Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to give his input on how to retain business continuity in the face of the unexpected.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

This winter has seen some extreme weather conditions on both sides of the Atlantic with snowfall causing havoc for businesses and employees alike. Of course, as savvy workshifters know, it doesn't have to be like this! But the sad fact is that there are many who are just not as prepared for these unexpected conditions when they occur.

In the UK, we conducted some research during the heavy snowfall that hit in January and found that the cost of the inclement weather was £1.35bn in lost productivity for British businesses in just one week!

In addition to this, we found that despite 78% of small businesses saying they were prepared to cope with the snow chaos, over half admitted that their business suffered as a result of the winter weather.

When we look at the impact on employees, around a quarter of British workers claimed they lost more than five working hours, with as many as 124 million working hours estimated to have been lost in total.

Let this be a warning!

But now is not the time for us to breathe a sigh of relief.  More snow is predicted, and it's just one of any number of unexpected events that can prevent workers getting into the office. During the rest of the year we're likely to face a gamut of other incidents that will make life hard for employees and employers, whether its strikes on public transport, natural disasters or something totally unexpected.

So for all those businesses that were impacted by the snow, now is the time to get your business continuity plan in place, so that next time round there will be no nasty surprises and you have the right processes and technologies in place so productivity losses are avoided.



And it doesn't have to be hard! Here are my five top tips for businesses on how to prepare for the unexpected:

1.    Communicate clearly in advance - make sure your workers know what they need to do if they can't get into the office

2.    Equip employees with the right technologies - remote access and Web conferencing tools can help them remain productive even if they can't get to their desk

3.    Talk to your customers - Phone redirects and remote access software will allow you to go about business as usual, but if clients or customers are likely to be affected let them know as early as possible and keep communication channels open

4.    Consider alternatives - Travel to the office or to client meetings may be impossible, but instead of canceling, conduct the meetings online instead

5.    Put in place a business continuity leader - if the unexpected happens, it's wise to have one person in your organization responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies


What will do you to prepare for the unexpected?


Photo Credit: Anirudh Koul

So much advice is being disseminated I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about lessons learned from the inside.  We were experimenting around with social media in late 2008.  To be honest, we were just tinkering with Twitter.  We noticed that people were having conversations about our brand and we wanted to get in on the action.  To keep this post brief, I'm going to focus specially on Twitter.
 
We started working with New Marketing Labs to help us narrow our focus, or should I say, start focusing. Lesson 1: learn how to listen.  Listening is hard.  When we started, we responded to just about every post on Twitter. There is a balance between the community being self sufficient and the company's desire to join the conversation.  We were trying not to be "that guy".  You know..."that guy", the one that brings a hundred business cards to an event and measures his success by the amount of cards he gave out.  I think, in the beginning, we were "that guy".  We measured success by the amount of conversations we were involved in as opposed to engagement with the community.
 
Twitter, to many companies, is public customer service and the Twitter public timeline is the diary.  A company's successes and failures are there for the world to watch in real time.  The companies that do it right, are the best listeners, not the best talkers.  My advice is spend 2/3 of your time listening and 1/3 engaging.  It's a simple metric which is derived from from how we listen in the real world.  As humans we have the ability to listen at 400 words per minute but we talk at roughly 130 words per minute.  That's a good guidepost as opposed to a rule.  However, some of the most useful advice comes from the people that are the faces behind the branded Twitter accounts.

Glenn Dobson manages our GoToMeeting Twitter account and he was kind enough to give me his thoughts on how to be an effective listener.  Most people that follow GoToMeeting on Twitter know Glenn as ^GD.  He is the man behind the tweets.  I believe he even had a marriage proposal on Twitter from a crazed fan.  You should ask him about it.  

Glenn's Top 5 Tips for Effective Social Listening:

1. Be genuine in your interactions: People can spot a fake and do not appreciate lip service, you could do more damage than not engaging at all.
   
   
2. Be responsive:  If you are going to offer a presence you need to be there when needed.
   
   
3. Know when to take it offline: Sometimes 140 characters are not enough to work through an issue, know when to offer a more traditional support channel so that you can resolve the issue sooner. Don't be afraid to lose the publicity of resolving the issue in public on Twitter.
   
   
4. Be open to feedback even if it's negative: All feedback is good and sometimes negative feedback is best for growth.
   
   
5. Don't feed the trolls: Everyone knows the Internet is full of trolls, no one can make them happy so sometimes the best response is none at all. Put your efforts into the people who want to work with you.
   

My Top 5 Tips for Effective Social Listening:

1. Use tools such as CoTweet and Radian6 (and hire a ^GD clone).
   
   
2. Separate support inquiries from general conversations about your brand.  Assign a specific group to manage the support inquiries (in our case, tech support and product queries).
   
   
3. Create a branded Twitter account.  List the real names and pictures of the people "on deck" as part of the Twitter profile.  This helps humanize the brand.  Check out GoToMeeting Twitter account for an example of how we're doing it.
   
   
4. Use the carrot symbol and initials to identity who is posting.  If I was posting from the branded account I would end my post with ^DB. 
   
   
5. Learn from the best.  Check out: Southwest Airlines and Comcast as just two of the many great examples available.
   

It's very likely that you and/or your brand are being talked about on Twitter.  Follow the advice that is relevant to your needs, and toss out the rest.

What are your tips for effective listening?

Photo Credit: abrinsky
 

Being in the web conferencing / workshifting space I hear a lot of discussion around the topic of Unified Communications (UC), and plenty is being written about it.  In a recent article from CNN, Citrix Online was highlighted for its performance in the market. While this is very noteworthy (more so because I work there), it is the direction of the market, and more importantly, the view point of the end user that I'm most interested in.
 
In my role I have the opportunity to interview customers and non-customers alike.  One message resonates above all others, and that is simplicity.  No matter how cool your latest augmented-reality, real-time, location-based, cloud computer widget is; it doesn't mean squat unless it's easy to use.
 
Customers want unified services but only as long as the integration doesn't add complexity and improves the experience.  A good example of this is iGoogle.  I have my calendar, docs, etc., all in one easy place.  The experience is not defined by the tool(s), it's what you are doing when you use the tools.  Striving to create a unified experience is more important then Unified (ubiquitous) Communications.  One of the best examples of this is the iPhone.  The applications improve the user experience.  That experience is so important that people make a conscience tradeoff in value, i.e.., dropped calls.
 
How does this apply to workshifting? Improving the experience of workshifters should be the goal of those striving for Unified Communications.  To accomplish this, companies need to be asking the right questions around the experience, and stop selling tools and start selling solutions.  If you're a technology slinger, a musician, a hotel, an airport....we are all in the Unified Experience business.
 
Here's an example of when the Unified Experience fell apart.  I recently attended Jeff Pulver's 140Conf LA Meetup.  Since I knew it would be a long night, I booked a room at the local Marriott.  I made sure they had Wifi and a business center so all I packed was my toothbrush and my iPod Touch.  While I was there I could not get their WiFi to work, ever, and I needed to get to my desktop at work but they blocked GoToMyPC...gasp. My last resort was our corporate webmail which worked, but I still couldn't get to my applications.  I have some stuff in Google and that helped a bit, but overall my experience was bad.  It was a real challenge to workshift.  
 
The calamity of technology failures created a bad experience.  I'm sure each vendor will say, "if you'd only done this...". What it comes down to is the technology at the hotel failed.  Instead of focusing on the user's needs (mine) they were hell bent on locking down their network.  The hotel didn't focus on the experience.  They thought that providing the tools was enough, as opposed to focusing on how the tools would be used then developing a solution to support the experience.
 
I know it sounds like I'm picking on Marriott...I'm really not.  I have stayed at their hotels many times and will continue to do so.  It just happens to be my most recent experience.  But it demonstrates that we are all in the Unified Experience business.  To steal a phrase from Gary Vaynerchuk: "don't get romanced by the tools". The tools (I.e., Twitter, Facebook, etc.) will come and go.  Focus on developing tools that complement and enhance the experience.  
 
Workshifters unite for a Unified Experience.  To accomplish this, you should be vocal.  Guest post on Workshifting and other blogs, shout-out on Twitter, and talk about your experiences, but don't just complain.  Offer up some solutions.  I don't care how crazy they may be.  Be an effective voice and lets work together for a better (unified) experience.
 
Over the weeks and months to come I'll be interviewing execs at Citrix Online and other companies, so you can listen to their opinions too.  
 
What are your thoughts on this?
 

This past summer, Melissa and I were gone on a Workshifting Road Trip across Europe.  We were gone for sixty days.  During that time, we had more staff miscommunication and misunderstanding than we had in the previous 10 months combined.  Shortly after, I realized why.  No matter how well we use technology to connect and collaborate, nothing will ever be able to replace "face to face" communication.  Having said that, "face to face" doesn't mean you actually have to be physically present with the person (although that would be ideal).  A quick 5 minute daily video call with your team can do the trick. 

In the video below, I discuss a few reasons I believe this is important and a few tools that might be helpful to you.

Do you think "face to face" communication is important?  How often do you video call with you team while you are traveling?

Photo by: oxmour

Imagine switching on your HDTV eager to watch a show at 9. There you are, popcorn in hand, only to find a blank screen. Then a voice comes on and says they're waiting for a few more people to tune in, "please stand by." Meanwhile, they offer a static page with the name of the program and a tacky graphic. A few minutes later the voice is back saying they're going to get started, but since folks are still tuning in, they'll wait a few more minutes before diving into the actual program. More static screens pop up, this time asking you to answer a few questions using your remote control. Four questions later, it's quarter past the hour, and you're starting to wonder why you tuned in in the first place.

Does this sound familiar? If you've logged on to any webinars recently, it probably does. In fact, the scenario I described in the last paragraph, sans popcorn, was from a webinar about doing great webinars. Over the next 45 minutes, more slides trickled by; none were in any way engaging. In between slides, the screen went blank. The voice, full of false enthusiasm, chattered on about the need for great content, an engaging personality, etc. To be honest, he sounded more like one of those slick morning radio personalities--the same sing-song style--the same Red Bull-induced zeal. Fortunately, the audio dropped out twice, so that limited the exposure.

To be fair, I'd tuned into this particular webinar because I'd just done one myself and frankly, was embarrassed by the performance. Lot's of technology glitches, awkward hand-offs between speakers, horrible audio, etc. It's not like I hadn't prepared. I probably spent 5 days preparing for it. It's not like we were using some unproven technology, I don't want to name names, but it was one of the big ones. It's not like I'd never done one before, I had. And it's not like I'm an inexperienced speaker, I've done hundreds of lectures and speeches.

"The least they'll accept is the best they've ever seen," my husband used to say in speeches about the future of technology. Largely, that's been true. Once you've played World of Warcraft, you're not going back to Donkey Kong. Once you've watched HD, you're not going to settle for less. So what's with webinars?

While I've seen dozens of inspirational or motivational speeches, I can honestly say I've never attended a webinar that was anything better than ho-hum. Heck, I'd even settle for one that made me feel like it was time well spent.

I've pondered the problem some and while I've come to no real conclusions, here are my thoughts:

• In spite of the big names in the business, the technology side of webinar delivery is clumsy at best. Uploading programs is pretty simple on most platforms, but voice inputs are clunky. Even prior testing doesn't ensure the sound will be good. Some platforms don't even give you the ability to talk to co-presenters "off camera," before the program starts. If you're in the habit of tuning into a webinar early, or staying late, you've no doubt heard speakers who didn't realize or have forgotten this. Oopsie.
  
  
• With all of the unknowns, why aren't more people pre-recording webinars to get them just right, and answering questions live?
  
  
• The voice and methods you use as a speaker, doesn't work on a webinar. Pregnant pauses that create anticipation at live events, are dead air when the audience can't see you. My reaction to the "radio voice" of the speaker I mentioned earlier notwithstanding, I wonder if some radio training would help webinar speakers. After all, engaging the unseen listener is what they do--some more effectively than others.
  
  
• Those of us who are used to public speaking, find it hard to be 'on' without the enthusiasm of a crowd. It's like practicing a speech--very uncomfortable and stilted. How do you replicate the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd?
  
  
• Knowing your subject is only part of the battle. You also have to understand pacing, know how to engage, understand the technology, and if you're going to use them, know how to design interesting polls. Most importantly, you need to be able to create engaging graphics; ones that complement what you have to say without confusing or boring the audience.
  
  
• Most people, myself included, multi-task while listening to a webinar. Imagine giving a speech where the whole audience is surfing the web on their laptops or talking on their phones. I think part of the reason for this is that the webinars aren't engaging enough, but it may just be a function of a multitasking culture. Recognizing this, how do you deliver content that's easy to follow while they're doing other things?
  
  
• Part of the problem is obviously bandwidth. Once that increases, we'll no doubt see better production, but that's going to place an even greater emphasis on the artistic side of things. How will mere mortals cope?
  

Is it just me? Are there any ideas out there for how to give great webinars? Dare I ask, has anyone seen a really good one?

Photo by: Zelda Go Wild

For the past 3 years Rock For Hunger has grown from a small group of college students into, well, a larger group of college students that are impacting the Orlando community in major ways. From throwing $20,000 concerts and events, to helping people find jobs, initiating lifestyle design programs, tutoring underprivileged children and feeding close to 200 homeless every week, they are able to do all of this without an office, a home base or a paid employee.

The group is led by a group of 20-something change agents (disclosure - I am one of them), sprinkled in with a few thirty somethings. The mission is to inspire individuals of all cultures to join together through music, education and peaceful solutions in order to end the cycle of hunger and poverty. This is done with the help of online communication tools, a strong internship and volunteer program and the ability to adapt to change and surroundings. Meetings have been held in places ranging from public libraries, board member homes, Panera's, mom and pop coffee shops, random office spaces, parks, college campuses, music venues, dressing rooms, over the phone and all sorts of interesting places that never have enough chairs to fit the inspirational Gen-Y's that lend their time, ideas and actions.

The group has grown organically, with volunteers coming from college clubs that bring in new Freshmen every year, friends that bring their friends, bands that bring fans and out reached family members who want to lend a hand. Rallying with weekly and monthly emails, a homeless blog, Twitter accounts, Facebook messages, events and physical meetups, everyone comes ready to deliver regardless of the physical environment with with they are located.

Success stories have come from cell phone calls to local education centers offering certificates in forklift certification to building resumes on laptops in library study cubes resulting in job placement at local hotels and security firms. This has all been made possible by technology and the ability to act and use the technology to find an answer to a problem. Think of the iPhone app commercials. There is a "hope" for that.

For the homeless Rock For Hunger serves, they all work virtually. Workshifting from one site to another, all trying to make a means to an end for the day. Having a place to seek refuge every Monday night for a few hours and kick back with friends, while looking at ways to improve their tomorrow in an office they enjoy visiting. There is no coming in late and everyone gets their questions answered by the boss. The concerts serve as places to not only showcase the product (helping the homeless), but recruit new team members (volunteers), give the community an opportunity to give back (sponsors) and for people to have a good time (the music). It is part conference/trade show and part job fair. It mixes entertainment with guest speakers, images of the impact in the community and ways to act - from Tweeting about the experience, signing up to volunteer, blogging to sharing photos and finding donors to make it all possible. In essence, it is a driving force behind the main product - change and education.

(One of Rock For Hunger's Homeless Friends at Recent Concert)

The growth of the Workshifting culture, mixed with technology and personal development have allowed us to tackle issues, find solutions and create programs in record time. On November 2nd, a new program, "Homeless Lifestyle Design" will begin that will take the homeless group through a 4-week program designed to change the way they think and envision their future through creativity, job training and financial awareness.

The course was created using things like Google Docs to pass through ideas, Basecamp to create milestones and send out tasks and Wordpress to manage the training site. This is all done seamlessly with our board members, interns and volunteers who never miss a beat or a deadline, because someone's life is on the line.

This post was not meant to be self-serving, but to show the ideas of working from anywhere can impact any organization, any payroll size and any goal worth achieving. Using tools for keeping organized, sharing notes and documents and throwing large scale events are now more possible than ever. Supporters and fans can live on any part of the globe and have the same impact as if they were in the board room. The product your company builds has the opportunity to help people everywhere with a few clicks of a button and the right marketing behind it.

We are living in a very exciting time and I am happy to be living and working that way.

Go make something beautiful this week Workshifters. Please share. It helps us grow.

"Why should I blog?"

"How the hell would blogging help my organization?"

"Can't I hire someone to blog for me?"

"I hardly have time for 'real' work, why would I waste my time blogging."

"Blogging is for people who sustain themselves on HoHo's and Diet Coke and live in their grandmother's basement."

These are actual quotes from people I have spoken to about blogging recently.

I've been thinking a great deal lately about blogging, and it's importance as a medium not necessarily for marketing but for delineation.  

As we progress into the deciduous and ever-evolving landscape of the social web, blogging has, in a way, been relegated to the margins of social web status.  When I was in 5th grade in our school cafeteria, there was a table towards the back, furthest from the teachers, where all the cool, rich kids would sit with their Cheetos and their slick hair and their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pez Dispensers.  At the time, I would have choked a baby bunny to sit at that table, but there were only so many seats, and I was still 20 lbs overweight and didn't know who Michael Jordan was.  Now the cool kid table is all Twitter and Brightkite and Foursquare and virtually every iPhone app...but poor blogging is like me, fat and alone with his cheese sandwich, ruing the day he left home.

Well, I am here to tell you, that blogging is still cool, dammit!  In fact, I would postulate that blogging should not supplement, but should indeed serve as the foundation, the very substratum of our communication strategy.  It's less about marketing and more about delineation.  You have something important to say and chances are even if we work in the same field, you have an uncommon perspective that is unique and possess a viewpoint that is indigenous to you alone.

If you read nothing else in this post, the takeaway is this: Blogging affords us the opportunity to define the textures of our dissimilarity.

Inspired by blogging and all it's resplendent geekness, I have posted a video for the handful of you that didn't fall asleep while reading this rant ;)

So that makes me wonder, do you blog? Why or Why Not?

If so, why do you value blogging?

On a side note, in June, my friend, Daria Steigman (who is infinitely wiser than I on this topic), wrote an article for the International Association of Business Communicators on the notion of "Blogging for Business Value".  I would definitely suggest reading her post as it has served as the inspiration for my obsession with this topic over the last few weeks.

Photo by: Kristina B

 

In my last post I asked the question "what's holding you back from doing webinars?" The response from Leesa Watego and a few others was that a lack of knowledge about how to start was the top inhibiting factor.

The purpose of this post is not to be an all-inclusive guide to delivering webinars but rather some suggestions to consider as you begin your program. My hope is that these ideas will make the concept of webinars less daunting so you can start generating some great leads using webinars.

1. Pick a Compelling Topic or Series

What is the most compelling and interesting education that you can give your target audience? First off, it can't be exclusively about your product or service.  Who wants to attend "Come Here to learn How Awesome Our Widget 7 Is"? Pick a topic that relates to the product or service that you're marketing and build an outline. You might try setting up a series of three webinars. If I was marketing financial services right now (and I'm glad I'm not) I might do something like this:

     Topic #1: Why Economic Uncertainty is an Opportunity: How to Gain from the Downturn
     Topic #2: When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em: What to Buy and Sell Right Now
     Topic #3: Investments 101: Understanding your investment options

Think of webinars as an ongoing conversation with your prospects and develop a compelling series of educational topics before you start.

2. How will you get people to participate?

Your Email Database - What email addresses do you already have access to?
Social Media - Post links on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and anywhere else you have a following.    
Partners - Are there other companies or partners that have a common interest in reaching your audience?
Post on Your Website - Put a link right on your home page

3. Build a Team

Will you be able to handle all the responsibilities on your own? For the first few webinars, this may work but over time it might make sense to get some help. Here are the different roles and responsibilities for conducting a webinar:

Marketing - Handling all promotional material and campaigns to get people to attend - plus follow-up with registrants.
Content Management - Making sure the presentation is in line with the marketing message and quality for the audience.
Speaking - Presenting the actual content (this may be one or more people).
Live Q&A - Answering questions and comments during the session through text chat and aloud.

4. Attend Other Webinars and Read Up

Here are a few valuable resources I've come across and use:

Twitter Search
The Virtual Presenter
Webinar Wire


5. Prepare Your Team for Follow-up

Whoever follows up on the webinar leads needs to be prepared to discuss the topic (not just your product or service). You may elect to follow up via email and nurture the leads but if you follow up with phone calls be prepared to talk about the webinar topic. This is problematic if you have a sales team that isn't in tune with the webinar content. I suggest setting up a few questions and conversations points around the topic for your team. If I were following up with the financial topics above I'd likely want to ask "How do you feel about your financial portfolio right now?" And be prepared to discuss the content of the webinar in detail. Make sure you and your team understand the webinar topics and how to discuss them in follow-up.

6. Set Realistic Expectations

If you're expecting 500 live attendees for your first webinar then you're setting yourself up for failure. Your first webinar may have 3 people in it but that's 3 people you've established a relationship with that you wouldn't have otherwise. webinars take time...I've done hundreds of them over the last 3 years now and I learn something every time I do one.

So what does success look like for you on your first webinar? If you're able to get 1 new sales opportunity from the webinar then I'd consider that success.

These are all things you should consider before you pick the technology you're going to us. And I'm going to stay away from the technology considerations as I'm obviously partial to GoToWebinar ;)

Hope this helps. Reach out to me on Twitter if you have any more questions about getting started with webinars ... and good luck!

Photo by: sridgway

The spirit of workshifting is really personified by Twitter. So much of the current Twitter culture is made up of folks that workshift from anywhere their work takes them. Workshifting is not just about the tools or location, it's often about crowd sourcing. Working with people whom you've never met, in locations you've never been, and with whom you've only communicated with via a tool such as Twitter.
 
This was never more true than when I decided to help organize Twestival in Santa Barbara, California. I had to stretch my capacity and ask for help through Twitter to help manage the event. It's been an amazing experience. We have received offers to help with promoting the event, A/V, and more.  I'm meeting some amazing and passionate people.
 
As we talk about workshifing and Twestival, we are reaching out to everyone to do the same....which is to talk about what we care about.  I've wondered if this is the right approach. Is "everyone" to inundated? Should our efforts be focused on those that care the most?  How do you define "care" if you only get a piece of them in 140 bites (or bytes..ha!)? 
 
What I've discovered is that workshifting is a culture. It's also a choice. I'd love to hear how others are workshifting and building a community of givers, not just followers.

Photo by: niallkennedy
 

With workshifting on the rise how do you get in front of this "anywhere, any time consumer"? And more importantly, how do we get in front of them with a more personal and conversational media?  This is a dilemma that many companies are currently dealing with.  One short answer that has proven wildly successful for us at Citrix is that we do Webinars.

Brain Carroll, author of the B2B Lead Generation Blog, talks about putting the "human touch" back into marketing and lead generation. What tends to happen when we put all our marketing resources into online marketing is that we pay for the cheapest leads. If we only look at the quantity of leads we often forget about the human connection that creates more quality leads.

Webinars give enormous geographic reach with high touch interactions. That's what makes them unique.

When I asked the audience in a recent Webinar we did regarding SMB Marketing about how many Webinars they planned for the remainder of the year we got the following result...

How many Webinars are you planning to hold the rest of this year?

Of the 300 people who responded to this Webinar poll, the top percentage of people aren't doing any Webinars. What's more interesting though is the second highest percentage are doing is 11 or more Webinars. Nearly 1 in 5 online marketers are holding 11 or more Webinars in the remainder of 2009. MarketingProfs publishes a great annual report on B2B Marketing Trends that confirms this information by saying the 47% of B2B marketers consider Webinars in 2009 more prominent in their marketing mix than 2008.

As the economy and workforce trends make it harder to get in front of our prospects and customers in a meaningful way, more marketers are leveraging Webinars to reach those workshifters.
 
Have you had success reaching workshifters with Webinars? And if you're part of the 1 in 3 marketers who is not doing Webinars, what's holding you back?