The world is better connected. Many companies have oversea offices as they need the market shares all over the world. Transportation costs and travel hassles make virtual meetings ideal options for companies. The development of technology makes it possible today.
However, as we are just beginning, there is some problems occur such as connection crash. So how we can make virtual meetings more effective?
Before the Meeting
Make small meetings: no more than twelve
Keep the same people in small groups for every time: build community can make people feel more comfortable to share ideas and thoughts.
Contact attendees before the meeting makes connection start earlier.
Create photos groups to show the attendees of the group
At the Beginning of a Virtual Meeting
Have the photos on the webinar screen: ask attendees to set
Always begin speak with notifying names. e.g.: “This is Jim, I agree that…”
Provide time for check in at the beginning. Check everyone’s voices and a friendly atmosphere.
Respect the time: don’t call early or late
During a Virtual Meeting
More than informing: don’t just share slides. Different goals for virtual meetings: Problems solve, Make decisions, Generate ideas
Make it more feasible: virtual meeting is not a good occasion to do presentations
Send an article or report ahead for discussion topic.
Keep the presentation short if you really need one.
Keep a list of participants and check the names when someone speaks.
Near the Meeting End
Create a “to-do list” during the meeting and read it before the meeting ends.
Check with each member: what they gain and tasks they need to do after the meeting
After the Meeting
Summarize the call and send everyone the meeting minute.
Send the to-do list to everyone.
Source:
Dixon, N. (2012). Tips for Making Virtual Meetings Effective. Retrieved from
London, the 18th most expensive city in the world is going
to set the largest free wireless hub in Europe! Where about? More precisely in
Central London in the boroughs of Chelsea, Kensington and also in Westminster,
the area where you can find famous landmarks like Buckingham Palace,
Westminster abbey, Westminster Palace… and this at no expense to the councils,
to taxpayers and to the visitors.
The councils opted for this plan to make London visitors
live their best experience in the capital of England. Also, businesses located
in these boroughs will be able to take advantage of it.
The network provided by the operator O2 has started to be
set on street furniture in January.
Coffee shops like Starbucks or even fast food restaurants
are currently offering free wifi through BT Openzone or The Cloud, but London
councils want to give the opportunity to get the Internet in the street for
free; there will now be no need to go get a coffee or meal to be able to use a
‘free’ connection.
This plan isn’t at random as it comes at a very important
year for London.
Indeed, the capital of England will be celebrating the
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games, and it is expecting to welcome
millions of tourists.
Free wifi = Enabling visitors to promote instantaneously
London as a destination through social networking sites?
Image: CNET UK
To us students, it seems that Internet has become a necessity
and social media has a part to play in this need. Without making any generality,
more and more Internet users have a facebook or twitter account, and very
often the first thing we do when we get online, is to check our profile to see
if we have any ‘likes’ ‘comments’ ‘messages’ ‘friend request’ or what is
happening for friends who are abroad etc.
Considering this fact and the growing use of social media
and apps such as Pinterest (a pinboard-style social photo
sharing website), we can imagine that the visitors being in London for
the Olympics Games will share their trip, experience, on their blogs, facebook
or twitter accounts…
So for us, it seems that free wifi in London streets will enhance the
promotion of the destination.
But as we are experienced with Internet low signals in
public places, will this ‘street network’ handle so many connections at the
same time?
We will get the answer to that question in July :)
By Jennifer & William
Keywords: Free wifi, Internet, London, Olympic Games, Social Media.
Retrieved from the article 'Europe's largest free wi-fi zone set for London following 'landmark' O2 deal' (James Richard, Metro UK, 01/06/12)
February
2004, Facebook, a social networking service and website was born. 8 years
later, the new Facebook timeline is launched, a new timeline that will
revolutionize the brand marketing world.
Timeline
is conducive to larger photographs and videos. What's more, the Timeline user
interface is starting to behave more like a website, by offering more control
over the look and feel of content. The new format helps brands become more
storytellers and extends the reach of those stories to more customers and
prospects.
Check out Facebook's introduction for the Timeline brand pages in the video below.
WATCH:
A featured post on Cote d'Azur Tourisme Timeline-enabled Facebook page:
we assisted to a huge stream of pictures, meaningless posts and comments from
random people, during the first years of its life, Facebook now offers the
possibilities to share so much more than a few photos between peers.
This
article focuses on those possibilities for Brands; beyond the fact the new
timeline provides an appealing interface, with ergonomic navigation patterns
much better than the old, traditional “wall”, it is also a great way to engage
and interact differently, deeply with customers. This “new” type of
communication is called Storytelling.
Stories
will enable customers to discover a brand in another way, to know about its
origins, its primary purpose, how it evolved. The history of a brand can
sometimes be surprising, like for example Coca Cola which was first invented to
cure headaches. This element of surprise will arouse interest from the
customer.
However,
stories need to be told with the right words and using specific tools, like
apps designed to create experience, share stories and allow the customer to
interact, to engage with the brand in a new entertaining way.
More
than choosing the right words and using the right tools, marketers need to
choose the right stories. Not every story is worth telling. A good story will
retain customer’s attention, will be amplified when this customer engage with
the brand and tell other people about the story. New technologies and the
development of mobile marketing enable an even greater reach.
While
texts all look the same, pictures are more easily differentiable, they have
different shapes, colors, sizes, they will stick to the customer’s mind. A
picture will catch their eyes. A picture associated with the right word(s) or
text will be remembered.
Last
important point, it is crucial to work in a team. Collaboration is the key if
an organization wants to tell successful stories, retain and acquire new
customers. A single person cannot plan
the message, choose the pictures, design the stories, etc. Several brains
working together are always better than one.
Not
all the companies are happy about the new format. Some of them are having some
problems with their customers because of the switch of Timeline. "I think
there is some pain that is going to happen, but you have to look at it from the
overall perspective. I think it is a positive for most companies," said
Michael Fauscette, an analyst with the research group IDC who follows social
networks. In our opinions, the new format gives companies a greater capability
to promote their brand, and to really brand their pages and make them stand
out.
Ultimately,
the new brand pages will force companies to focus more on user engagement as
they develop their Facebook strategy. It is not a big deal if a company
Facebook page has 50,000 likes or 5,000 likes, what matters is the amount of
engagement. The new challenge from the change is that companies will have a
tough time forcing people to like their pages, and will have to focus more on
engagement.
Keywords: Facebook, Timeline, Branding, Business using Facebook Timeline, Technology news
Nowadays, Technologies’ demand and offer is
increasingly growing everyday. They are evolving fast. Changing everyday, it
improves human communication. It becomes an unavoidable useful tool that leads
to incredible experiences in all kind of industry, no exception with the event
sector. Indeed, this sector faces a real revolution thanks to new technologies.
In this article, five of them already developed or in process are described along
with their main assets.
-Sixth sense Augmented
Reality, MIT
Augmented reality is an application
used on Smart phones or tablet. It is a vision of real-world environment whose
elements are augmented by computer-generated inputs (i.e. sound, video) in
live. Basically, it is a view of reality through a camera that is modified by a
system in real time. This technology allows the user to get information about
its surrounding area. IT combines visual and three dimensions with virtual
data. More and more companies are developing these applications in order to
provide information like maps, landmarks or people. Currently some researches
are developing a new AR application for the event industry that would permit to
interpret attendees, products, speakers or conferences subjects
instantaneously. In a long-term run, the idea is even to create versions like
heads-up displays built into eyeglasses.
-PROM Audience
Measurement System, Samsung
The brand Samsung has developed a
technology that determines its audience gender, ethnicity and emotional
reactions to commercials displayed on an interactive screen thanks to camera
and facial recognition software. From there, the systems adapt the
advertisements based on the watchers reactions. This new technology if adapted
for event purposes could revolutionize the industry. For example, it could be
used for products demonstrations or to showcase the most relevant products
according to the audience physical reactions or their demographics.
-Interactive V-OSK,
Kaon Interactive
Kaon Interactive has recently
developed a new technology named V-OSK. Used by sales and marketing teams in
order to present and demonstrate new products characteristics and advantages,
its purpose is to create high definition, three-dimensional product models. It
allows interaction between the user and a virtual product, process or solution.
In many cases, this new technology represents a revolution. Indeed, it allows
displaying products that would be too large or heavy and to examine them easily
in every angles without needing to transport it. It can be used for exhibition
(i.e motors in the automobile industry), in corporate lobbies, museums,
tradeshows, etc. It permits to make direct or indirect economies (less need of
floorspace, shipping, etc.)
-RFID Solution,
AllianceTech
RFID stand for Radio-Frequency
Identification. It is used as a bar code or a magnetic strip on the back of
credit cards for example that permits to provide a unique identifier for the
given object. When scanned, it delivers all the identifying information stored.
In the case of Event industry it is used since few years to track if attendees
are sitting in breakout sessions or not for instance. However, the company
AllainceTech managed to developed the use of this technology even more.Indeed, organizers and their clients
can now have access to multiple information such as attendance, surveys, booth
and demonstration visits and durations, drive attendee networking, etc.
-Hypersonic Sound
One well-known problem when
attending to events is extraneous sounds. Indeed, everyone who has once attend
events whether professional or leisure conferences, have experienced the
problem of noise pollution when listening to a speaker. This can be due to
product demonstration, attendees’ conversations, problems with the speakers,
booth theatre, layout of the room, echo, etc. In order to solve this problem, a
new technology has been developed. Indeed, it allows to deliver the sound
exactly to the ears of the specific attendee targeted. If the demonstration is
just aimed to be heard by certain attendees, people seating next to them won’t
be able to listen.
Apple fileda patent applicationfora project callediTravel, a software ableto manageall aspectsof a tripfrom
an iPhone or an Ipad:booking flights,check-inat the airport, the identification ofluggage, car rental, room rental,
train travel,etc.
Source: Tourmag.com
Once on site, the application will bring the user with
a complete city guide of the destination and information onpointsof interestsuch as restaurants, shops, places to visit… iTravel would allow the controlofsomedomestic hotel
appliances such as room temperature, power of the airconditioning, lighting, callroom
serviceetc...
This application using RFID
features is expected to be launched not before the release of an NFC-enabled
iPhone 5 or iPad 3."
In conclusion, Applewould
considerproposinga"multipass" facilitatingtravel.
In our opinion, it is good newsfortravelers who losevaluable timeat different stages ofall these stepsandaccumulatethe
several airlines andhotel chains apps. iTravel
would offer them flexibility, time savings and peace of mind. The main
question is whether iTravel will be compatible with the airline, cruise, cars, and
hotel systems. If Apple gets to overcome this barrier, we can expect first this
application would be a veritable success because of the service offered to thetraveling community and second, we
canprobably expecta small revolution
inthe way we travel…that will reinforces once again, the strong brand
image of Apple.
Boumal, C.
(2012, January 10). Avec iTravel, Apple pourrait frapper un grand coup chez
les voyageurs .Retrieved from Tourmag:
http://www.tourmag.com/Avec-iTravel-Apple-pourrait-frapper-un-grand-coup-chez-les-voyageurs_a49097.html
