. 

As the adoption of Mac continues to grow among corporate users, Cisco WebEx has increased its support for the platform across its suite and just announced full support for Mac OS X Leopard and Safari 3 users across its entire collaboration suite. Several Mac-focused media outlets showed their excitement about the news. Check out MacWorld’s coverage.

We've seen Mac OS X use double recently, and while 4.2% could be described as modest share, the growth is strong. Sales of Apple PCs, particularly in the notebook segment, continue to be strong according to this MacWorld article citing NPD and IDC research.   

Mozilla's share in the enterprise increased despite not having an official MSI package to simplify large scale deployment. Forrester surveyed the desktop and browser environments of 50,000 users at 2,300 large to very large organizations on a monthly basis throughout 2007.

Colin Smith, Dir., Public Relations, WebEx