BizBlog©

Cal's Hospital Visit

Got that call. You know the one. The one where your mother or father calls to tell you that something happened and we're at the hospital. It happened last night. A trip. A fall. A gashed head. A huge bruise on the arm and shoulder. My dad passed out hours later and now we suspect that there may be a brain hemorrhage, made worse by the blood thinner Kumadin.

I went into full motion, arranging a flight with a friend from SRQ to Ft Lauderdale. Made it over this morning and now I sit waiting for test results from the MRI. Hopefully we'll get released tonight or tomorrow but will have to play it by ear.

 
View from the backseat of Ted's plane. Flying from Sarasota to Ft Lauderdale.

A UNICEF Saturday

Henry Miller (rear) & Hunter McClaren (foreground) with buckets of coins for donation to Trick or Treat for UNICEF. Thanks to CoinStar for helping out with coordination of the machine.

David Boloker -IBM at Web 2.0 presentation

Calliflower Conference Calls

I started using a new conferencing service in the last couple of weeks.

Conference calls used to be nothing more than virtual conversations, where people could "attend" meetings without leaving their desks. Now, with more businesses looking for collaboration tools and ways to make sure that those long, boring conference calls actually yield productive results, many companies are looking for alternatives to traditional conference calling. Enter CalliFlower, a web-service that allows users to create their own conference lines, invite participants to meetings, integrate with corporate calendars, send reminders, and even keep track of who's on the call and who gets to speak when everyone's on the line.

Calliflower is perfect for corporate managers who don't just want to host a conference call, but want to have a bona fide virtual meeting. The service is free to use, and once you've signed up, you can use the system like any regular conference line, where you dial a number and enter a PIN code to join a meeting, or you can take advantage of Calliflower's meeting management tools.

If your company has a Voice-over-IP system that allows you to dial from your computer, you'll get the most benefit from Calliflower. I called in using my Skype-Out account. Meeting hosts can log in to the service, schedule a meeting by choosing a time and subject, and sending invitations to anyone they want to attend. Those attendees can then join by dialing in the old-fashioned way, or clicking the link in the invitation to dial in and join at the correct time.

Calliflower allows meeting schedulers to send calendar appointments along with meeting invites, so they can send appointment updates and manage responses from their attendees, and send reminders as the date and time of the meeting approach. If you have a meeting agenda or a plan for the call, you can share that with all of the participants prior to the call. If users join via the invitiation link, a meeting host can watch as people join the call and see who's joining at what time. Calliflower also allows you to monitor attendance, so you can see who's skipping your meeting as well as who's on the call.

Once the meeting is off and away, the meeting manager can mute all of the other lines so they can speak or go into "lecture mode," where anyone who wishes to talk has to click a "raise hand" button on Calliflower's call interface to ask to speak.

Additionally, the service allows meeting managers to record their conference calls as mp3 files to share later, and set up chat sessions on the Web for members to communicate with one another without interrupting the call.

Geni - Redux

Several months ago I blogged about a new "family-tree-building" social network called "Geni". My family tree on Geni now includes over 1600 people who are either related directly or via marriage. It's amazing to know that my family extends so far and wide. Geni let's members build profiles, upload photos and connect with each other.

Having just returned from a trip to Poland (where we visited the Nazi concentration camps) and Israel with  the United Jewish Communities organization, I became very interested in learning more of my family's "story".

Geni was the obvious place for me to turn and I did so by starting a new threaded discussion called " Our Family History - WWII Europe, etc.".  Within hours, several of my relatives began posting in response to my post. They provided me with additional family information of which I had no previous knowledge.  For example, I now know that  am 3/4 Polish and 1/4 Romanian. I know that I had relatives who came to the US prior to WWII, some who went to Israel, and I also know that some were killed in the Camps in Poland.

The search for me is not over. Really it's just beginning. I'm hoping that by leveraging Geni, I'll be able to pull together the complete "story" and document it online in a way that all of my family will be able to use.

Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland

Building Online Reputation for your Brand

Today’s user-generated Web of blogs, comments, reviews and ratings has provided a platform for consumers to voice their opinions more quickly online than traditional outlets. Almost instantaneously, they can respond about their experience (both good and bad) with a company's brands (products/services).

According to The Society for New Communications Research study commissioned by Nuance Communications, nearly three-quarters of respondents said they chose companies and brands based on customer care information. Furthermore, more than eight out of 10 respondents said that blogs, rating systems and discussion forums give consumers a voice in effecting changes in customer care.

Thus, choosing to ignore issues and concerns raised by your customers online will not only affect your brand’s image but it would go on to cost potential sales.

A simple estimate to measure consumer sentiment online is to go to Google and type your company’s brands followed by words like ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘sucks’ to learn the positive as well as negative image associated with your brand.

For instance, Google’s search index of Coke ‘good’ returns 518,000 while Coke ‘bad’ gives 973,000. Note that these are just rough guesses. Nevertheless, online feedback is so valuable that several marketers are realizing its potential. Dell enables customers to rate and review its products on its Web site as well as reaching out and interacting with bloggers. Starbucks recently launched MyStarbucksIdea.com, an online suggestion box, asking consumers to pitch changes the company should make amidst the US economy slowdown. Thousands of thoughts/ideas kept flowing i.e. from creating a punch-card system with a free drink to offering discounts to consumers for using their own mugs. The most popular ideas are ranked by the number of votes, how recently votes are cast as well as volume of comments an idea has generated. There is also a tab to inform consumers which ideas the company is putting into action.


Recently several startups like Complaints, PlanetFeedback and Get Satisfaction have created an online ombudsman to try to mediate customer service complaints. These sites allow people to post feedback about their experiences with any company or brand and it encourage companies to visit its sites to respond publicly. Other online market intelligence agencies like Nielsen BuzzMetrics and BuzzLogic help marketers to figure out who is influencing the conversation about their brands and their competitors. In short, they measure consumer sentiments towards brands in the online space.

It’s imperative that marketers act quickly and respond to any negative feedback left online before it proves dangerous. Establishing a relationship with your customers online will not only improve your PR or market research activities, but will enhance your marketing, sales and product development.

Resources: BusinessWeek, USA Today, New York Times

Jott.com - voice-activated text and e-mail

As we all know, “DWT” (Driving While Texting) can be hazardous. I’ve seen many drivers
sending or reading text messages from behind the wheel. It's bad enough that Americans
eat, apply makeup or shave in their cars. Now, some drivers have turned these
2,800-pound machines hurtling down the highway at 65 mph into home offices.

It’s so dangerous, in fact, that this year, nine states have considered legislation
specifically banning driving while texting. Washington became the first state to pass a law,
which takes effect in January, making DWT a crime with a $101 fine.

OK, I admit it, I’ve done it as well and have also had a few close calls. Have you?

It was this fact that got me excited this week about using a Web-based unified messaging
service named Jott. The company offers a free (for now) Web-based service for sending
e-mail and text messages to others via voice phone calls. This means you don’t have to
type the message on your cell phone, but simply call Jott’s automated voice command
system. You tell the nice computer-voice lady to whom you want to send the message and
then dictate the message and hang up. It’s that simple. You do all this without having to
look down at your phone’s keypad to type while driving your car.

Jott can send your dictated voice message converted via e-mail and a text message as
both text and as a sound file.

Setting up my Jott account was pretty easy. The only issue I ran into was during the
process of importing my contact list. Jott lets you manually enter new contacts through
your MyJott page but also supports importing of contact lists from Plaxo, Gmail, Yahoo
Mail, Hotmail and Outlook.

I ran into a problem with getting all my contact information to import; it took first name,
e-mail and cell phone number, but not last name for some reason.

Once I got all my contacts imported and organized, I began to poke around the application
and discovered several additional features that I’ve found to be very convenient. These
include the ability to create and store timed reminders and also the ability to place contacts
into groups for group messaging and alerts. Imagine being able to send a group e-mail or
text message from your cell phone without typing. So far, I’ve done this a number of times
and found that it works great.

Jott also supports “links” to other Web-based services you may find useful. For example, if
you have a blog that you publish on either Blogger, TypePad, WordPress or LiveJournal,
you can use Jott to voice-draft a new blog and then post-publish to your blog page.

Jott also interfaces with real estate site Zillow.com and enables you to grab real estate
property information via Jott voice call. You call Jott, say “Zillow” and then the name of the
address you want to get information on. Jott sent me back a text message with all the
relevant property information I was looking for.

It seems to me that Jott’s business model really can only take one of two paths. Either the
service will continue to be offered for free and Jott will generate revenue through
advertisements on its Web pages, or they will, at some point, offer the service through a
paid subscription model.

It’s a terrific service and I encourage you to give it a try. Once you try Jott, let me know
what you think by commenting below or by sending me a Jott.

WebHuddle

I've been in search of a good cross-platform web-meeting application for the last few days. Since I use a Mac, I'm pretty tired of being forced to jump into the Windows OS just to fire up GoToMeeting or BeamYourScreen. Don't get me wrong, both of those application work great, it's that they both require Windows in order to Host the meeting.

This weekend I went back to research and testing. One of the applications I had tried and used a few months ago, just doesn't cut it. Yugma, is a Java application that works well, except that the installation process is so cumbersome, it's just not conducive to setting up a web-meeting on the fly. Way too much registration information needed and it takes too long to download and install.

After a bit more time refining my Google searches and poking around blogs, I stumbled upon WebHuddle. This little Thin-Client application was created as an OpenSource Project which can downloaded and installed on one of your company's servers. In addition, the service (currently in beta) can be accessed from the WebHuddle website for free.

I have yet to download and install the server application, instead tested out the free service. It's simple, is easy to set-up, secure, and runs across all platforms including Apple, Windows and Linux, etc. WebHuddle is unusually small in both client size and bandwidth requirements. This means extremely fast entry into meetings and the ability to participate or even host meetings over lower bandwidth connections.

Give this little application a try and let me know your thoughts below.

GodTube Raises $30 Million in Funding

Christian video sharing site GodTube has taken $30million in funding from hedge fund GLG Partners on a $150 million valuation, according to a report from PaidContent. The site had previously raised $2.5 million.

GodTube is billed as the Christian version of YouTube and offers family friend video sharing with a strong emphasis on christian content.

The Dallas based startup launched in April 2007 promising technology to connect Christians for the purpose of encouraging and advancing the Gospel worldwide” and offers other services such as an online prayer wall.

Ring-a-Ding : Should you rely solely on your cell phone in the home?

Although I haven't done this yet, more and more people are dropping their home land lines in favor of using their cell phone and number as their main home land line phone. Americans who rely on cell phones
as their primary line of communications tend to be younger, less affluent, single and more liberal. That's according to The Cell Phone Challenge to Survey Research, a report released by The Pew Research Center and based on a survey conducted in association with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the Associated Press and AOL.

Seven to 9 percent of Americans don't have home phone lines and use their cell phones as a primary phone. Just under half (48 percent) of cell-only respondents are under 30. Thirty-five percent are 30 to 49. About 55 percent of cell-only respondents are men, and 46 percent are women.

It’s fair to say that cell phones can induce laziness. They enable effortless directory assistance, mobile Web access and the ever-important luxury of calling someone in the next room so you don’t need to get up. But this laziness can be reversed in an instant: Just misplace your cell phone at home, hear it ring and note how quickly you move—running, climbing stairs or flipping couch cushions—to find the phone before a caller hangs up.

VTech Communications wants to put an end to this mad phone dash with its $150 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth, the LS5145. This device synchronizes with your cell phone and redirects incoming cell calls to ring wherever the VTech phones are placed in the house. It works with your land line and up to two Bluetooth-linked cellphones, and can be expanded using additional handsets that cost $80 each. The concept of a cell phone extender isn’t new, but not many of them have caught on.

Another popular add-on to cell phones at home is the repeater, which focuses on boosting a phone’s signal in a place with poor coverage. The VTech 5145 could work as a repeater, assuming you put it and the finicky cell phone in a place with good coverage. But if your entire house has lousy cell coverage, it won’t work as a repeater.

AT&T licenses its corded and cordless phones through VTech, which sells a less-expensive product similar to the 5145 called the AT&T EP5632. It costs $100 and has the same basic functions as the 5145, but is clunky and much less stylish. Its additional handhelds cost $60 each.

The VTech phones are stylishly thin and have bright color display screens, which can be set to one of 27 still color wallpaper images or four animated designs. It takes only a minute to pair cell phones with the system using Bluetooth, a wireless technology that connects devices that are within about 30 feet of one another.  But the 5145 doesn’t display the numerous names and numbers stored on one's cell phone contact list. Unless you wanted to painstakingly enter the data into the VTech, incoming calls are only identified with phone numbers.  Also missing are other features from your cell phone, such as text
messaging and voice mail.

Each handset is equipped with a speakerphone, and missed calls are noted on the color screen and in a call log, along with the date and time. A built-in intercom system lets handsets communicate with the other or the base station. Users can choose from one of 23 ringtone-like melodies.

If you’re looking for an easier way to answer your cell phone whenever and wherever it rings, VTech’s system might be a good solution for you. But if you rely on your cell phone’s address book to identify callers and aren’t up for inputting these data again, it might be worth waiting for a Bluetooth cordless phone system that will automatically copy data from your cell phone.

Let me know if you're one of the growing number of folks who have forsaken Ma Bell and gone wireless only in your home by commenting below.