Let’s be honest, going “green” has a nice ring to it. Makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. We are contributing. We are being responsible. We are treating planet earth as though it actually means something to us!

Why are companies really going green? If we strip it down to the bare bones of the matter, I think we can safely say that tone factor rings true across the board. The majority of today’s businesses want and NEED to watch their bottom line and, unfortunately, it seems like that bottom line is dwindling. This is not to say that the organization’s motives are not pure when it comes to being environmentally conscious; however, I believe that ultimately much of the push to go green is to stay out of the red.

At ReadyTalk, we are doing our part not only as a provider of web and audio conferencing services to help organizations in their cost-saving efforts, but we also contribute behind the scenes directly to sustaining our own green practices. To start, by simply being a web and audio conferencing provider we fall into the green category almost by default. By making these services available we are helping others cut back on their travel costs and carbon footprint. But again, it comes back full circle because not only do we help eliminate a certain level of emissions but we are directly saving them money in the process. Conferencing is a win/win for all involved!

So, what other ways might ‘green-ing’ your company’s work practices keep you from hovering too closely to that ominous red line? Where do you start? Who do you seek out for advice? In my next couple blogs, I’ll cover these questions and hopefully bring some practices to the table that will prove to be beneficial when deciding ways to reduce costs and make a positive environmental impact simultaneously.

Technorati Tags: marketing, green initiatives, web conferencing

We have been busy here at ReadyTalk over the past several months putting on some final additions to our new release this Fall. This release is more of a UI re-design and terminology change to keep up with the changing demands of the web conferencing market. Currently, our product allows you to manage on-demand meetings or web events. The distinguishing feature between events and meetings being that events required registration.

This created two issues for us. Customers doing on-demand meetings did not have access to a whole host of features that the event service allowed. Also, we found that due to the abundance of web conferencing terminology people were confused as to the difference.

Being that simplicity and ease of use are our guiding principles in development, we made some minor changes to the UI and language. After our release in the Fall, we are going to stop using the term “events” and simply use “meetings”.

This will accomplish two things. First, it will give those people doing on-demand meetings access to the event features that were previously unavailable to them. Second, it reduces the terminology and allows the chairperson to choose which features they need without having to understand the philosophical difference between an “event” and a “meeting”.

It is our goal to make products that are quickly grasped to ensure that our customers are at their most productive. I would love to hear your feedback on this change.

Technorati Tags: web conferencing, web seminars, webinars, web events

Merriam-Webster conducted their annual update of their dictionary. Now on their 11th addition, Webster has added the word webinar to their pages.

According to John Morse,Merriam-Webster’s president and publisher, webinar is “one more example of the
significant ongoing trend for electronic technologies to add words to the language.”

We have always preferred the term web seminar at ReadyTalk but it looks like webinar is here to stay. Regardless, it is certainly a testament to the impact web conferencing (and webinars) has had upon our business culture over the last several years.

Technorati Tags: webinar, web seminar, web conferencing, Mirriam-Webster

Seth Godin had a great post the other day about the emergence of a new meeting standard. Along with the skyrocketing price of oil, the emergence of communications technologies has pushed businesses and people to think differently about the face-to-face meeting.

If we have to meet face-to-face there had better be a compelling reason to do so. Seth continues: “Here’s what someone expects if they come to see you on an in-person sales call: that you’ll be prepared, focused, enthusiastic and willing to engage honestly about the next steps. If you can’t do that, don’t have the meeting.”

I like this new standard for several reasons (us being a web conferencing company is only one of them). The most important one is presence. With web and audio conferencing prospering, it has raised the bar for all other types of meetings. Why meet face-to-face if the situation does not demand it? If you do meet face-to-face, it better be alot more scintillating and productive than something a web conference could have accomplished. In other words, you better not walk me through your PowerPoint presentation or leave me with a transcript.

What this has done is force people to think about their meeting medium. Most people must ask themselves these questions now: Am I wasting people’s time by asking them to meet me face-to-face? What is the best medium for this type of presentation? All to avoided the dreaded, “I came all the way in here for this!”

Technorati Tags: Seth Godin, web conferencing, audio conferencing

Ken Molay over at Webinar Success posted a great survey trying to discover what days and times are best for webinars. He makes several good points about our assumptions. Like most providers, we run our webinars at 12pm MST (2pm EST). This seems to be the most popular times for most wenianrs. However, we are assuming, we do not really know. With his survey, Ken is trying to quantify what we “assume”.

Please take the survey. It will help service providers like us better schedule our events. This is for information gathering purposes only.

Technorati Tags: webinars, web seminars, survey