Needs
I needed to find a meeting/conferencing solution that:

• Accommodated seven people for an hour each week, for 12 weeks. Participants live in VA, TX, IN and Hungary.
• Allowed us to hear one another (and if possible, see one another)
• Was affordable (for the participants in US and Hungary, and for me as the host)
• Was easy, quick & nice to use (for the participants, and for me)

Options
I looked at a few conferencing platforms, including:

• Skype
• Tokbox
• FreeConferenceCall.com

The Problem with Skype – Some of the participants have it, but not everyone. One of the participants can’t use Skype because he’s behind a very tight firewall. Additionally, I was told last week that you can’t conference with more than five people using Skype. Our group = seven.

Tokbox looked like a great solution at first. But not everyone has web cameras/microphones. There is a call-in option, but it was 11 cents a minute, and since I would have to pay a monthly fee (albeit nominal) anyway, I didn’t think that made the most sense. There was the issue of a tight firewall again. And the platform just didn’t seem very intuitive. Trying to figure out how to use it was stressful!

Free Conference Call seemed like a good option, except for the international call charges from Hungary to the US. And we couldn’t see each other “face-to-face,” which I had really hoped for.

Solution
In the end, I went with Free Conference Call and the person in Hungary called the US number via Skype. We didn’t get to see everyone, but at least we got to hear each other, the technology was easy to use (though I still managed a goof or two) and it was affordable.

What About You?
What meeting/conferencing challenges have you had and what solutions have you found?
How are you using technology to communicate with others?
Does your church or small group take advantage of any of these, or other options available today?
What stories can you share?
And of course, do you know of anything else that I may have overlooked, for next time?

(update: Here is the link to the video. I just realized that any time someone clicked on my “blog” tab, the video started playing – not just on this specific post. So, watch the USA Today video here, and again, pardon the ads.)

Quick Facts

• Uploading Facebook photos is easy, quick and nice
• Facebook users upload some 2 billion photos a month
• Tagging is the reason Facebook photos are so popular
• Users can untag photos of themselves

And in case you missed the print article, here’s a photo (not yet shared with my friends on Facebook).

What’s your favorite part about sharing photos on Facebook? What photos have you enjoyed seeing? Which photos do you wish you’d never seen?

First, let me congratulate the fine folks at Chick-Fil-A. They didn’t invent chicken. They just made it better. And they make sweet tea that’s frankly, better than my own moma (may she rest in peace). Hold the ice. I want all the syrupy goodness I can get.

I’ve eaten at CFA more in the last few months than I have in the previous year. Why? Because they’re making it easy, quick and nice for me to engage. And fun.

Easy: their summer promotion to wear a cow costume for a free sandwich included a printout so you could participate, even if you didn’t own a cow costume. I mean, who does, right?

Quick: They’re taking advantage of Facebook to quickly engage their fans AND share that information quickly (and easily).

Nice: Once they get you in the restaurant, everything is “my pleasure” this and “my pleasure” that. And I really think they mean it.

Oh, and don’t forget Fun. Have you seen the Chicken Wave? Our entire family of six wore team logos into the CROWDED Ward’s Road restaurant on Labor Day to get our free sandwiches. It was packed but not in the “pain in the neck, this is taking forever to be waited on” packed. It was the “man, this is so cool and exciting, look at that guy’s hair,” fun, sort of packed.

Chick-Fil-A gets it. They have a million fans to prove it. AND they’re closed on Sunday (but that’s another story).

Besides Chick-Fil-A and another favorite, Zappos, who else “gets” customer service and the idea of “easy, quick and nice” and “fun?” And how are they engaging their customers?

Engage with Chick-Fil-A on Facebook and Twitter.

Here are a few things I love about CLT:

After lunch, we took a step-by-step how-to look at using LinkedIn. Here’s the slidedeck:

Surprisingly, less than 25% of the business professionals in attendance were using Linked with any sort of consistency. I’m pretty sure that percentage will increase based on feedback during and after the session.

Your Advice
What advice would you give to new LinkedIn users? What tips have you discovered and what strategies are you using to help maximize your network’s potential?

And if you were in attendance, leave a comment below to let me know what you liked best and what I could do better next time. Cut and paste your LinkedIn URL (customized or other) into the comment website field so others can connect with you easily! (Remember, easy, quick and nice.)

You may think “patients” would be a more appropriate term, but I disagree. For you see, the customers at Orthodontic Arts, the people who do the actual buying, are the parents, not the patients.

The website boasts, “One of the most state-of-the-art and unique orthodontic facilities in the country…Our patients and their families feel immediately at ease and even learn how to have fun in a dental office.” And it’s true.

Think about the demographics of people walking through the door of an orthodontic office. Typically, you see kids, teens and parents (sometimes with toddlers in tow).

In a traditional office, the parent (either mom or dad, or maybe initially both) is sitting in a waiting room with old magazines, poor lighting and a mental to-do-list with a thousand things, interrupted by a trip to the orthodontist. The child or teen patient has already viewed all the old Highlights at previous appointments and is not looking forward to getting those wires tightened or the pain that ensues. And maybe there’s a screaming baby or rambunctious toddler with few alternatives for things to touch and mouth. Sound familiar?

Orthodontic Arts is different.

Waiting Area
The waiting area was designed for working parents and soccer moms alike. There are two massage chairs, a coffee bar with a decent selection of coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cappuccino and free wifi. (Technically, these should be viewed as Gifts with Purchase considering the small investment made in mouth metals, but that’s another story.) Magazines are current and varied and the television is set for a cable news channel.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind scheduling a few business meetups in that place!

Patient Arcade
Imagine being an orthodontic patient, awaiting your next torture session – I mean, appointment. What better way to take your mind off impending pain than by spending a little time in the patient arcade? There’s a space-themed mini theater featuring the Disney Channel and half a dozen video games waiting for the high scorer.

Toddler and Child Area
Remember those screaming babies and rambunctious toddlers? Orthodontic Arts even has a childproof area designed just for little tikes! Now you don’t have to worry about holding a squirming child while trying to avoid spilling the piping hot beverage you just made at the coffee bar.

Somehow, going to the orthodontist no longer seems like a chore. Instead, it’s an outing that ends too quickly, forcing child and parent to return to school, work or the busyness of home.

The Payoff
There’s a huge payoff for Orthodontic Arts. Whenever someone asks where our children got their braces, we not only give them the obligatory answer, but we sing a song of praise. When our kids return to school and brag about their arcade scores or the fact that they just had a cup of cappuccino or a massage, you can bet their peers pay attention. And one day in the future, when someone exclaims to one or all of our children about how beautiful and straight their teeth are, they will proudly boast about their experience at Orthodontic Arts.

Questions for Business Professionals
Who are your customers? What stresses them out about buying from you? How can you make doing business with you easy, quick and nice? Leave your answers in the comment section.

Facebook Changed Everything
While a student at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004. You can read the story at Fast Company or the Wikipedia entry here. Eventually, they did it bigger and better. It was easier and it was free. They continue to add features that make it easy to stay connected.

I wondered how many people are using Classmates these days. I threw the question out on Twitter and these are just a few of the responses I got:

• Classmates is so 80′s
• Did anyone ever use Classmates?
• It was very difficult to navigate and they tried to make money off subscriptions. Adaptation could have gone a long way.
  
• Always interesting to see a multi-use platform derail a dedicated platform — I’m thinking iPhone for e-book reading.
• Classmates.com? Are they still charging money for that crappy service? Haven’t checked in on them in a long, long time.
• Classmates used to be the only player, but never seemed useful for connecting

Easy, Quick & Nice
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Companies that want to be successful today and in the future must make it easy and quick for their customers to do business with them. And they have to be nice in the process. Classmates? Not so much.

I visit Classmates about once in a blue moon, when I get an email notification that someone connected with me there, or for some such reason. I never try to engage people in conversations on Classmates because it’s too hard. I have to jump through too many hoops as do they. It’s not intuitive. Instead, I show those people how to connect with me on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter and here on my blog.

Now I’m also pointing them to Facebook. Believe it or not, there are still some people who haven’t yet experienced FB. They’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how many of our classmates  they can connect with on FB, and how easy it is!

Recently an old high school friend put together an impromptu meetup (rather than a full blown reunion) using Facebook’s event feature. Easy enough. Quick enough. Nice enough. Oh, and free. Today, I received an email notification Classmates that someone posted a comment. Another high school friend mentioned not waiting for an official reunion in order to plan a get together. I suggested she try Facebook’s event feature. I’m guessing it won’t take long for her to see how Facebook has surpassed Classmates.

Adaptability is Huge
Whether you’re first to market or not, adaptability is huge in today’s competitive environment. How can you change things to make it easier for your customers, members, readers, etc.? How can you give customers what they want, faster than before? What steps can be eliminated because it doesn’t always have to be done that way? How can you use technology to deliver the same or better service, quicker?

I’m pretty sure if Classmates had figured out how to make it easier for people to view a guestbook, send a message to a friend, or upload photos, we wouldn’t be asking,

“Classmates Who?”

How can this apply to your business, blog, chamber or church? What outcomes need to be streamlined to make it easy, quick and nice? What adaptations have you made in the last six months? And if you haven’t made any, what are you plans for adaptations in 2009?

6 Reasons You Should Use Plaxo:

1. People are transient. Now more than ever, your contacts move around from company to company, city to city, country to country. If you’re connected on Plaxo, the service tracks those changes automatically for you.
2. Companies make changes. Sometimes the business moves, other times the URL changes or the phone numbers change. People get promoted or assume new responsibilities. Titles change. If you’re connected to John McCrea and he makes a change on his profile, your information is automatically updated. (Note to current users: when you make changes in your contact info, be sure to update on Plaxo.)
3. Relationships vary. Though we friend people on Facebook, follow people on Twitter, and connect on LinkedIn, Plaxo recognizes that not everyone is a friend in real life. Liz Strauss explained once that there are some people she’d meet for coffee, other people she’d fly halfway around the world to see – at the drop of a hat. I think it was Chris Brogan who said a true friend is someone who will help you move your sofa. He also talks more specifically about future use of velvet ropes. Some people are business contacts, others are friends and then there’s family. Plaxo lets you share information accordingly.
4. Birthdays matter. Life is busy. I forget birthdays and though ideally I would send paper cards in the mail to arrive well ahead of someone’s birthday, the reality is – I just don’t anymore. Plaxo reminds me of my contacts’ birthdays and then gives me the tools to send the cards on that specific day or ahead of time, using the information that’s already on Plaxo. No re-entering email addresses or birth dates.
5. Back ups are important. It’s important to keep your contact information safe, and in more than one place so that valuable info is protected in case your computer crashes, your building burns down or your system is hacked. Creating easy to access back up info is just plain smart.
6. Portability is good thing. When I left my job at the Lynchburg Regional Chamber, I had close to 1500 contacts in Outlook. I left on great terms and Plaxo helped me transfer those contacts, seamlessly. If you’re building your contacts in a database other than your own, you need to make sure you can access those same contacts easily from other places. I understand Plaxo is also taking a lead role in Portable Contacts across many/all platforms so that in the future, you can access the networks you build on all your social network sites, in one place.

But wait! There’s more: Take a look at the feed/stream/pulse, groups, calendar, duplicate remover, messaging, polls, photos, and just recently they’ve even added Fan Pages beta.

You can use the free service or upgrade to the premium level. Both are worth checking out, based on your needs and budget. Whatever option you choose, friend me up. I’m Cheryl Smith there.

So how do you use Plaxo? And if you could give Plaxo feedback to make the tool better, what would you like to see?

First, I often search my own update log. Since updates only go back as far as ten pages, if I can’t find what I’m looking for, I have to use Twitter search and scroll through way more information than necessary. Just a moment ago I was looking for a person on Twitter whose user name is initials only. I wanted to point her to a possible lead. I can remember her face, but have difficulty with the initials. Short of asking her to change her user name, a searchable file would have made it much easier for me to provide her with a referral.

Secondly, a comprehensive listing of my tweets would be helpful for me as I review discussions, thoughts and even random stuff. It would make life easy for me to write follow up posts on things like the Twebinar.

I’m thinking David Sterry of Tweet Scan must have read my last post about people wanting to do business when it’s easy, quick and nice. A couple of additional features that Tweet Scan might consider for the future:

1. After the one-time get you up to speed download, include a low-cost monthly subscription option. I can save the files in the same location by month without reinventing the wheel. That also gives them some increased/guaranteed revenue and builds customer usage, leading to customer loyalty.
2. Make it easy for non-techie people to use the data. Provide an Excel option or a Google spreadsheets option.
3. Make the downloaded file searchable by date, topic, etc. That provides even greater value. A step further would be to categorize topics in some way. Just a thought. Based on my previous experiences with open-ended questions on survey platforms like Zarca, I know the capabilities exist.
4. Consider using information from the public timeline to sell downloads of specific topics. If I’m a web designer, I’d be interested in buying a download of Twitter users who tweet “new website.” Maybe not all the information is applicable, but I bet at least one or two good leads could be converted into business. And that’s just one example.

Great idea David. Thanks for making life easier. It’ll be fun to see how the product develops. Now, about that complementary message archive…

How do you search Twitter for your own information? What features would be helpful for you?

Twitter and Gourmet Brownies
I was pleasantly surprised today when I went to the post office to check my mail and found a slip that said, “package too large to fit in box.” After waiting in line behind a guy with two dozen packages to mail (maybe an e-bay seller), I picked up a package from “Send Out Cards.”

“Send out cards, send out cards,” I’m thinking…. where do I know that from? Did I order something recently? Nothing clicked. Once I opened the package I was blown away. Chris Cree, a person I met through Twitter, sent me a box of gourmet brownies, wrapped with a red ribbon, and a beautiful card perfectly appropriate for 9/11. He was thanking me for referring folks to him along the way.

I’ve never met Chris in person but I had a great phone conversation with him several months ago and really liked his style and philosophy. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to connect him to a couple of people who were in need of his expertise.

Pearls and LinkedIn
On Saturday I was at a reception honoring Laura McDaniel, a dear friend who was just elected as Executive Director for WMU of Virginia. I ran into my friends Brad and Claudia. As we chatted, Claudia noticed my pearl bracelet and necklace and commented that she had asked Brad for the same set last year for Christmas but they weren’t available. She pointed them out to Brad, likely hoping he would remember earlier this year.

Fast forward to Monday. I was checking out LinkedIn and saw that Phillip Bosen had some new update. I don’t remember what, but whatever it was caused him to be in my visual and brain space. Phillip is the Manager at Finks, the very jewelry store where Peter had bought my necklace and bracelet. So, I sent Phillip a LinkedIn email providing him with Brad’s contact information, and told him the story.

Later that day Brad called me. “You are the networking queen,” he said.

Phillip had caught the pass and took it to the end zone. If you see Claudia, don’t tell. Christmas is still more than three months away.

Easy, Quick and Nice
Long-time chamber veteran now turned association guy Keith Woods, says that in the future, companies that are successful will understand that customers want to do business when/where it is easy, quick and nice. I’ll second that, and add: today’s social networking tools make passing a referral easy and quick. The nice part is up to you.

Are you making it easy and quick for people to give you business? What success stories can you share about how social networking tools have scored a few points for you or someone you know? (Share your thoughts and stories by clicking on the comment button.)

Oh, and if you’re not using social networking tools, let me know. I can probably help with that.

One final thing, if you like the jewelry, call Phillip, Rita, Vanessa or Margaret at Finks. They can help you out.