6 Questions for Larry BoBerry
(and the Infinite Meeting)

Posted by Fuze Meeting - Kristen

Larry BoBarry (may or may not be his actual last name), our live demo guru, spends his week with a headset slung over his noggin, a mouse welded to his palm and a hankering to show people about the wonders of Fuze Meeting.

Those of us who sit an ear shot away have heard some pretty interesting things coming out of the demos, and the we thought WAIT…let’s ask Larry some questions!

How long have you been demoing for Fuze?

I’ve been doing the live demos here at Fuze for about 7 months.

How many demos would you say that is?

More than I can count even with my shoes off.

What is the thing that people are most confused about when they get into a Fuze Meeting?

How content is shared.

Care to set them straight?

Fuze has two basic methods of sharing content: the classic “let me show you my screen” and the “upload your file to the Fuze Meeting system.”

“Let me show you my screen” AKA desktop sharing is great for showing websites and custom applications or programs.

“Uploading your file” AKA content sharing allows for higher quality, collaboration and much faster access.  Hosts and presenters should use this method if they want to share: PowerPoint, Word docs, HD videos, audio files or high res images.

What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened on a demo?

The was one customer who thought he’d discovered a bug – he was sharing his own screen, but was seeing his own screen within that screen, causing an infinite loop – kind of like holding two mirrors together.  Turns out he had accidentally opened two browsers and joined from both so he was essentially viewing his own screen share (and screen within the screen share (and screen within that screen within the screen share and so on)).

Fuze With Skype: What to Consider When Choosing A Web Conferencing Headset

Posted by Fuze Meeting - Kristen

Just this afternoon, some of the team here were in a Fuze Meeting webinar and I noticed almost all the callers were on Skype. That said, either they were home alone, annoying the rest of their office with loud voices emanating from their computers, or on a headset. And since I’ve done my best to swear off telecommuting, I’ve been on a constant search for the *perfect* in-office web conferencing headset experience.

I’m not in love with my headset choice YET (Freetalk Everyman Headset – more on that later) – but 4 headsets in the last 3 months make me somewhat of an expert on headset rejection – so here’s a short list of features to consider when finding an online meeting headset solution.

#1 Connection

Headset rejection #1 was because, foolish me, didn’t realize that not all computers have a mic jack. Headphone/mic jacks and USB connections both work really well in terms of sound, but you’ll probably have to mess with the input/output settings a bit if you use a USB connection. On the other hand, all computers have a place to shove a USB cable, so you won’t be stuck there like a cross-eyed buffoon staring at your headphone jack in the headphone port with your mic jack dangling of the edge of your laptop. (Sore subject)  My recommendation: go with the USB.

Found yourself with the double-jack and a computer that won’t work with it? Don’t worry – they have converters and (let’s be honest) it’s probably not a bad idea to have a stereo headphone converter handy in case you only have your iPhone set with you.

#2 The Boom Boom

Chances are, you don’t really notice that your headset mic isn’t working for you until you start getting annoyed with all the ‘could you speak up’ complaints. Finally, someone had the good sense to suggest that the problem was my mic and headset #2 was out the door. I switched from an on-cord mic to a boom mic, and the audio complaints went away. A plus side of the boom mic? Feeling like a pop star and asking people if they’d like fries with that. My Recommendation: Boom

#3 Headphones

Headset #3 got the boot because it only had a speaker on one ear, and I just decided I’m a surround sound girl.

But – there’s all TYPES of headphones. In-ear buds, foam headphones, and the very intense gamer-style foam padded headphones. This is a personal choice, but, for me…the buds fall out and the gamer headsets do too good a job of cancelling out the noise. I work in an office, so I actually like the ambient noise and currently use the Freetalk Everyman Headset that SKYPE suggests, but…I’m not in love.

Why, you ask? They’re a bit flimsy and they only come in black. I’m still on the hunt for the perfect headset and I gladly take suggestions!

Note: Fuze doesn’t necessarily endorse the products shown or mentioned, but – if you’re looking for them here are the links: Input/output Converter, Stereo Converter.

The Hybrid Meeting

Posted by Fuze Meeting - Kristen

With throngs of engineers camped out behind their computers like it was going out of style, the engineer folk are turning out technology and applications faster than the blogosphere can keep up with them. So, then what we get is a world where things exist even before they have names. THEN, amidst all the chatter, a name ARISES. And this one really caught my eye.

The Term: Hybrid Meeting

The definition: A meeting where there are some participants sitting together in a meeting room AND some participants are attending the meeting remotely via web conference. Think of it as a mash up between virtual and in-person meetings.

And when you think about it, most of your online meetings (especially the important ones) are probably just this. And while we’ve offered tips (and more tips) on optimizing your meeting for web conferencing, they weren’t specifically directed to the very frequently occurring hybrid situation.

However, you don’t need a list of tips this time. When presenting in a hybrid meeting, just ask yourself one question: Could I still give this presentation if I was sitting down?

I don’t suggest you forsake your well practiced hand motions and charming smiles. I’m not even suggesting that you *do* stay in your seat. I’m just noting that, if you’re going to get up, be aware that the people attending your meeting virtually don’t know what “this here line” is. Just like on a web conference, use your annotation tools to highlight what you’re talking about…or go old school and just use your words “I hereby give you: the PURPLE line.”

Got any tips for navigating the hybrid meeting? Comment!

A Fuze Screen Shot Is Worth 1000 Words

Posted by Fuze Meeting - Kristen

Every so often, we get interesting screen shots from our users, showing how they’ve been using Fuze Meeting. For the past few weeks, one of our demo guys, Larry has been out of the office. Eventually, we got news that he’s really done a number on his clavicle, more specifically, shattered it into a jillion little pieces doing kung fu (not even kidding you).
So, to answer our questions – sweet Larry very simply sent us all 2 Fuze screen shots of why he’s not been seen in the office lately. (They’re sort of tiny here – if you click on them you can see them in their own window).

Before

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Telecommuting Hits Home

Posted by Fuze Meeting - Kristen

Crews work to return connectivity to surrounding buildings while Fuze Box employees telecommute for a day.

No thanks to a big ol’fire in a manhole at 7^th and Mission, the entire Fuze Meeting office had no network connectivity Monday morning and after about 30 minutes (don’t worry…our web conferencing software was still up and running), we all just called it quits and headed home with our laptops and mobile phones in tow, ready for a day of wildly productive telecommuting.

You work remotely-ers. You work from home-ers. You on-the-go-work-outta-your-hotel-ers. It’s not all a walk in the park!

Which leaves me to the real point of this blog – a plea for advice for our community that works remotely. A request for help and any tips that could make ‘working remotely’ productive and not painful.

Real life testimonial:

After immediately changing out of my work clothes and into my civvies (1 point telecommuting), I sat down, popped open the laptop and NOPE. It took me less than 5 minutes to realize this is not happening. Not at my house. There was way too much to get distracted by, including but not limited to quite a few DVR’ed episodes of 24. So off to the coffee shop.

After one quick little “working from home today” Facebook status update, all of a sudden, my friends are all up in my bid-nezz like I somehow snaked a day off? “Oh great, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you. Let’s get coffee!” Hel-LO, I’m WORKING!

“OK. OK. This is all part of the gig,” I remind myself in a soothing zen voice. But…at this point I’ve been camped out at a coffee shop for 3 hours and honestly couldn’t stomach one more banana nut muffin and the guy behind the counter is giving me the stink eye, so I pack up and head out. Goodbye 30 minutes of productivity.

Where am I supposed to go now? Another coffee shop, of course! And on to coffee number 3 for the day. By 4 PM with caffeine buzzing through my veins, I canceled my evening plans because I realized I was already shooting way under target and could count on a whole evening working. Goodbye work/life balance.

The conclusion: Hats off to all of you who manage to do this effectively, because I can tell it’s the sort of thing that would take a lot of practice to be good at.  Thank goodness I have my web conferencing software all picked out and ready to go, but let’s face it; online meetings are just going to scratch the surface.

So the question is: How do you do it? What tips/tricks/software do you use to make working from home more efficient? And hopefully my next telecommuting blog post will have incorporated all your fun little tips.

Web Conferencing in Health care and Medicine

Posted by vividh

A conventional meeting involves a lot of preparation prior to the meeting and its success depends on several factors such as, presence of all the meeting participants in one room. With the advent of the web conferencing tools, the very idea of a meeting has changed. One of the industries that have benefited the most from this technology is the health care and medicine industry. With advancement in web meeting and conferencing technology, doctors are no longer limited in their ability to treat and interact with remotely located patients.

Since the health and medicine professionals are required to maintain confidentiality about their patient’s history and background, they look for conferencing solutions that are reliable and secure. Ease of use is another important factor since the patients should be able to use the web meeting software with ease.

1. TREATING PATIENTS REMOTELY:  A major advantage of online meetings is that you don’t have travel to remotely located patients as this would take a lot of time and time could be an issue depending on the severity of patient’s condition. Through a web based conference system a doctor can interact with patients via the web and evaluate their condition online. Using the audio conferencing tool, patients can provide details on their problem and the doctor can make analysis and diagnosis.
2. COMMUNICATING WITH PATIENTS REMOTELY: Patients who have internet access and a web conferencing tool can easily reach their doctors, regardless of where the doctor currently is. This way doctors can easily follow up with their patients even when they are on a move.
3. SHARING PATIENT REPORTS, PRESCRIPTIONS VIA WEB MEETINGS: When it comes to sharing patient reports, a doctor doesn’t have to organize a regular meeting but can simply resort to a web conferencing tool and conduct a virtual meeting. Over a web conference, the doctor can share reports, prescriptions and other related data.

Rehabilitation Systems, extensively uses web conferencing via Fuze Meeting to conduct online training for their cancer, heart failure, diabetes and pulmonary rehabilitation programs. Below are some of the benefits of web conferencing in the health care industry as quoted by Roger K Campbell, Director of Program Development at Rehabilitation Systems-

As the graying of America continues to increase, our day presses forward to develop and utilize increased efficiencies in health care through web conferencing and telemedicine, as the merger of technology and medicine.  The ability to smartly outreach and serve the advancing requirements of chronic disease is imperative for stability in a rapidly changing health care system.  As 2011 approaches and the fist of the baby boomer generation retire, our national health care resources will become strenuously taxed.  Yet, with this health care crisis, we see the emergence of bright minds, ways and solutions.  New web conferencing software developers, Fuze Meeting and medical scientists at Rehabilitation Systems, have created the merger of technology and medicine which represents a maximal online outreach of rehabilitation program development and rehabilitative health care for people suffering from cancer, heart failure, pulmonary and diabetes disorders. These advances in online training and conferencing are poised as a substantial cost containment solation to a burdened health care system.

Customer Case Study – Arnold and Fuze Meeting – Better Online Meetings

Posted by patrick

We recently received a great testimonial from one of our customers – Arnold WorldWide – thanks guys! check it out below.

Interview with Will Burns, EVP, Director of Business Development and Agency Innovation at Arnold Worldwide

Can you provide a little background on the company?

Arnold is a creative communications agency focused on delivering strong business results for brands like Citizens, Jack Daniel’s, Hershey’s, Ocean Spray, Volvo, Fidelity Investments, Carnival Cruise Lines, truth® and more. With a commitment to Great Work that Works, Arnold provides clients with a return on idea that drives a business forward. The agency delivers services across all communication touchpoints under one-bottom-line, fueling holistic integrated programs. Arnold is owned by Havas and has full-service offices in Boston, DC, New York, London, Prague, Milan, Madrid, Sao Paulo and additional global resources in 75 countries through our network.

How have you done collaboration and web conferencing in the past?

Arnold’s product is ideas – and it is the task of the account services and business team to represent those ideas in the very best way possible. In a perfect world, you’d get to present the idea in person – but with the recession, most companies have cut their travel budgets, and it’s just not possible to meet in person all the time.

Before Fuze Meeting, we generally emailed PDFs and other files to clients and colleagues, got everyone on a conference call, and tried to navigate people through the documentation over the phone. With video, we’d typically overnight a DVD to a client and then discuss the video over the phone. One of the major problems with this method is that it prevents us from maintaining control of the conversation. People naturally want to look ahead to what’s coming next – if you send a presentation or a video ahead of time, they will run right to an idea without any setup. We try to carefully craft the argument to lead the client to the idea. All that is lost if they move ahead before you’re ready.

We’d also tried using WebEx – this worked OK for slides, but the video was very hit or miss, and often the sound wouldn’t work properly. I think it also intimidated some users. We do have videoconferencing capabilities, but we found the interaction could be awkward and distracting. In fact, we’d tried most of what’s out there, and none of it really met our needs, particularly around video and ease-of-use.

Why did you select Fuze Meeting?

At Arnold, the new business team is sort of the unofficial R&D group – we try new technologies all the time. We’re often asked to do capabilities presentations remotely, which was the impetus to try Fuze Meeting. It is the strongest when it comes to video – we can post and present high-definition videos for people to watch, and they look fantastic. Video is a very important medium for us, and Fuze makes it very easy to collaborate and present video in a seamless way. There have been times when there’s a rough cut being done in New York, while the creative director is in LA – now the account and creative teams can simply set up a Fuze Meeting, post the file and work on it together.

We were also impressed with the client experience – Fuze Meeting is also way ahead of the competition in this regard. You don’t want your client to have to download something complicated and deal with it during a meeting. Fuze makes sure they aren’t putting a burden of ramp-up on the person you’re presenting to. This ease-of-use has helped us get momentum behind using the product, both with clients and internally. And, we love that we can import any kind of file into one meeting – a research report in a PDF, creative brief in Word, a PowerPoint with sales data, and of course video. Our files tend to be quite robust and graphics intensive, and Fuze Meeting handles them easily.

How is Fuze Meeting helping you build your business?

We use Fuze Meeting extensively for new business – we recently presented to eight CEOs from eight different cities at same time – no one had a problem, it was a great meeting and a huge success. We also have a number of account people who are starting to use it regularly with clients It’s a great way to shrink the distance between our clients and the Boston office.

We’re also using Fuze Meeting for internal collaboration. One great example is when we were working on a big pitch – the creative team was at the office on a Sunday morning working on a presentation of more than 70 slides and needed to link in the president, the chief creative officer and some others to finalize the pitch. We were able to get everyone onto a Fuze Meeting – working from the office, working from home, or from wherever – to review the whole deck together and make changes on the fly. We just couldn’t have done that without this program.

We’re seeing a much more rapid adoption of Fuze Meeting than we saw with other technologies – I think with other technologies there’s a perception that it is going to be a hassle or difficult. As soon as people see how easy it is to use Fuze Meeting and the benefits, they quickly make it part of how they do business.

What are the business benefits of using Fuze Meeting?

Fuze Meeting gives us many of the benefits of an in-person meeting — the real-time collaboration, the give-and-take, the ease of moving between different media, and the ability to control the flow of the presentation — without the travel. We’re saving thousands of dollars in travel using Fuze Meeting. It also fits with Arnold’s brand – we’re an innovative agency, and using a next-generation application like Fuze Meeting helps us project this.

Another benefit is efficiency. Being able to get everyone on the same page at the same time from around the world dramatically increases the speed with which we can complete work. Fuze Meeting makes complex collaboration and presentations simple and quick.

Finally, Fuze Meeting is enabling us to better communicate and sell our ideas, and that in turn helps us close more business.

Seven Steps to Conducting a Web Conference

Posted by vividh

With a new product launched in the market, many business magnets resort to the web conference way of promotion. This is indeed an ideal and exclusive way of conveying to an audience of prospective buyers or companies what their product is all about. Through online presentations and webinars, a product could be extensively studied and understood. This has become a novel way of reaching out to your clients with help of the latest technology.  The major advantage with this kind of a web conference is that no matter in which part of the world, your audience is, product promotion will never require their physical presence in a particular place. The virtual arena has indeed made this world a smaller place, with the convenience of being able to access and reach anybody anywhere.

Online meetings and this kind of web conference promotions have taken off with tremendous acceptance from a lot of people around the world. People’s communication and faster access to things and people’s opinions could be enhanced through the technology of web conferencing that facilitates two or more people to discuss, display or share information on a particular subject or high priority. These web conferences are scheduled very conveniently with the facility of the lightening speed of the internet that can be accessed almost in every corner of the world today. In order to conduct a web conference effectively, a briefing on the seven basic steps could prove useful.

1. Being informed and educated on the usage of the web conferencing tools, along with desktop sharing could be the basic necessity for all those who wish to be a part of the web meeting that is hosted by the product company.
2. Before the host begins the web conference with his product presentations, he must emphasize on the objective of the online meeting as things become more explicit then.
3. The web conference host must take care that while displaying the presentations, they have naturally convincing points and not something that seems like a camouflaged sales tone.
4. Rehearsing the whole process before hand and anticipating the probable questions from the audience during the conference could help a lot in bringing quality to the presentation you wish to present live.
5. Have an automatic generated survey form that could help you get a clear picture of what your audience opines on the presentation. This would help you gauge whether this method of promotion through an online web conference has really worked or not.
6. Since one should be able to generate a client base, it is important that a follow up of the web conference is done to ensure that you haven’t ignored a seriously interested client.
7. Make sure that you haven’t lured people into any hidden charges on the product. Being open and sincere with what you can offer is an ideal way to get people to be more open minded to your web conference.

Employing these tips with the right online meeting etiquette and could amplify your business tremendously.

Online Meeting Etiquette for Effective Decision Making

Posted by vividh

The code of conduct or etiquette for a formal meeting involves everything from your dress code, behavior, attitude and style of presentation. Meetings that are online today with less scope for people to see each other face to face surprisingly haven’t made things any different. The etiquette of having an effective meeting online is something all professionals must be acquainted with. These online business meetings demand certain behavior and by putting into practice the same, it indicates the respect you have for your co-employees present in the web conference that facilitates worthwhile outcomes and decisions. This indeed does justify the purpose of such meetings.

While in an online meeting it is advised that concentration should be totally on the topic that is being discussed without frequently being tempted to open other desktop applications. Since a computer could open scope for us to multitask between other applications and a web meeting, the very concept of doing so while in an online meeting is considered indecent or an undesirable etiquette. By doing so, there is a chance that you could get distracted from the main stream of discussion and may need clarifications on and off . This could send uncomfortable vibes to all the others participating in the web meeting. At times this irresponsible behavior could give people a feeling that you are disinterested or are not giving the issue genuine importance and thought it should get.

The meeting could happen in different ways. It could be a simple chat session amongst a group of people through the web conference facility or it could be a video conference where one gets to see the other especially if it is a meeting involving only two people. Video conference interviews are very common and an ideal way of knowing a person personally even if they are miles apart. While in an online meeting where people from different places communicate through the voice chat option, the basic etiquette for the listeners is to mute their own voice so that their mic doesn’t catch all the different sounds in their environment be it an office or home. This could cause disturbance in the thought flow of the individual who is speaking at the other end.

Following the required rules that could enhance the effectiveness of your online meeting becomes inevitable especially when the topic discussed aims at arriving at a substantial decision that could help. The World Wide Web consists of numerous softwares that could help you install the set up for a web conference. After installing one, you could run the executable file and get ready to be accessed and access all your colleagues on a web meeting that you could have scheduled. Numerous free softwares are available but to make the best choice, a survey could help. The mic, speaker, headphones, web cam and the basic conferencing software are the minimum requirements along with the best etiquette for an online meeting to take place effectively. Improvement in technology should in no way take a toll of our behavior or manners in any given situation.

Save travel expenses— and the air we breathe.

Posted by patrick

Fuze Meeting saves travel expenses— and the air we breathe.

Transportation is one of the foremost contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. But with every meeting you hold online, you can prevent tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. It’s a win-win situation for your business and your world.

Did you know?

• One round-trip flight between New York and San Francisco (about 5,000    miles) adds up to about 2500 pounds of C02. That’s equivalent to 15% of one US home’s electricity use for an entire year

• Two employees flying round-trip from London to New York send over 3.75 metric tons of C02 into the atmosphere. And they cost your business upwards of $1700US in plane fare alone. (Then there are the hotel costs, dinners out…ouch!)

• Even those car rides add up – American commuters waste 2.9 billion gallons of fuel per year idling in rush hour traffic. That’s a lot of rotten moods and a lot of rotten air. Why not brighten everyone’s day and hold your next off-site meeting online with Fuze Meeting?

Ready to go green? Sign up for a Free Fuze Meeting account