As many of you know, I’ve been a fan of DimDim for quite some time, so it’s with heavy heart that I pass on the info that unless you’re a SalesForce user, whenever your current license with DimDim ends this year, you’re going to be moving on to another platform.

Here’s a page of FAQs they’ve posted to help you make plans…

Passing the box of tissues around. I really have enjoyed using DimDim. On the bright side: this acquisition signals the movement of virtual meetings into mainstream business processes, especially in the sales realm.

If you haven’t already incorporated virtual meetings into your business processes, THIS is the year to do so. If you’d like some help, I’d love to coach you and your people to make the easiest possible transitions…

Amplify’d from www.dimdim.com

Frequently Asked Questions

How long will my service be available? Will I be able to access my recordings after my account is no longer available? How can I keep them? I have uploaded documents to my Dimdim account. What will happen to them? My account is on an automatic renewal, what will happen to my credit card information? I am interested in upgrading my account or extending my subscription, can I do this? I just signed up for an annual plan. How long will my account be available? I would like a refund. We have integrated with the Dimdim API. Will you be preserving that functionality? What will happen to the Open Source version of Dimdim? Will I now need to call Salesforce.com for support until my subscription expires? I still have questions. Who can I speak with?

How long will my service be available? Monthly accounts will be available until March 15. Annual accounts are available until their current subscription ends. You can determine the expiration date of your subscription by logging into your account at my.dimdim.com. Will I be able to access my recordings after my account is no longer available? How can I keep them?? Your recordings will no longer be available after your account expires. You can download your recording files and chat transcripts before then. See the Knowledge Base for instructions on downloading recordings and transcripts. I have uploaded documents to my Dimdim account. What will happen to them? The documents will no longer be available after your account expires. We recommend you download any documents you need before then. See the Knowledge Base for instructions on downloading documents. My account is on an automatic renewal, what will happen to my credit card information? Dimdim does not store your credit card information. Your subscription information (including credit card number) is stored in a recurring subscription on PayPal. All recurring Dimdim subscriptions on PayPal will be deleted. No further renewals will be offered. I am interested in upgrading my account or extending my subscription, can I do this? Account upgrades and renewals are no longer available. I just signed up for an annual plan. How long will my account be available? Your annual account will be fully functional until your subscription expiration date. Your subscription expiration date is available in your account at my.dimdim.com. I would like a refund. All accounts will be maintained with full functionality until their expiration dates. We will not issue refunds. We have integrated with the Dimdim API. Will you be preserving that functionality? Current API functionality will be maintained for all active subscriptions. What will happen to the Open Source version of Dimdim? The open source code made available by Dimdim remains available on SourceForge.net. Dimdim will no longer be contributing to this project. Will I now need to call Salesforce.com for support until my subscription expires? No. Customers will be able to access support through existing Dimdim Support channels. I still have questions. Who can I speak with? If your question has not been answered in this FAQ, please email the question to Dimdim Community Manager, Kevin Micalizzi, at info@dimdim.com. Read more at www.dimdim.com

It’s 100% true. You can use your computer and free virtual meeting tools to grow your income and enrich important relationships. Take a look:

I love these Verishow clips because they show real-world situations with real people that are easy to relate to.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah…they might be actors. But they’re behaving just like real people. I have meetings like this every day with my clients, using a desktop computer or my laptop – from my home office, a coffee shop, or a hotel room. No kidding!)

If you took a couple of minutes to watch, you saw that virtual meetings really can be like child’s play!  Fast and easy for the host – and clients love them. They save everyone time, money, and hassle – whether you’re across town or across the globe from each other.

So…. The question is, if virtual meetings are really this easy, what’s keeping you from using them for 40-60% of your work?

That’s a real question.

Your answer might be something like:

1) I can’t believe it’s actually that easy – there must be a catch.
2) I don’t want to be chained to a desk on a computer.
3) I hate the way I look on a webcam.
4) I don’t want my privacy invaded all the time.
5) To use virtual meetings with my clients, I’d have to change so many things about the way I do business … and I don’t have time to do that right now.

Or something similar. I’ve heard a hundred reasons since I opened my practice as “The Virtual Meeting Coach” and launched Virtual Meeting Startup.

Every reason people have for not already using virtual meetings with their clients holds the seed of a legitimate concern. But not one of them is a serious obstacle. Not one. Certainly there are concerns to address, and ways you’ll need to tailor your approach to make it fit your clients. But every day, I’m helping small- and mid-sized business owners – just like you – quickly work through the challenges.

So, go ahead! Take the plunge! Just sign up now so you can use Verishow, ShowDocument, DimDim or vYew – or something similar – and start doing this week what you see happening in these clips! All four of those tools have robust free versions- and there lots of others like them.

HERE’S A LEG UP, NO STRINGS ATTACHED

On the other hand, if you can’t bring yourself to take the plunge on your own… but you want to be able to meet with your clients this way in 2011 – I want to offer you a leg up right now. To get it, you can use THE CONTACT BUTTON at Virtual Meeting Startup and ask for a FREE 30-minute private consultation with me.

I’ll listen to you, ask a few questions, and make some free recommendations based on your unique situation and the needs of your clients and customers.

ONLY TWO SEATS LEFT IN THE FALL GROUP COACHING PROGRAM

The Fall session of my 10-Week Online Group Coaching Program begins the week of September 19th. I’ve got 2 seats left in this group. And, if your situation is one that could really benefit from you being part of a learning group, I don’t want you to miss the chance to sign up for the next cycle.

Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founder of Interplay, was a participant in the Spring session of the program. Here’s something she said about her experience:

The Madhatter’s Program was great for my learning curve. In spite of personal and job time constraints, it’s proof that when the heart and mind are in the right place, things work. Meri was the perfect coach for me at this time! Her spirit of fun, play, and that its OK to fail help the change become incremental, instead of overwhelming.

I love Meri’s accessibility and the amount of practice she’s had. It’s also fun learning who the other Madhatters are and sharing with one another.

One more time, here’s a link to the contact form to request a free 30-minute private consultation with me.

C U soon~!

Back in the 6th century BC, Lao-Tzu said:

“Failure is the foundation of success. Success is the lurking place of failure.”

So, during this fifth month of the year 2010, I’ve been wondering if this means that sometimes the fastest route to success is right through failure. What do you think?

For the last 10 days, I’ve been participating in a collegial exchange at LinkedIn in a learning, education and training group. One member of the group raised the question,”What do you think the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tzu, meant when he said, ‘Failure is the foundation of success…success is the lurking place of failure?’”

Folks from around the globe have been weighing in on this question from a many perspectives. While I’m not any kind of authoritative interpreter of Lao-Tzu, I found myself provoked by the quotation and the question, too. I shared that it seems to me that…

“…Live, experiential learning environments provide real-world feedback. And this always includes feedback about failure. If we already knew how to do something, we’d already be doing it, right? I find experiential learn-by-doing environments with small-group coaching to be the fastest route to success. And it goes right through failure…”

I went on to describe a bit about the Madhatters Tea Party Group Coaching Programs as high-fun, low-pressure learning environments in which small groups of experienced trainers, coaches and consultants are transitioning from delivering high-value services in face-to-face meetings to delivering services in the very different environment of virtual meetings.

I shared with the group that I have deliberately designed the Madhatters Group Coaching Programs so that all participants – both Madhatters and Virtual Tea Partiers – have a chance to learn from their personal successes and failures as well as others’.

This means there’s not a lot of one-on-one handholding or upfront explanation going on in the Madhatters Virtual Tea Parties. There is quite a bit of communication through email and in two private online learning spaces – one for the Madhatters and one for the Virtual Tea Partiers. But, in the end, both coaching programs are based on two presumptions:

1)  Adults have enrolled because they want to learn more about using free or very low-cost virtual meeting tools in a safe, laughter-filled learning space and
2)  Everyone will be learning by doing.

IS A VIRTUAL MEETING COACH A DRIVERS’ ED TEACHER, A DIRECTOR, OR BOTH?
This means both the Madhatter presenters and their friends, followers and fans – the Virtual Tea Partiers – receive weekly guidance and coaching. But the Monday afternoon Virtual Tea Parties are always more like zany “on-the-job training” sessions than like “recitals.”

I’m calling the sessions Madhatters Tea Parties because so many of our expectations for how human beings can and should behave when we’re “meeting” are turned upside down, inside out, and backwards. That’s just the truth of the matter in virtual meetings, isn’t it?

Each week everyone has an opportunity to learn by doing. There have, so far, been some delightful displays of genius! There have also been some gnarly difficulties getting the free online tools to work as promised and some problems with participants’ computer and phone equipment. Sometimes things happen as planned, sometimes they don’t. Either way, there’s a ton of learning going on – via both successes and failures. Sometimes there’s frustration, but no one’s getting hurt.

A current Madhatter participant, Cynthia Winton-Henry, one of the co-founders of Interplay, calls me her “Driver’s Ed Teacher.” Another Hatter calls me her “Director.” She says I’m eliciting new kinds of creativity and performance from her well-honed talents – stuff she didn’t know she had available. From my side of the game, both “driver’s ed teacher” and “director” seem like pretty useful metaphors for the two ends of the spectrum we’re developing. On the one hand, none of the Hatters has run a truly interactive virtual meeting before and they all need to master the connectivity tools. On the other, every one of them is already a proven trainer, coach and/or consultant who knows her stuff inside out and upside down and only needs help repackaging her “magic” for delivery at a distance.

NEW CHOICES CAN BE OVERWHELMING
Using sound and text and visual images, simultaneously with other people – at a distance – can be a bit overwhelming for people using web meeting tools for the first time. It can be a big surprise to be not only permitted – but expected – to do more than sit passively and observe others’ slideshows or software demos.

Faced with the need to choose where to put their attention, some participants – Madhatters and Virtual Tea Partiers, alike – have frozen or gotten really frustrated. Do I track the continuous flow in the public text chat, start up a private text chat with someone I know, draw or write on the whiteboard or the presenters’ slides, or just use the telephone bridge to speak? HELP! When what you’re wanting to do is be as fully present as you can with others, that’s a lot to figure out at once!

Other participants – those who’ve already acquired a taste for and some experience with multi-media – have found themselves so stimulated and excited by all the channels available to connect that they’ve been using all the channels at once! Which makes a lot of noise – both visual and auditory.

And from my perspective, all of this is just perfect! Learning by doing – in a deliberately managed and intentionally playful learning space – allows adults at different skill levels to learn what they need at their own pace.

FRESH, HOT, ADVICE FROM THE FIELD
This week, I’ve asked Susan Kramer-Pope, our fourth Madhatter hostess, to share her best advice about leading your first virtual meeting, based on the tricky experience we had together Monday in DimDim.

Here’s Susan sharing with me and Tom Carroll, from EvolutionaryLearning.com, who’s been our background photographer and my valued thinking partner throughout this Virtual Meeting Camp.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN
Now that you’ve heard from Susan, will you share your best advice for her – and other experienced trainers, coaches, and consultants – as they make their journey towards virtual meeting mastery? If you’ll do this, I promise I’ll compile all your responses and publish them here on the blog!

Both the Madhatters and Madhatters Virtual Tea Party 6-Week Virtual Meeting Campers asked me today if I could provide them with some lists of virtual meeting tools, so I’m sharing some links to places interested people can find these kinds of lists online:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_conferencing_software
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pe48NjIzZGzkWcXotfwoseg
http://www.webconferencing-test.com/en/webconference_home.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~icy/conference.html
http://www.kolabora.com/news/2007/06/22/web_conferencing_tools_and_technology.htm

There are dozens of these kinds of lists online! Maybe hundreds of them. You can do your own research just as easily as you can follow these links. You’ll find a ton of information about meeting tools and their various features.

I don’t provide some “Virtual Meeting Coach” list of virtual meeting tools because as soon as I issued a list of tools, it would be obsolete. Features are being added weekly, new companies are coming online weekly, and companies that have had great tools in the virtual meeting space are going broke and going offline weekly.

So, those of you who are getting excited in the Madhatters Tea Parties and want to start testing and researching other options outside DimDim right now, please feel free to kick off your own research using these links. I also encourage you to do your own Google searches on virtual meetings, web conferencing, online meetings, etc. so you locate the most current data about what’s available right now.

No Magic Pills or Siskel and Ebert Reviews

I wish I could just give all of you a “pill” or some definitive list that would allow you to point a finger and just pick the right tool for you. But, frankly, that would be about as useful as providing you an index of all the pharmaceuticals on the market for depression (or some other complex illness). A list of pharmaceuticals doesn’t tell you anything about how the drugs really work in real human bodies with complex needs. And neither do tables of virtual meeting tools tell you what will “make the perfect virtual office for you.”

The tool(s )you choose to use will depend on the interaction of three fundamental factors:

1) What you do well – what your “Lion” strengths are (remembering our first Madhatters Tea Party?)
2) What it is you want to accomplish with your clients/coworkers at a distance.
3) What your clients/coworkers want from you – at a distance – and how they are willing to receive it from you.

The sites above offer a variety of ranking systems. Unfortunately, the criteria used for the ranking are anything but standardized. I wish I could change that. But, that’s just the way it is. Virtual meeting use is an art … not a science… And we’re operating in a volatile economy that’s changing the ways we think about working together every week. So the science is going to take awhile longer. Like maybe a decade or so…

There’s a Reason I’ve Become the Virtual Meeting Coach

And, it’s not to hawk virtual meeting tools for a sales commission. I’m an independent communication consultant who has been advising and coaching people in the skillful use of face-to-face interactive meeting strategies and electronic messaging tools for over two decades. I don’t have a “favorite” virtual meeting tool because there are mountains of things that people want and need to be able to do in virtual meetings. Many tools do some of those things pretty well and none of them that do all of them perfectly. Not even close.

So, I hung out my shingle about two years ago now in the interest of saving people time and money in your research and development processes. I delight in helping people identify ways you can take what you do best and port your special sauce into online meetings. Then, I like helping you frost the cake by tailoring your online meeting and business processes so you get the full value and delight available from the tools(s) you choose to use.

I love coaching individuals (and groups) through a step-by-step process that helps you quickly clarify what’s true for you about the three factors above. And then I’ll help you select and practice with the tool(s) that will best fit you and your clients’ needs. If you want more, I also offer groups in which I coach people in the adaptation of their favorite face-to-face engagement strategies to virtual meetings. I want my clients to make meeting with them virtually a true pleasure for others – instead of a pain in the #ss.

By all means, if you would enjoy spending your time doing the research yourself, please start with the links above. It’s horribly time-consuming but also great fun uncovering all the new stuff out there.

On the other hand, if you’d rather spend your time making money with your core business processes – and you’d like to save substantial trial and error time – you can hire me to consult and coach you quickly through the process of transitioning some of them online.

The Madhatters Tea Party Group Coaching Programs are one highly affordable way I’ve set up to help people learn and practice in small groups. I also work privately with clients who really need to speed things up by focusing on their specific needs in a one-on-one setting.

I offer a FREE 20-minute virtual meeting consultation to anyone thinks you’re ready to get started so you can see if you think we’d be a good fit. Feel free to use the contact form at VirtualMeetingStartup to set up a free consultation.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know I’m crazy about all kinds of virtual meeting tools. And in this economy, I’m especially crazy about helping people practice their chops using some of the fabulous new FREE tools.

DimDim is one of the best of the free web conferencing, virtual meeting, internet conferencing, online meeting tools out there. They recently published a new set of simple setup tutorials and if you’re ready to dive in and explore, you can’t go wrong using them. Go here to find a well-organized set of tutorials.

Then, when you’re ready to focus on how to think about and organize your virtual meetings so you get – and keep – the rapport you need with the folks you’re meeting with, come back and see me here. Your next step? Get yourself a copy of The Coach’s Short List and sign up for my next live – or online – training.

It’s not rocket science learning to setup and use virtual meeting tools skillfully.  It’s also not something most people want to do without some help – until they get good at both the technical part AND the relationship part. That’s what I’m here for.

DimDim just made it a lot easier to get started!

I can’t count the number of people who have asked me in the last month for a list of apps that might help them simplify their meeting scheduling processes. I haven’t had time to compile a list like that yet, but now I’m not going to bother. Readwriteweb.com just published a great post yesterday that lists 10 top apps. You can find it here.

I like TimeBridge a lot and it integrates seamlessly into DimDim for virtual meetings. I also use Doodle regularly with multi-party local and nonlocal groups, like project teams, committees and boards. Until I saw the post at ReadWriteWeb, I hadn’t heard about Tungle, but it looks very cool so I just signed up.

If you’re ready to simplify your meeting scheduling life, this list is a great place to start.

One activity ripe for re-engineering is the the way we do project update meetings which, in their traditional form, can be expensive, time-consuming, and not always terribly productive.The mission of most project meetings is to update project participants on work status.

Even today, most project meetings are organized for speed rather than quality and seldom incorporate more than basic participation. But this is starting to change. In the last few years, dispersed teams have begun experimenting with new approaches to project meetings, including the use of live, two-way and group conversations held online in multimedia web conference rooms.

Enough practical experience has been accumulated that it’s now possible to draw some conclusions about two-way and group web conferencing. The good news is that it can lower costs, save time, improve quality, and enable more people to participate more often. Taken together, these benefits have the potential to help business managers boost productivity.

Project conferences that utilize webconferencing need careful planning and may require some technical and production support. But when properly planned and implemented, virtual meetings deliver at least five significant benefits:

1. Cost savings Without the need for air and ground travel, hotel lodging, dining, and so forth, a full-service e-meeting costs, on average, about one-fifth as much as a traditional on-site meeting.

2. Higher attendance – It is totally possible to conduct electronic meetings that generate attendance rates as high as or higher than traditional on-site meetings – in the 90-100 percent range. But this is unlikely to happen unless the web conference is supported by a well-planed invitation campaign.

To some people, a “web conference” can seem less important than an on-site meeting. To get around this bias, your invitation process needs to convey the importance of the meeting and include a series of reminder communications in the days (and/or hours) prior to the meeting.

The Coach’s Short List offers a time-tested template for setting up and managing your invitation process. While web meeting setup does need to be handled carefully, experience shows that e-meetings can have an even higher rate of participation than on-site meetings because of the convenience of attending (saving traffic time, etc.).

3. Simultaneous tracking, assessing, reinforcement of group agreements and learning - Virtual meeting rooms, especially those equipped to record meetings, have built-in support for displaying and tracking the real-time participation of all meeting partiipants. Recordings can provide valuable off-line reinforcement of agreements reached as well as documentation of new issues that may have arisen during the meeting. Visual elements including slides, whiteboard sketches, and live document edits allow you to more fully engage meeting participants and can also be shared later with team members who might not have been able to attend the meeting in real-time.

4. More time and effort on task – Holding project management meetings in various geographic locations to accommodate team members can consume a great deal of travel time and cause significant wear and tear on the whole team. Sparing travel time by making it possible for people to meet from the convenience of their own offices not only saves expenses, it focuses critical human energies on crucial project tasks instead of travel.

5. Increased understanding for non-native speakers – The opportunity to share and annotate slides, sketches, documents, spreadsheets, pictures and more in virtual conference rooms can reduce or eliminate potential misunderstanding, especially in situations where one language is dominant among some project members, but not all of them. Second-language challenges are lessened when project updates take place in virtual conference rooms equipped with voice, video sharing, whiteboards, photo display, text chat and video display functions.

Real-time access to data in multiple formats can significantly reduce delays and potentially damaging misunderstandings, especially when recordings are posted so they can be reviewed at a later time to verify what was communicated.

A COUPLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS

If you’re a regular reader, you know how much I like to use the free web conferencing tools. Recent episodes of The Virtual Meeting Coach Show, for instance, were recorded in a vYew room. In addition to vYew, two other full-featured free tools I enjoy using and recommending to clients are DimDim and WiZiQ.

DimDim was designed with business audiences in mind and has a high-end look and feel that may be just what you need for your group. WiZiQ is a full-featured virtual classroom, created to make learning with others at a distance – and in real-time – real easy. (WiZiQ is also a social-network for teachers and learners of all kinds and includes a dedicated group for project managers that you can join for free and learn wit peers!)

DimDim

WiZiQ

Both tools are full-featured online conference platforms that offer real-time access to voice conferencing (with or without webcams), video and photo sharing, live text chat, desktop sharing, and interactive whiteboards that make it easy for groups to take notes together in real-time, including annotating slide presentations. Both also offer recording capabilities and the ability to embed your recordings in websites, blogs, or moodles. DimDim offers the added benefit of direct integration with Facebook and Yahoo’s collaborative messaging app, Zimbra.

You can sign up to use the free versions of both programs with no obligation for as long as you’d like. If you decide you like one – or both – both sites offer very reasonably priced premium/pro memberships that include more features, offer more seats for participants, and the option of branding your meetings with your personal or company logo. Neither will break the bank.

You can try DimDim here.
You can try WiZiQ here.

If you’re on the hunt for ways to save money and time and boost productivity in your project meetings, I recommend you try out one or both of these platforms with your team. I’ve had great success using all three – vYew, DimDim, and WiZiQ- with a variety of groups!

In future posts, I’ll have more to say about a handful of other specialty web conferencing tools that sport fewer bells and whistles than these full-featured tools but work just great when you don’t need a Full-Meal Deal.

I don’t know about you, but I’m watching the economic news from the sidelines.

On the one hand, things look truly bleak. Some days the future’s so far in the RED that it almost looks BLACK.

On the other hand, with everything in the toilet – now including the US auto industry – there’s a lot more room for new possibilities.

I never thought I’d find myself feeling gleeful watching so many things and so many concepts we’ve considered “valuable” get flushed away all at once. But as the news gets worse and worse, I find I’m often feeling better and better.

Call me perverse.

Maybe I’m finally getting the wisdom of hopelessness Meg Wheatley wrote about after 9/11.

Whatever it is,  besides feeling surprisingly okay watching most of my lifesavings float away,  I’m also getting more and more excited about helping friends and other independent business people develop their “telepresence.” Because it’s time now. Really time!

We simply have to do some things differently if we expect to save money and save time for what’s really important in 2009. And using social media – including virtual meetings – is one of the best ways I know to augment close business and personal relationships without driving and flying all over the place all the time.

So, what is “telepresence?”

The way I use that new word, “telepresence,” is a little different than the way the manufacturers of the expensive, high-definition video conferencing systems are using it. I’m not talking about buying and installing $50-$300K remote viewing systems in your home office.

For me, “telepresence” is a way of referring to your skill at being present with people you’re not able to be in the same room with.

Understood this way, “telepresence” has nothing to do with hardware and very little to do with software.

Instead, “telepresence” is about using your telephone, IM, text messaging, and now virtual meeting rooms in ways that make people feel like you’re with them, even when you’re across town, across the country, or across the globe from their physical bodies.

Looked at this way, telepresence is a set of engagement skills. Some of them are technical. Most of them are social. Some parts can become routine. Some will remain art and, therefore, require practice. But the good news is that all of them are FREE to develop and practice.

Skype, GTalk, DimDim, Yuuguu, Yugma, vYew, Elluminate, and WiZiQ all offer free places to practice and play with people around the block or around the globe.  New places are opening up every week. Get yourself a membership in one or more of these places and let’s practice!

Instead of wringing our hands about things too big for us to change, I’d like to suggest that the year ahead is going to be a great time to practice our “telepresence.” Like Meg Wheatley, I’m ready to “journey through this time of increasing uncertainty. Groundless, hopeless, insecure, patient, clear. And together.”

What have we got to lose?