YIKES! Have you Ever Been Caught Running From a Boring, Stagnant Non-Profit Meeting?

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.  ~Benjamin Disraeli

If so, you’re not alone.  Time is money and by the time most non-profit board members and volunteers leave the office, drive to a conference room, wolf down a sandwich, exchange niceties and hear the treasure’s report, there’s little time for collaboration, idea sharing and engagement.

Worse, if your organization holds boring web conferences and audio conference calls, there are usually many no shows, few opportunities for key leaders to follow up in person or conduct break out sessions following the ambiguous conclusion of meetings like those described here.

If this bothers you, your thinking mirrors ours at VenueGen.

As community minded people, we’re all volunteers with organizations that we believe are vital to the health and well being of our community.  We are tolerant, but have little patience or time for involvement in stagnant organizations that can’t seem make the best use of our time by doing away with boring meetings, calls and web conferences.

With both our community and our user communities in mind, we’ve made it specific point to offer a lifetime subscription of VenueGen Thunder for free to non profit organizations, small businesses, community groups, churches/religious organizations and cause related groups who are willing to buck the trend of boring meetings by offering Virtual 3D conferences and events as the means to give participant ideas a voice.

All we need now is for our users care to ask the organizations they care for to sign up for the free chance to utilize VenueGen Thunder.  Of course, if you’re a non-profit leader, start working to make the most of your big ideas.

Do tell us what you’re thinking and we’ll be glad to share your thoughts and discuss your goals and objectives later both here and on our Twitter feed.

Recognizing the Need to Assist Leading Organizers & Organizations with Big Ideas

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead

Let’s be honest.  Effective advocacy starts long before the point where strong leaders recognize the need to get important messages across. At the core, change or desirable results begin to form the moment someone recognizes who to interact with and how to best get their points across.

The real truth begins to surface the moment strong leaders demonstrate that they are capable of both listening and speaking.

That’s the model we began to address at the point where we began plotting out the creation of VenueGen.  We wanted not only to create a Web Conference and Event platform, we hoped to equip thought leaders with everything they needed to conduct sessions that are easy to schedule, even easier to conduct.  We hoped to spark the sharing of profitable interactions and powerful dialogue.

This week is an exciting one for us, as we’ve launched VenueGen Thunder.   We’re reaching out to thousands of bloggers, thought leaders, non-profit organizations, small businesses, trade associations, community advocacy groups and to anyone with a strong following.

All we ask in return is for folks to demonstrate the overwhelming ability to achieve change nirvana through the use of our Virtual 3D Platform.

Can you help us spark community action and change?  Please offer your comments and suggestions.

Surprise! How can the Element of African Surprise Affect your Meeting Outcomes?

Do you know how to speak Swahili?  If not, imagine this scenario:

1. Following a sociably late entry to a very large, crowded college classroom/auditorium, you notice that the host professor of your  “Current World Problems”  class is noticeably late
2. A couple hundred people sit quietly in anticipation that an intellectual genius will enter
3. In walks a little African man in full costume, playing native drums and screeching out words only recognizable by those who speak Swahili

Not exactly what college students hoping to gain the insight necessary to launch careers as Ambassadors would expect, eh?

But, why is it that 23 years later, I still remember the name or that Ph.D candidate?    Why can I tell you that Charles Boateng was the most effective lecturer/presenter of information that I’ve ever seen?  And, more importantly, how was he able to gain my attention, earn my trust and help me retain all of his insights about nuclear disarmament after that notorious entry?

Would it surprise you to know that our class performed better on final exams than every other section taught by other lectururers who weren’t natives of Ghana, Africa?

Now, sadly I can’t tell you the names of the last three audio conference call presenters or online web conference hosts I’ve been exposed to.

But, after checking my calendar, I can honestly say that all of these professionals are intelligent individuals who have insightful and profitable information to share with me.   I have managed to retain some of their presentations.  But, I hardly recall everything.  Do they have to dress in full costume, beat on a drum and speak Swahili to gain my attention?  No.

Though, they can use the same elements of surprise and present themselves as clearly as the little African Professor.  They can pre-plan to make appropriate use of their 3D venue.  They can add some passion and cultural significance to their simple and authentic avatar.  They can work effortlessly to make their messages powerful and work to engage their participants in meaningful dialogue.  And, if I’m in their presence, they can even look right at me while telling me that it’s a good thing that I never pursued my interest in becoming an Ambassador.

Do tell me why you think Dr. Boateng still resonates with his classes?  Later, let’s use this forum to discuss the other fascinating elements of his teaching techniques that you believe can be successfully adapted in Virtual 3D.

What’s more appealing & profitable? Making online sales meetings zing with personal relevance or with flashy messages?

Reality bites, especially if you conduct a regular schedule of online sales  training sessions or staff meetings and haven’t planned to make your sessions personally engaging and meet the needs of your  meeting participants.  Before you start working on a flashy Power Point presentation or plan to deliver a killer motivation speech , why not focus your efforts on bringing out your users needs out from under the Cloak of invisibility?

For, where high rates or user action, information retention, profitability and increased returns on investment are concerned, you’ll never succeed if you cannot give those whose business is important to you engaging command of the interaction process.

Where the intersection of profitability and virtual 3D meeting technology is concerned, here’s good news.  Unlike the traditional online meeting or audio conference calls, many of the tools you can use to conduct 3D meetings are not just designed to make your messages attractive or to insure inter-connectivity anymore.

It’s now very simple to use 3D virtual reality technology to make your meetings both  engaging and proactive.  You can deliver transparent messages and expect these meetings to be more effective than in person, 1:1 meetings simply because you have the ability to fully understand reactions to your messages.  You can see for yourself how engaged participants are with the meetings.  You can solicit comments and participation in more ways. And, you can keep your people from multi-tasking while participating in your online meeting or audio conference.

In the coming weeks we’ll highlight successful businesses and the steps they take to make their internal conferences, ongoing training sessions and weekly sales team meetings profitable through the use of Virtual  Reality, 3D meeting and conferencing tools.

In the mean time,  isn’t it time online sessions became more personal like 1:1/face-to-face meetings?

Part 2: When Will 3-D Virtual Reality Truly be the Mainstream Online Business Meeting Platform?

When ROI is achieved by saving time and money.  Period!

VenueGen lets businesses stage quick and easy virtual meetings

“Whoever gets this right could score big. Research firm Research 2.0 estimates the 3D avatar market for business will grow to $8 billion in annual revenues in 2014. That doesn’t include the training and collaboration markets. ” –Venture Beat

Think hard about your last website collaboration or online training session.  Can you remember all the planning and preparation you did only to experience a 15-minute delay getting started because three users had problems logging in and understanding how to navigate through a complicated system?

Do you remember your meeting outcomes, or is the only account of your experience a browser crash and/or a session interrupted by on hold music or poor sound quality?  Was your user experience clearly positive or as effective as using aluminum cans and string connections to connect your session participants?

Today, developers of 3-D platforms have triggered all of their efforts around providing profitable user sessions in your browser in one minute or less.  They have simplified the number of actions necessary to sign up and start participating.  They’ve insured solid VoiP and dial up sound platforms.  They’ve spent thousands of research hours studying the communication patterns, gestures, body language attributes and expressions that meeting participants use.  They’ve made it easy to give all participants easy access to collaboration tools.

They’ve simplified everything necessary to give users more control.

In short, development of 3-D platforms must always remain customer centric in providing more ways take the pain out of operating the system so users can concentrate on the value of the information exchanged and the quality of engagement through a host of interactions.

We’re continually asked this question:  In the future, what applications do you see being most profitable to businesses and collaborative training organizations? Our success in helping businesses profit will depend on our ability to make sure that we address anything and everything that can and will go wrong.

That’s why we’re pleased to use this blog to offer insights on what can and will go right every time a Virtual 3-D conference is conducted in the future.

Have you attended a Virtual 3-D conference?  If so, how can your experience be improved?