Become a Sales Superstar: Cut Out 90% of Your Travel and Get 12-Hours out of an 8-Hour Day

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…

Bringing to the table over 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, and general management (leading successful startups and Fortune 500 organizations worth $10M-$6 Billion), VenueGen’s own Jeff Crown will show you how to take the pain out of your everyday sales life.

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

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.
The VenueGen online sales & marketing meeting platform will help you:

1. Instantly review multiple forecasts and sales results on screen with your sales team
2. Share best practices for closing deals using tools or Power Point Presentations
3. Put a web camera on a new product to train your team on new features and competitive advantages.
4. Bring in outside speakers from remote locations anywhere in the world to share new sales techniques, closing techniques and get everyone motivated.
5. Run weekly staff meetings, or full day training events.

Try a full functionality trial, sign up for our free 30-day trial here.

However, 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.

For more information please go to http://www.venuegen.com or follow VenueGen at http://twitter.com/venuegen

VenueGen Revolutionizes Virtual Learning

In a conventional lecture hall, audience members are seated together with focus on the instructor or presentation at the head of the room. In the case of many web learning tools, users may only have either audio or text to rely on. This lack of interaction adversely affects the listener’s ability to maintain focus, resulting in retention that is significantly reduced, and some information goes ignored entirely. VenueGen has set out to change all of that, delivering a time and money saving solution with the benefits of telepresence—just like being “there.” Think of it as “telepresence in your browser”.

Much like that traditional classroom experience, VenueGen’s virtual meetings empower company or academic students and teachers with real-time interaction and delivers that sense of presence. Participants establish a group identity with others, observe the instructor’s nonverbal cues, watch PowerPoint presentations integrated into the VenueGen platform, and raise their hands to signal desire to ask a question. Even step out of the virtual classroom and into one of our smaller venues for a more intimate study group.

Online learning methods have proven especially beneficial for those with complex work schedules, stay-at-home parents, companies who have consolidated their facilities or tech savvy people who prefer to work from home. Imagine attending three meetings in New York, Paris, and Chicago in one day, all from the convenience of your home computer. But the best payback of all is saving people’s travel time and budgets, while reaching a wider audience. Attendees have the ability to attend classes while instructors can teach them from anywhere in the world!

In a technological era, we are no longer bound by time or space. Especially in the changed economy, companies can save valuable time and money without sacrificing the learning experience of guests. Distance learning companies and major businesses are already switching to VenueGen virtual meetings. Try it for yourself. The download takes minutes to install and just 60 seconds to learn as an attendee. Sign up for a VenueGen free trial today.

Stay Focused on Your Company’s Goals with VenueGen’s Virtual Meetings

People are driven by an inherent need to develop meaningful relationships and to connect with one another. And with social networking websites popping up every day, we are discovering new ways to communicate. But when engaging in social interaction, scientific research tells us up to 80% of our communication actually comes from nonverbal language. With that kind of figure, it’s no wonder so much information is lost through other web conferencing methods!

It is with this understanding that the creators of VenueGen are revolutionizing virtual meetings and distance learning with the totally immersive, 3D software platform that helps you to connect with others that is as close to being “there” as you can get. It’s the web conferencing platform that allows you to have both the audio and the visual focus of others in the room.

When you can see all of the other attendees while focusing on the speaker, you actually feel as though you’re part of something real. When other users speak, their names display in pop-ups above their heads so you can identify exactly who’s got the floor so you can adjust your avatar’s focus. This is not video with boxes of talking heads. This is a true 3D virtual room you are participating in. To supplement these unique visual cues, VenueGen features positional audio, meaning the volumes of others’ voices will vary depending on where they are located in the room in relation to you.

Beyond natural interaction, VenueGen allows users to control and share documents too. Your content is integrated on the screen in the virtual room (emulating a real conference). Content can be shared 3 ways: 1) distributed before the meeting to all attendees when they sign up, 2) added on the fly during a meeting, and 3) your entire screen can be shared on the fly. And get this -multiple users can share their screens at the same time! Imagine sharing multiple financials, sales forecasts, powerpoints. Everyone in the room has the option to enlarge and interact with the document on their own computer screen.

Ultimately as a speaker, being able to share a common visual focus will ensure you to have greater command over your virtual audience and as a result create a shared understanding of the information. This results in faster learning, insights and retention of information. Because VenueGen saves time and enhances productivity in meetings for long-term success, we are confident that you will find our software suitable for almost any virtual meeting need.

Webinars vs. Virtual Meetings

Advances in 3D technology continue to redefine the online meeting and e-learning landscape, previously dominated by 2D. While webinars were effective for the past 10 years, virtual meetings such as those offered by VenueGen now offer better results to their traditional counterparts with additional benefits to spare.

1. “Face to Face” Factor – One immediate advantage of an online virtual meeting vs. a webinar is the ability of participants to determine exactly who is speaking. Not only can you see the 3-D representation of everybody in the meeting, VenueGen provides name tags for each individual. Additionally, each individual is repositioned to focus on the speaker or the content that is being presented so that there is always a visual focus. The ability to determine immediately who is talking eliminates the guesswork and the lag time associated with recognizing a specific voice. Simply put, the old-fashioned audio or Web conferencing presentation should fall the way of the black-and-white television set.

2. Integrated Content Control – Another advantage is the ability to integrate content control within the presentation setting, i.e. allowing users to pull up individual windows alongside the main screen to take notes, perform research and web searches in real time, etc. without sacrificing attention to the presentation at hand or attempting to recall important points for later transcription. These features make meetings more productive as attendees are able to do everything on their screen.

3. 3D Engagement – There is a reason why companies are spending $2 billion per year on expensive Telepresence systems that cost $500,000 and up. It’s because there is nothing like the feeling that you are physically in a meeting with your colleagues. This added dimension allows one to view him or herself as a participant rather than observer, actor rather than audience, and as such instills a greater commitment to engage with the material and business colleagues engaged in the room with them. However, many don’t have access the high expenses associated with these systems. Luckily, technology can now allow any sized company to attend 3-D virtual meetings using a PC with internet connection.

4. Interactivity – Perhaps the most important difference between regular webinars and virtual meetings is that of overall interactivity. While the previous points hint at it, this simple idea’s value cannot be understated. Interactivity allows a presentation to transform from mere speech to active conversation amongst those involved within it. Simply put, unlike webinars, a 3-D Web conferencing platform encourages everyone to actively participate. If an individual just wants information without giving input, a webinar is ideal. If any individual actually wants to engage her colleagues to learn more from them and inevitably participate, think about a 3-D virtual being platform. 3-D allows participants to question presenters or each other directly, contribute other ideas or constructive criticisms, etc. This opportunity to engage engenders everyone with a stake in the overall conversation and responsibility to pay full attention to the information presented rather than consciously or unconsciously tune out if interest is lost.

Overall, online virtual meetings allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of real-time, face to face, meetings despite being in separate locations. While webinars initially bridged the gap and showed that effective interaction over great distances was possible, its limitations in interactivity grew more apparent over time. Virtual meetings now solve that problem effectively and efficiently. Head over to VenueGen’s website and see the advantages first-hand with our 30-day free trial.

Event: Cashing In on Virtual Worlds:Entrepreneurial Insights for the Healthcare Industry

Listen to David Gardner speak at Media X, Stanford University’s catalyst for industry and academic research partnerships on the impact of information and technology on society.

Event Description
Virtual environment platforms for the enterprise have gone through a peak of inflated expectations and appear to be in a trough of disillusionment. Numerous pilot programs have been technically successful and have shown efficacy in training, collaboration, and other applications, but they have not been generally adopted in mainstream business operations. However, virtual world technologies are commercially successful in social networking and entertainment, and new businesses using these technologies continue to spring up. What can entrepreneurs in the healthcare arena learn from these commercial successes and fresh ideas?

In this workshop, we will hear from successful virtual world companies, and brainstorm how their lessons learned apply to fledgling healthcare ventures.

In Part I, we will peer across “the chasm” to examine how virtual worlds technology can be harnessed to work as a business. Through both virtual and in-person presentations, we’ll talk with entrepreneurs who are banking on significant returns on their investment.

David Gardner, CEO of VenueGen, will demonstrate how his company is transforming virtual conferencing into a more engaging, productive experience at an affordable price. Brett Durrett, VP Engineering of IMVU, will illustrate how IMVU has leveraged virtual goods and become a profitable market leader in virtual worlds and social networking. Other speakers will also address how they have focused on key capabilities in virtual worlds to address critical needs in their target markets.

In Part II, we will brainstorm how the ideas presented in Part I can apply to applications in healthcare. Areas of interest include telemedicine, home care, treatment compliance, fitness, virtual hospitals, virtual patients, professional training, and education. We will invite developers and healthcare practitioners to talk about their pilot programs that show promise for business. We will also invite entrepreneurs in the audience to present their “elevator pitches,” and receive feedback from the group. In this way, this workshop will conclude the discussion that we began in the “Virtual Medical Environments Workshop” at Media-X on March 8, 2010.

Audience
Developers, healthcare practitioners, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders looking for applications of virtual worlds that provide a return on investment.

Date
Thursday, August 19, 2010, 1:00 – 5:00PM

Location
The workshop will be held at Wallenberg Hall, Stanford University’s state-of-the-art facility for experimentation in innovative learning methods.

Registration

Free Online Seminar in 3D: How to Make Your Online Meetings More Engaging and Productive

According to a recent Gallup study, disengaged workers cost US companies over $325 billion each year in lost productivity. Fully engaged workers and learners demonstrate an energy, creativity and level of interaction that is critical to meeting the goals of any gathering, but it is particularly difficult to create truly engaging online meetings. If you utilize online audio, video or web conferencing then this free seminar could dramatically improve your virtual meeting outcomes.

Register to hear business leader and technology pragmatist, David Gardner, as he distills the findings of over 30 studies into an easy-to-follow and practical guide to getting the most out of your online meetings. See a recent TMVnet interview with some of David’s insights here. Additionally, all attendees will receive Gardner’s whitepaper which distills the top tips for running virtual meetings, including 3D online meetings.

This live event will cover:
1. Top 10 tips for running online meetings
2. Why creating highly engaged audiences makes meetings three times more productive
3. Using online meetings to make faster business decisions and increase post-meeting learning and retention

Live Event Details:
Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
Date: Wednesday August 18, 2010 at 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST
Where: VenueGen
Technical Requirements: Windows based computer and optional headset. If no headset, a dial in number will be provided.

Space is limited, so reserve your spot now!

Celebrity VenueGen Avatar: Oprah Winfrey

Here is Oprah’s VenueGen avatar. Interested in seeing how lifelike yours can be? Not a problem – sign up here!

Online Virtual Meetings Are the Green Alternative to Business Travel

There seems to be no escaping the expenses and the loss of time that arises from trying to coordinate the travel and logistics for large-scale internal meetings—that is, until now. Entrepreneurs, small business owners and corporations alike have never had so many technological tools at their disposal before, so why lose time and money associated with traveling? New technologies can decrease costs while simultaneously increasing productively and returns on investment exponentially.

While many companies talk about embracing green technologies, many are not taking advantage of what online virtual meetings offer. In today’s age, online virtual meetings have eliminated the need for any travel, making services like VenueGen the perfect green alternative to in-person meetings.

Let’s face it – when training involves a large number of attendees, the time spent organizing events, travel and transportation for each individual turns into the hundreds of thousands when you consider travel time, wait, delays, time to move to and from a location, etc. What could your employees have accomplished during all that travel time? How many carbon emissions is their travel pushing into the environment?

Within seconds, employees are online virtually to train new employees, to discuss the latest business strategies, and to meet with clients across the coast, among other possibilities. Using VenueGen’s unique content sharing features, employees can seamlessly share information like they would during an in-person meeting. Users are able to browse the web with ease and share PowerPoint presentations. Advanced features allow users to see and hear where a speaker is in the 3D room, cancelling out extraneous noise and other speakers – an issue that plagues traditional audio and web conference calls. Unlike other conferencing tools like webinars, online 3D virtual meetings are designed to increase productivity by minimizing those distractions.

And with nearly every company in America doing training, 3D virtual meeting platforms enable employees to gather more information, learn and retain information more rapidly. The return on investment for online virtual meetings is simply unparalleled to other options. Visit our website to get a free 30 day trial today and see how it can revolutionize your business’ productivity.

Web 2.0 for TelePresence or Life after Second Life? Enterprise collaboration

We did a Q&A with CEO David Gardner, to get a feeling what VenueGen means for online meetings in general and the next generation of business use for Second Life concepts in the future.

Web 2.0 for TelePresence? Interview about 3D virtual meeting platform VenueGen

1. Is VenueGen the death of the webinar?

David Gardner: Not necessarily. Different modalities are good for different uses. Well, the Internet certainly has revolutionized the way people consume media. The Internet is interactive, and so is the VenueGen virtual meetings platform. Virtual meetings are used for three things: everyday meetings, training, and events. Meetings and trainings are highly collaborative, and VenueGen provides a highly collaborative platform to meet this need, whereas webinars have been utilized largely for passive events, like watching TV. So, in short, if companies want Webinars where audiences are passive listeners, they can select a passive platform. If companies want a virtual meeting that encourages participation, then they can select an interactive platform. Our view is that webinars and events will become highly interactive – that’s where it’s all heading.

2. How do 3D meetings work? How is VenueGen different from other webconferencing programs?

David Gardner: VenueGen creates a TelePresence-like experience while running in your browser. No video equipment, no cameras, no special rooms – no big expense. In VenueGen, the online meeting’s hosts select one of our virtual venues and invite others to join, which is similar to joining a WebEx meeting, only you appear in a 3D environment as an avatar. You hear sound directionally and you can turn you head by dragging your mouse around to see others and to interact with content. It is very simple and easy to use.

3. Who needs virtual meetings?

David Gardner: Anyone meeting, collaborating or learning online needs VenueGen. It is extremely similar to the real-world experience of sharing a physical space together. Meeting hosts who want to create more engaging, personal and productive events online will try VenueGen and will never go back to flat 2D screen-sharing technology.

4. MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford already offer online education—there are even classes on iTunes. Will VenueGen “classrooms” with student & professor avatars holding discussions and writing on blackboards lead to a new kind of academic campus?

David Gardner: Yes. There is nothing in education as powerful as a skilled teacher facilitating a class full of engaged learners. As instructor-led distance learning continues to grow the 3D modality will become the standard. There’s tons of great research on this showing that learners immersed in a 3D environment show dramatic improvements in participation and retention over those using 2D online platforms. We currently run a pilot with Duke University.

5. Can folks without broadband still participate?

David Gardner: VenueGen’s core functionality requires minimal bandwidth because only highly optimized positioning data is being sent and received. However, some features of VenueGen such as real-time screen sharing may not work well in low bandwidth settings. That said, unlike any web conferencing tool on the market today, VenueGen has the ability to pre-distribute content to online attendees and then simply control that content running locally. This model requires almost no bandwidth and makes VenueGen a viable option where screen sharing-only tools cannot work.

6. Will your children even know what a webinar was?

David Gardner: They will probably call it television. In the not-so-distant future, the 3D web will be very commonplace. There are certain internet activities such as online learning, collaboration and social networking that will be performed almost exclusively in 3D. Other asynchronous and individual activities will remain 2D. Anything involving interacting in real-time with other people on the web that is not in 3D will start to look like the black and white television, or radio—not very appealing or interactive.

7. How does VenueGen change the playing field for unified communications?

David Gardner: Unified communications involves the convergence and integration of many meeting and communication modalities. 3D will be the least common denominator for UC because everyone can use it and other modalities such as VoIP, video feeds, chat, etc. can be brought directly into the 3D environment. Although 3D is only one of these modalities, I believe VenueGen will become the presentation layer or central HUB for UC platforms. 3D environments don’t required special hardware or cameras or lots of bandwidth like video applications do. This makes 3D the richest experience with the least barriers.

8. Second Life has exited the enterprise virtual meeting space. How does VenueGen see this as an opportunity?

David Gardner: SL leaving the enterprise space was not a surprise to anyone. SL was designed as a consumer’s virtual world and never really understood the needs of the enterprise. A company and technology has to focus like a laser to solve a business problem. SL never had that focus and unfortunately SL is the only 3D experience most enterprises ever piloted. I’d have to say that SL’s entry and exit of the enterprise space has done more to hurt the adoption of serious 3D modalities than anything to date. Second Life required customers to spend hours learning the platform – no one has time to do that today. Customers who experience VenueGen indicate a remarkably different experience. The platform was built with enterprise in mind. It takes a few minutes to get up and running. Users are immediately productive and running effective 3D meetings and training events.

9. When will you bring VenueGen to the iPod and Android?
The iPad and iPhone will be our first mobile deployments because we already have a version of our client 3D engine that runs on these. Eventually VenueGen will run on most mobile computing devices.

10. You have a track record of successful startups. Is VenueGen venture backed, and will you be going for another funding round?

David Gardner: We are angel backed at this time, but we are currently in discussions with both venture capital and strategic investors.

11. What kind of partnerships are you looking for?

David Gardner: We are talking with some companies now that want to integrate VenueGen into their core platforms. Any business solution that can add value by incorporating the ability to instantly meet, learn or collaborate in 3D is a potential partner. This would include some major corporations, communication companies and collaboration platform companies.

12. What’s the next big thing for you?

David Gardner: VenueGen will continue to evolve as an exceedingly productive platform for meetings and distance learning. Frankly, those are two markets worth tens of billions of dollars. We are not at liberty to divulge our technology and marketing roadmap because we are in investor and partner discussions, but you will see some major announcements coming out of the next six months.

13. Is there anything else you would like to share?

David Gardner: All of the analysts have said something similar but Forrester said it best, “The Internet is on the verge of its next major evolution.” 3D is coming and as with all new technologies, early adopters will gain competitive advantage and differentiation. Anyone who has had the VenueGen experience understands what I’m saying and will never go back to using legacy web conferencing tools. Companies considering videoconferencing, spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, they find that their workforce is distributed and mobile and can’t physically get to these rooms. They might be better served by considering VenueGen as an online virtual meeting platform.

For more information please go to https://www.venuegen.com or follow VenueGen at http://twitter.com/venuegen

David Gardner, CEO

David Gardner has been a serial technology entrepreneur for over 25 years, creating or co-founding nine successful companies including ProviderLink, Peopleclick, Report2Web, DBBasics, BuildLinks, and OnSphere. He has raised over $60 million in venture capital across multiple industries and markets, without a single startup failure or investor loss.

Mr. Gardner specializes in taking IT products and internet-based companies to market, and he has served on several corporate boards. He launched the first hosted “software as a service” enterprise application in North Carolina, long before SAS was generally recognized as a preferred delivery method. His forward-thinking white papers and articles on technical, marketing, and managerial topics have gained wide acclaim, and he is in regular demand as a conference speaker. Mr. Gardner served as Compuware VP, following its acquisition of the ProviderLink healthcare communications exchange.

Mr. Gardner holds degrees in music, philosophy, and divinity, and he completed several years of post-graduate studies in computer science and business at NCSU.

This interview was originally featured on TMCnet.com (http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/08/03/4936426.htm)

Are You A Stickler for Online Meeting Room Details?

If so, we’d like to hear from you.

No professional in his or her right mind would hold a critical business meeting in a crowded bus station, or in an empty un-carpeted room that acts as an echo chamber.   Yet, typically, online meetings and audio conference calls are no better places to meet.

Folks tend to be very particular as to where they hold their face-to-face team meetings, sales conferences and brainstorming sessions.    One executive went so far as to visit nearly 20 stores in search for the perfect conference table and chairs for her company’s boardroom.

What  she failed to realize that the tall chairs she bought would block participant’s view of the presentation screen. She ended up selling the chairs for pennies on the dollar, and purchasing custom replacements.

The good thing about virtual venues is that it costs nothing – just a little of your time – to change your meeting room, furnishings, decor, and amenities. Are you a stickler for online meeting room details? If so, we’d please share your experiences here.

What VenueGen features work for you. What don’t? What enhancements would you like to see? What problems have you encountered? What tips can you pass on?

Your feedback in this forum will help to making everyone’s virtual conferences even more productive and meaningful. Thanks!