Video: Why Conference Calls Are Unproductive

David Grady: The Conference Call

3 Factors to Consider for Successful Virtual Training

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.

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.