ONE+ ‘s Jason Hensel talks with VenueGen CEO David Gardner about the usability and user-engagement advantages of immersive web technologies. “You recognize people on-site. You can see who’s talking. When everyone turns and looks at you, your energy level spikes. It feels just like being in a real meeting.”
David Gardner will explore the potential of new in-browser meeting environments to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of dispersed business teams
(Morrisville, NC: January 10, 2011) For business to truly recoup value by moving training, meetings and events online, they need a more engaging, natural-feeling solution than the web conferencing and screen sharing platforms that dominate today’s market, says David Gardner, CEO and creator of VenueGen, a subscription-based web application that enables business customers to more effectively engage teams on-line in fully immersive Web3D virtual conferencing environments.
Gardner will explore these solutions, as well as the implications of new technology on the future of corporate training and events, in two sessions at Virtual Edge Summit 2011, the industry’s largest gathering for virtual events, meetings, communities, and learning, held this year at the MGM Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as virtually.
3D Immersive Worlds for Business Engagement will take place Wednesday, January 12, 11:00 – 11:45 PST. Gardner will join IT/IS expert and KohdSpace Chairman Terry Thorpe, along with John Jainschigg, virtual events expert and CEO of World2Worlds, Inc (www.world2worlds.com), to examine the proof and case experiences behind the capacity of fully immersive 3D online environments to drive engagement and improve results.
Virtual Environment Platforms: From Social Gaming to Social Mediawill take place Wednesday, January 12, 2:15 – 3:00 PST. The session will focus on how the convergence of social gaming and virtual environments is changing expectations for online business experiences. Other thought leaders participating in the session are Ken Hayward, digital media expert and CEO of Vcopious; Rahul Rankavat, director of software development at Vcopious; and Manu Gambhir, social gaming expert and CEO of Ryzing.
For more information, or to schedule an interview with Gardner at the event, please contact Kate Hendrick by phone at 919-228-4995, by email at khendrick@venuegen.com, or via Twitter at @VenueGen.
About David Gardner
David Gardner is a serial entrepreneur, technology investor and futurist with a proven track record of early identification of paradigm-shifting technologies. He is a trusted advisor concerning new technology trends who believes Web-3D is on the verge of dramatically transforming many web-based business models as we know them today.
David Gardner, CEO of VenueGen
Experienced in taking IT products and Internet-service model companies to market, Gardner has founded seven technology companies—including PeopleClick, the first hosted software-as-a-service enterprise application; and healthcare communications technology exchange ProviderLink, now owned by Compuware—without a single failure or loss of investor funds. He has served on several boards, spoken at multiple industry conferences, and published over twenty forward-thinking papers and articles on technical, business and managerial topics.
In 2007, Gardner founded VenueGen, a company dedicated to creating a new standard of in-browser web-conference platform for more engaging, productive and efficient online training, meetings and events. He currently serves as CEO.
About VenueGen
VenueGen is a subscription based Web3D conference application enabling business customers to efficiently and affordably train, collaborate, meet and share content online without sacrificing the engagement and productivity of face-to-face communication.
Compared to the web conferencing and screen sharing platforms currently on the market, VenueGen’s immersive 3D environments facilitate lifelike, natural-feeling interaction for improved learning, motivation and overall performance. VenueGen features fast, easy installation; a minimal usability learning curve; private, secure environments; and one-of-a-kind content sharing capabilities that use negligible bandwidth, allow multiple content windows to be shared simultaneously, and empower each user to control his or her personal view of content.
VenueGen is included in Gartner’s Five Coolest and Most Promising New Technologies, and has received accolades from USA Today, Business Week, CNBC and others. To learn more, please visit the company’s website at www.VenueGen.com or follow VenueGen on Twitter at twitter.com/venuegen.
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The makers of VenueGen are seeking your input to design the next ideal venue. What kind of room, elements, functions, or settings would you integrate to enhance your VenueGen virtual meetings?
VenueGen is the on-demand web conferencing platform that enables users to host public and private virtual events in businesslike venues. Creating a meeting is simple: Customize your avatar, choose a virtual room, and step inside where you can see and hear your colleagues around the room.
When placed in a familiar environment, participants feel naturally inclined to open up conversation and interact with one another. Versus the average phone conference call, the true-to-life experience impacts group productivity in a significant way. User report improved communication, faster learning, and better decision-making. This is totally immersive 3D web conferencing.
At present, VenueGen offers over 30 different businesslike venues for users seeking formal or casual meeting places. Some of our users’ favorite rooms are the board rooms, lecture halls and theaters. Among the most unique spaces are the outdoor stone amphitheater, a late night talk show studio, and even the deck of a luxurious yacht. Check out some screen shots of the rooms here.
Our customer feedback is important to us, and your comments will help make the virtual experience even more productive and meaningful for everyone. Thanks!
Many businesses are looking for ways to save time and money. One area that tends to get a lot of attention is travel expenses. For businesses that require frequent collaboration between workers, VenueGen’s virtual meetings can provide cost-effective solutions without losing the benefits of face-to-face communication.
VenueGen makes expensive transportation costs and travel time a thing of the past. The virtual 3D web conferencing platform provides an effective means of communication as effective as a 500,000 telepresence room—it’s that sense of actually being “there” with your colleagues. Featuring photo-created avatars, realistic meeting rooms, VoIP technology, surround sound, and content sharing, it’s the all in one program that’s easy to use and simple to install. No telepresence equipment or cameras required.
The effective communication produces better results for both business and customer relationships. Meeting attendees are able to see people’s facial expressions and read their body language which can greatly facilitate communications. Sharing documents and presentation slides enables worker collaboration over the internet.
The browser-based software loads in just seconds, allowing remote workers to come together in real-time over the internet. VenueGen makes it possible to hold meetings, lead training sessions, and service clients right from your desktop.
Learning to use a new web conferencing tool can be overwhelming for some users, especially as technology becomes more advanced. For those migrating from ordinary web conferencing services to the VenueGen 3D virtual meeting software, VenueGen is making the switch easier with video tutorials and practice rooms.
VenueGen tutorials are designed specifically for users who are interested in learning how to use the virtual meeting services. The video lessons are only 30 to 90 seconds in length. Once finished watching the videos, users can even apply what they have learned in virtual practice rooms. There are lessons for both hosts and guests — most guests simply watch the 30 second flash tutorial when they log on to a meeting, while hosts can learn more advanced features around content management and presentation.
In addition to tutorials for individual users, VenueGen also offers free demos for businesses and organizations. Together, company employees can learn to host meetings, integrate content, and communicate with one another through their virtual avatars. Many new users learn to manage the virtual environment in as little as five minutes!
David Gardner‘s virtual presentation was rated as one of the best presentations at this years TIP-NEP Conference. In fact, Gardner’s 3D virtual presentation on VenueGen was given the highest presentation scores from 22 of 23 evaluators. His presentation was so engaging that he outperformed all other speakers there, even the in-person speakers.
Listen to the first 30 seconds of this real-life example of a video conference call. You smirk, not because it’s humorous, but because you have experienced dozens or even hundreds of video conference calls just like it. You know the feeling. If you’re not engaged within that first thirty seconds, that’s when your interest falls and your attention-span shortens. You distract yourself by opening new browser windows to check your email or being searching for other activities to keep yourself from nodding off. All the while, you’re still not really focused on the call and you might find it almost impossible to truly grasp those key messages that are essential to your business’ success.
With 3D virtual conferencing, the experience is different. The moment your personalized representation enters that virtual lecture room, you feel a sense of togetherness, belonging, and connectedness because you’re seated with virtual representations of your own colleagues. Facing the head of the room, you notice the speaker’s performance is refreshingly engaging. He’s incorporated facial expressions, gesturing, posturing, and even eye contact into his delivery. For the first time, you feel as though the call leader is speaking with you rather than at you. Then you peer around the room to see which of your colleagues are present when the speaker addresses you by name to volunteer you in one of his special presentation examples. You are truly involved.
Would you like to get rid of your audio and web conference calls? Get off the phone and in front of customers, and sell, sell, sell?
Keynote speaker Skip Miller is the author of Amazon’s #1 book on Sales Management - ProActive Sales Management and its follow-upMore ProActive Sales Management, along with three best selling books on sales ProActive Selling, Ultimate Sales Tool Kit, and Knock Your Socks Off Prospecting, is the founder of M3 Learning. He’s taught thousands of sales managers and sales executives not only how to get in the game, but also how to stay ahead of it!
Live Event Details: Duration: 60 minutes, including Q&A Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST Where: VenueGen at www.venuegen.com Registration: https://www.venuegen.com/?q=thunder/sthunder
At this special event, you will learn how to fire up your laptop or PC browser and be in a highly productive, collaborative online meeting with your colleagues in less than 60 seconds.
With no strings attached, our speakers will show you how you can drive sales momentum by throwing out unproductive, traditional online web and audio conferencing meetings and moving to VenueGen, a 3-D sales and marketing online meeting platform.
Register now for the free online training seminar here. If you are interested in learning more, but are unable to attend this event, please email us. We will gladly schedule a convenient time to show you how to run a more engaging sales or marketing meeting in 5 minutes. Overnight, your sales team will be more competitive and executing faster.
Important Please Read: If you plan to virtually attend this meeting it is very important that you register now to reserve your seat well in advance to allow enough time for the venue and meeting content to be downloaded to your computer. If this is not the computer you will be using to attend the meeting, please wait and register from the computer you will be using.
Previously, physical presences were required in classrooms or boardrooms in order to share information and interact with participants. However, the Internet fostered development of alternatives such as web and video conferencing, message boards, and instant messaging, which allowed limited group interaction without requiring one’s physical presence. However, as helpful as those innovations have been, they do not compare with the advantages of a live, in-person, forum in which full immersion and interaction maximize learning potential.
Thankfully, 3D-technology like VenueGen has reached a point in which the benefits of distance learning can now merge with the immersive advantages of live, in-person meetings. However, in order to judge overall effectiveness of this form of online virtual training, one must consider three important factors:
1. Information Sharing: In the past, files like Word documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations needed to be emailed to participants beforehand for review. Or people saw a boring web conference screen share without people in the room. Venuegen’s virtual platform allows for people in the 3D room to have real time dissemination of this material on a shared screen space, as it would be in any other in person training session, lecture, or business meeting. Moreover, participants can also edit documents as they screen share in real time via their avatars without closing the program. Juggling less windows makes attendees more productive.
2. Attendee Control: Control over one’s 3-D representation is crucial because realistic movements simulate a more realistic environment. So instead of speech alone like in a webinar, one can also gesture and move to engage other participants non-verbally, which is important since human beings absorb as much information through non-verbal cues as they do with speech. Additionally, the more lifelike a user’s 3-D representation is, the more attentive and receptive other participants will be in accepting it as a “real” person rather than a simulation. This means more information can be digested from these meetings, increasing return on productivity since users do not need to spend time asking questions or re-explanations for topics they blanked out on. Venuegen’s own 3D system uses real-life photos to model one’s avatar to achieve this goal.
3. Creating Social Interaction: Perhaps the most important factor is judging how effectively the immersion creates interaction amongst participants. VenueGen’s online virtual meeting platform allows attendees to automatically face the dominant speaker in a room, simulating a real meeting. When the presenter laser points at the screen, you can have your avatar turn to look at the content – everyone in the room sees everyone else looking- creating a sense of focus on the content. The host can then engage easily with others without distraction. Interaction also includes collaboration as previously mentioned, i.e. the ability to share and edit documents with quick efficiency without opening other windows. If a small group of attendees wants to discuss a matter on their own, VenueGen also offers a chat system that can send messages to specific attendees.
To learn more about Venuegen’s 3D system and put many of these concepts into practice, check out VenueGen’s free demo.
