Posts Tagged ‘Adoption’

Conference Calling goes Mainstream

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I have had the fortune to be involved in a few industries as they have gone from the early adoption phase to the accepted norm stage.  I was in the telecommunications industry shortly after the divestiture of AT&T.  I was in the paging industry as it grew wildly and then died just as quickly with the adoption of the cell phone.  And then I joined the conference call industry and over the past 14+ years I have seen the conference call service industry go from a niche application mostly used by the legal industry to a widely used business tool.  Conference calling has truly reached the level of mainstream acceptance.

I am not sure how an expert would judge whether conference calling has reached mainstream acceptance, but I am sure the growth of the industry is certainly one of the factors.  And no one can deny that the conference calling industry has been fortunate to realize exponential growth over the past 14 years.  One of the biggest factors for the growth in the conference calling industry is the change to a reservationless system where you don’t need an operator or schedule a conference call with anyone.  The ease of use of conference call technology has also contributed to the growth.

When I started in the conference calling industry we received many calls from people at businesses who were trying to understand how to get multiple parties on the conference call and they really were not familiar with the technology.  Now we receive calls from people who have inevitably been on a conference call but maybe they have never hosted a conference call before, but now plan to use the service.  The method of conference calling has become somewhat standardized and everyone seems to know what the experience will be like on a conference call.  So, now we spend a lot more time telling customers about the benefits of our service over others and educating them on the small differences between conference call service companies instead of educating them on how a conference call works. 

But probably one of the biggest indicators I have seen in the past few years that conference calling has hit the mainstream is the use of conference calls for personal use.  Because so many people have been exposed at work to conference calls, they are now finding applications in their personal lives to use conference calling.  The wide availability and lower costs of conference calling have really helped this new area of applications.  We have had people use conference calling for wedding and event planning like family reunions where the participants are not able to meet physically.  Recently we even had a family use a conference call so that the missing family members could attend a grave side service because they all could not attend the service in person.  I think that the conference call industry will continue to grow with the advent of new applications as more and more people think up new ways that they can use conference calling to their benefit.

www.zipconferencing.com

 that is widely used

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Web Conference Features

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Ever since a web conference has been available there have been a few features that have always been available. 

Whiteboarding – One of them is the ability to white board with your participants.  The concept is that if you could do it in a physical meeting room you would want to do it in a web conference since it is meant to simulate that meeting environment.  The web conference version of whiteboarding allows participants and the host of the web conference to draw freestyle on the whiteboard in the meeting space and all participants are able to see the results of the drawing on the board and also to participate themselves.  This particular feature has some uses but this web conference capability has not seen wide adoption I think because people are not as used to drawing with their mouse and it is not as easy to do as walking up to a whiteboard, grabbing a marker and drawing.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it is pretty easy to use, but people are just not as apt to do it as they would be in a physical meeting room situation.

PowerPoint Sharing – The ability to share a PowerPoint slide show with your participants during a web conference is a key feature that has helped lead the way to web conferencing’s success.  People have quickly become comfortable with doing a remote presentation using a web conference and sharing a PowerPoint slide show.  I think that the sense of detachment is easier to comprehend for a host since in a presentation environment you are basically by yourself showing slide and sharing comments whether you are in a person to person meeting or not.

Application Sharing – When application sharing first came out the thought was that participants could truly collaborate on a web conference by sharing applications and letting others control the application to get tasks done on a web conference.  I am not sure this has really happened yet, but people do find that simply sharing their desktop or an application on a web conference is easy to use and understand for the host and participants alike.  All you have to do is click on the application and all the participants are seeing what is on your desktop.  Its that simple.

Now there are a few more features that have been introduced on some web conference platforms that really enhance the experience.  One of them is the ability to record the web conference.  With a push of a button you can record the web conference and the audio portion of the call.  This makes sharing the presentation with people who missed the live web conference simple.  Another cool feature that is gaining momentum is the ability to provide files for the participants to download from the web conference.  The equivalent of hand outs in a physical meeting, this web conference feature makes it easy to provide materials to your attendees as part of the meeting.  And another feature people seem to like is the ability to send a meeting thank you and survey following the meeting as an integrated part of the web conference.  This is especially liked by people who a re running seminars as they are trying to connect to a n audience that they are many times trying to sell something to. 

The web conference feature list continues to grow because the use in web conferencing is on the rise and people want to better emulate the person to person meeting.  Look for more web conference features in the future as more and more people continue to adopt this valuable service.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Call Host Controls

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Before the adoption of reservationless conference calls, conference callswere run by an operator and if you wanted something to be done on the call you simply asked the operator to perform the task.  Now you simply need to use your own touch tone phone to access a wide variety of conference call controls.  Commonly referred to as Host Controls, these commands allow the Host or Moderator of the conference call to control a number of features on the conference call.    Surprisingly, many people do not use these easy to use commands, perhaps most users are simply unaware of their availability and how easy they are to use. 

Here is a list of the Host Controls available with Zip Conferencing Conference Calls

Conference Shortcuts

- Press *1 to hear a help menu.

- Press *0 to reach an operator.

- Press *6 to mute or “un-mute” line.

- Press *4 to increase conference volume.

- Press *7 to decrease conference volume.

- Press *5 to increase your voice volume.

- Press *8 to decrease your voice volume.

 

Moderator Features:

- Press *91 to hear a participant count.

- Press *92 to hear a roll call of participants.

- Press *93 to disconnect all participant lines.

- Press *94 to lock or unlock conference.

- Press *95 to dial out to participants.

- Press *96 to mute all participant lines.

- Press *97 to un-mute all participant lines.

- Press *21 to activate Subconferencing.

- Press *22 to initiate record and playback (*22 again to pause/stop the recording)

- Press *31 to turn Conference Security Code on/off.

- Press *32 to record your Conference Introduction.

 

The two most used features are muting lines and recording the conference call.  Muting and UnMuting participants comes in handy if you have a large number of people on the conference call and you do not want background noise to interrupt your presentation.  It also is helpful for the participants when they are in a high noise situation and do not want to interrupt the conference call.  They can toggle this feature on and off so they can provide input during the call and then mute their line again when done. 

 

Recording of the conference call is very useful if you want to be able to retain a copy of the conference call or provide participants who missed the conference call the opportunity to hear it.  After recording the confernece call you can either provide participants a dial in number and pass code to listen to the recording, download the recording to your computer or order a CD of the recording for your records.

 

Other options for Host Controls on the conference call include the ability to conduct a sub-conference, volume adjustment and security features that ensure your conference call is only accessed by the people you want on the conference call.  Conference Call Host Controls are easy to use and provide access to valuable features on your conference call.

www.zipconferencing.com

 

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