We recently kicked off the summer Webinar Series, The Evolution of Conferencing, and are excited for part two this month. We’ll be addressing the case of the multi-tasking marketer. If you’re part of a marketing team, you fully grasp the concept of ever-looming deadlines and repeat fire drills. It’s all in a day’s work. But, as the workplace continues to adapt to a changing landscape, marketers have become more efficient with their time by implementing tools that can ease the load and dovetail some of these duties into an effective work-flow. This comes as a benefit not only to the one completing the task but also the team, customer or prospect who is directly impacted by the project.

So, give me an example, you say. Well, consider your conferencing platform. You’re not just using it for remote meetings these days. It’s likely to function in a number of ways – training, demos, collaboration, web events, podcast series and more. This is what we mean by ‘multi-tasking marketer.’ Responsibilities that span a range of projects, all with the end goal of providing qualified leads to the sales organization and meaningful content to those evaluating your service or product.

Multi-tasking has become a habit for most – some are able to manage it in a productive manner, others may still need some guidance (self included). This new series is focused on how conferencing continues to adapt to the frequent advancement of the hundreds of other technology platforms we use everyday to get our work done as marketers. From social media integration to campaign monitoring tools that allow for tracking and reporting, web conferencing continues surprise many with it’s new and innovative uses. We hope you can join us for the upcoming event (we promise it will be well worth your time, plus it doesn’t cost you a thing!) In the mean time, check out this free whitepaper download with tips on choosing the best provider for your needs and tools to consider that  may help you validate your multi-tasking habits.

interested in using our pre-release version of Web Meeting 6 for their larger meetings or events in the next two weeks.

Meetings can be internal or external, but you have to be a ReadyTalk customer. Specifically we are looking for meetings that will have 100-600 participants for slide sharing; and between 100-350 participants in a meeting with application sharing. We’ll provide ample monitoring and support during the live test, offer operator-assisted audio and record the event.

Two customers, NTEN and TechSoup (thank you!), held meetings this week with close to 300 participants. Many attendees chatted in about how much they liked the polling feature and how they were able to enter the meeting very quickly using our Flash participant.

If you’d also like to be one of our lucky customers to try out ReadyTalk’s new service upgrade before it releases, please let me or your account manager know as quickly as possible.

To learn more about the features coming in Web Meeting 6 please view this recording Getting Started with Web Meeting 6 Preview or visit our Preview page. Not a ReadyTalk customer? You should be – sign up for a free trial.

ReadyTalk is preparing to roll out our next product launch, Web Meeting 6. But first, it’s time for a Preview. This afternoon, ReadyTalk Beta moves into Preview, bringing Web Meeting 6 one step closer to launch. Web Meeting 6, internally known as Native Client, has been in beta testing for several months. Thanks to continued feedback from our beta testers and the hard work of ReadyTalk engineers, we have been able to greatly improve the product before its release.

Our customers will be able to use Preview for scheduled meetings as well as on-demand meetings. Conference Center will be integrated with Web Meeting, so they can manage all pre- and post-meeting activities in the Preview environment.

Some of the new features you’ll find in Web Meeting 6:

• A redesigned and simple-to-use interface
• Flash-based participant entry to a meeting – this means your participants will be able to join your meeting even faster than before with no downloads required
• Enhanced polling with the ability to create six difference question/response types
• Application sharing with display resizing and rescaling
• A new ReadyTalk Control Bar puts all the chairperson conference controls at your fingertips without taking up valuable screen real estate
• Slide reordering can now be done with a simple drag and drop
• Audio participant name and number matching

Preview will be available on January 29; current customers can directly access Preview at http://www.readytalk.com/preview. Just use your current ReadyTalk access number and pass code and get started.

Not a ReadyTalk customer? Contact sales@readytalk.com and they’ll set you up with a free 30-day trial account that also includes exclusive access to the Preview environment.

Before we launch Web Meeting 6 we want as many customers as possible to experience a free preview and give us feedback. I will be announcing details of our Preview program in the next few weeks. Providing feedback is simple – tell us about your experience using the form at the end of your conference.

Preview gives customers an opportunity to test new functionality while helping us identify any minor kinks. Participating customers enjoy free web minutes while using the Preview environment in addition to experiencing new features.

Stay tuned for my weekly posts as I give you a detailed, sneak peek on the new features you’ll see, best practices on how to use them in your meetings and events, and keep you up-to-date on our progress during this pre-release time.

In the meantime, if you have any questions you can contact me directly at teresa.lawlor@readytalk.com or comment here.

I helped out some with the update to the User Guide for the new ReadyTalk release. Considering the fact that the only significant writing I’ve done lately is my family’s annual Christmas letter, I think it turned out pretty good (or is that “well?”). In any case, it really doesn’t matter too much. Nobody ever reads the documentation anyway.

I certainly try not to. Generally, if I can’t figure a product out with a minimum amount of colorful language, I give up. That’s why the only thing I can do with my new digital camera is snap a photo of something standing still in good light. Anything else would require me to read the manual, which is 3 times the size of the camera itself. That’s ludicrous, in my opinion. When it comes to technology, I’m what you might call an impatient adopter.

So I was a good testcase for ReadyTalk’s new Event Manager. After all, I had to use it to write about it (at least that’s my professional policy). Event Manager turned out to be straight-forward and fun. I used it to schedule a documentation review web meeting and invited a few ReadyTalk employees. I also invited my wife just for the heck of it. She registered for the meeting and then, because Event Manager allowed me to, I declined her registration. It gave me an exhilarating sense of power and control.

I bet you’ll feel the same way. Give the Event Manager a try (you can get a 30-day free trial if you don’t already have a ReadyTalk account). Schedule an event, even if it’s just a small web or audio conference. Invite your spouse, or not. But only read the User Guide if you have to.

Technorati Tags: Documentation, Product Development, Audio Conferencing, Web Conferencing

SalesForce.com and Google, together, made the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Good timing with their SalesForce.com Developer Conference which was also held on Monday and I was a fortunate attendee. SalesForce.com is not saying anything publicly about their future plans with Google, but stay tuned as it appears the two may soon come up with a partnership that will threaten Microsoft.

ReadyTalk is in the process of customizing SalesForce.com for our customer relationship management (CRM) needs as we migrate from our old system.

I was initially unimpressed by the high price of SalesForce.com, but as I see more of their product, as well as their new APEX code (in Beta), it’s becoming more clear as to why companies are embracing it. SalesForce.com has created what appears to be a solid infrastructure and it presents a clean, easily customizable front-end that has been carefully architected. It allows for developers to code and get fancy, but it’s not required to have an expert in-house in order for a company to customize SalesForce.com appropriately.

The number of participants at the SalesForce.com Developer Conference (between 700 and 1,000) speaks to the momentum building for SalesForce.com. There are a lot of eager developers excited to create (and sell) new applications for SalesForce.com, increasing SalesForce.com’s value to an even wider array of customers.

One of the highlights of the conference was hearing Guy Kawasaki speak. He spoke about the “Art of the Start.�? Watch his presentation, it’s useful and entertaining and will benefit anyone who is interested in starting anything.

SalesForce SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) was announced yesterday, see the power of it, coupled with Apex code, in this demo.

Technorati Tags: SalesForce.com, Google, CRM, SOA, Apex Code