Social Media & Business Technology » VoIP

Twitter for Business… more tips for your tweets

Nadine — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Here is an in-depth video on using Twitter for business. Set aside some time to view this or return frequently as time allows.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

adapted from: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Tech Talk #105 Guidelines for Effective Online Meetings

Nadine — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:49:05 +0000

Tips for Effective Internet-based Meetings

With electronic meetings on the rise, it’s more important than ever to know how to make them as effective as possible. Here are some guidelines. For information on how to engage your clients using VoIP visit here.

	Prepare, prepare, prepare. When it comes to meeting productivity, a little extra prep time can go a long way. Preparation for an electronic meeting is just as important – if not more so – as when a group gathers face to face. It’s important to have a meeting agenda and distribute in advance (include meeting date, time and assigned phone number or pass code, if applicable).
	Keep it simple. Attention wanders during meetings – even more so in electronic meetings. Use the visual power of the Internet to reinforce key points and organize presentations into short segments so the audience can better retain information.
	Use audio to your advantage. With the absence of face-to-face contact, it’s important for the meeting facilitator to introduce himself and all meeting participants. Make transitions easy to follow by providing vocal cues to introduce new segments of the presentation.

Research findings suggest corporate America should pursue the following Internet policies and solutions:

	Executives should encourage corporate adoption of Internet conferencing to reduce costs and improve productivity.
	When implementing Web-based conferencing in your organization, begin with specific applications in functional areas. Businesses that implement Internet conferencing to address a specific need, with tangible goals, will be more successful. Identify applications that will reduce sales or product cycle time (remote training, staff meetings), help you reach customers and prospects more efficiently (Web seminars), facilitate communication within remote work groups (weekly project meetings) or improve investor relations (Web-based quarterly earnings updates, shareholder meetings).
	Organizations already using audio and videoconferencing should add Web-based conferencing to enhance meeting practices. Advances in Web-based technology now make it possible to meet with others via the Web to collaborate on projects, present information and reach new customers in ways never before imagined. The survey shows that employees are comfortable using the Internet and welcome new collaborative solutions.
	When selecting an Internet conferencing provider, companies should focus on quality as their chief criterion, choose a provider offering solutions that enhance the meeting experience and minimize technical obstacles. The underlying technology should be transparent to the participants. Other requirements, such as ease of use and secure transmission, rank lower on the list of user needs.
	Organizations should establish a policy that requires business travelers to consider audio, video or Web conferencing as an alternative. If travel is warranted, Internet use while on business trips will help employees manage professional and personal duties, while reducing the stress of travel. Remote access during travel helps professionals stay in touch with the office, manage travel plans, keep in touch with family and attend to personal tasks such as banking and shopping.
	Remember that technology is simply the means to an end – the real focus is collaboration. Web-based conferencing tools enable us to work in new ways. But collaboration is a process, not an automatic result of having people connected electronically. Organizations that invest in the technology without a commitment (training, executive-level endorsement, specific objectives, improvement in meeting skills) to new collaborative processes are not likely to reap the benefits of these promising new tools.

15 Applications for Recording Skype Calls

Nadine — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:45:05 +0000

Adapted from VoIP-sol.com

There are lots of ways to record your Skype calls easily, allowing you to save them on your computer or external drive. You can listen to them later or you can record a call and create a podcast to post on your blog or distribute to your ipod or mp3 player.

Here is a collection of the best apps for recording Skype as reported in VoIP-sol.com . While some of the applications are free, most of them are moderately priced. The list is divided into separate sections for Windows and Mac.

Here are 10 recording applications (mostly shareware, some freeware) for Windows that can record Skype calls. Most also offer various other capabilities, such as recording streaming audio from the internet or connected devices.

Freecorder (Windows) – Easy to use recording app for Windows with pause / resume recording, automatic silence elimination. Saves your Skype conversations as an MP3.
Hot Recorder (Windows) – Easily share recorded conversations, voicemail and has a wide range of funny sounds to insert into a recording. Also has capability to convert files.
i-Sound (Windows) – Records your conversations and internet radio with real-time noise reduction.
KishKish SAM (Windows) – Records and saves conversations. Has a built-in stress detector that picks up stress levels from voice. Can be recorded in CD quality or saved as MP3.
MixCast Live (Windows) – Easily record Skype calls, then podcast them for all to listen to.
Pamela (Windows) – Skype-certified app for recording calls. Free, optional upgrades available.
PowerGramo (Windows) – Can record incoming and outgoing calls, easy to share recordings with friends and associates. Free, optional Pro version.
PrettyMay (Windows) – Record and replay calls easily, saves as MP3 and makes sharing simple. Also use Skypeout credit from regular phone.
SkyLook (Windows) – Records Skype calls as an MP3 and makes them quickly available within Outlook.
Total Recorder (Windows) – Record calls and save as MP3, WAV, WMA or Ogg.

And a few Mac apps for recording Skype calls. Most are standalone apps, Call Recorder is a Skype plugin. I’ve also found a workaround using GarageBand and 2 other apps to record your calls in OS X.

Audio Hijack (Mac – Universal) – Quickly and easily save audio from almost any application to an AIFF file. Slick integration with OS X. Free, optional upgrade offering ability to tweak sound.
Call Recorder (Mac) – Skype plugin to record conversations and save as AAC, or convert to MP3.
GarageBand – Workaround: uses 2 other apps, LineIn (Universal – free) and Soundflower (Universal – free). If you don’t want to spend extra on a dedicated app, try this.
Nicecast (Mac – Universal) – Podcasting app that can be setup to record from Skype.
WireTap Pro (Mac – Universal) – Powerful app to record and save Skype calls directly into your iTunes library or onto your iPod. Also can record streaming audio from internet. Variable file formats available for saving.