Dimdim myScreen 6 is here!

We just upgraded all existing accounts to the new Dimdim 6 and will roll this out officially on Tuesday at 8 am ET (so keep it quiet until then)

There are tons of new features including 4-way video chat, secure document sharing, polls, mashups and dozens of other improvements we'll tell you more about next week. 

One of the coolest enhancements is the new myScreen plug-in: you can now share your entire desktop, a region of your screen or just a single application!  We've redesigned the UI for both hosts and attendees to make screen sharing even easier.

I think the best way to celebrate the new myScreen is with this video I just finished last night.  Enjoy!

Make Easy Money with Dimdim

We just added a new benefit to Dimdim Pro and Dimdim Webinar accounts: free money!

That's right - now simply refer friends and colleagues to try or buy Dimdim and you can earn big money. Like up to $120 per referral!  And there is no limit to the amount of cash you can earn!  And just like everything else about Dimdim we made it super easy. 

Just watch this video for all the details and start earning cash today!

What's more, we automatically put $25 into all Dimdim Pro and Dimdim Webinar accounts and have sent these paying customers an email today detailing their own special referral code with a built-in coupon to promote Dimdim Webinar and help their friends save big. Check your email and spam filter for a message from Dimdim Web Conferencing to get all the details and act fast because that coupon code expires on Dec 15th.

When Traffic Gets Bad, Web Conference with Dimdim

Last night around midnight all my phones rang (courtesy of Google Voice) and the person on the other end told me of the emergency closing of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge.  Apparently a cable snapped and now the bridge is closed indefinitely.  This bridge carries tens of thousands of commuters to San Francisco businesses each morning with no easy alternative.  So within seconds we created our Dimdim Bay Bridge campaign: instead of dealing with the terrible traffic commute, simply Dimdim to work! 

Just go to bit.ly/bay-bridge and sign up for Dimdim in seconds.  You can hold meetings up to 20 people for free, or try Dimdim Pro or Dimdim Webinar for 30 days for free!

Just our way of helping people telecommute and stay happier!

Remember, just because you can't drive freely, you can still meet freely!

Learn the secret to a great web meeting

What is the secret to a great web meeting?

Wayne Turmel, the president of www.greatwebmeetings.com, offers his suggestions for a great web meeting.

Any meeting is great if it does three things:

1. Accomplishes what it set out to do
2. Doesn’t take longer than necessary
3. Doesn’t bore everyone to tears
   

First, you have to decide what it is you want the meeting to do and why a web meeting is the best way to accomplish it. Take the time to plan your meeting:

• Who will participate? Do you want everyone to be able to speak at once or do you want them to use the Chat feature to comment and ask questions?  Most importantly… do the people you invited need to be there? Nothing drives an audience crazier than being forced to attend a web meeting they have no opinion about, input into or stake in. 
• What information needs to be shared and how will you share it? (Think collaboration tools, PowerPoint files, application sharing, documents). Pick the best way to make your point quickly.
• How long is your meeting? Anything over 40 minutes and you’re on borrowed time. Remember, two short meetings are much more productive than one long one. If you can share some information or get people thinking about topics before the meeting it can speed things up considerably. Preparation is key.
• Have you told them what to expect? Always let the audience know what the expected outcome is and how long you expect it to take. If they know it will be an hour, and at the end of it you’ll have a decision on the Johnson project, they’re more willing to hang in there than if they have no idea how long the pain will last or what the meeting is about.
• Are you building in chances for people to participate? The more you actively engage them, the longer they’ll stay interested. If it’s a one way data dump, you’ll lose them shortly. Think about asking questions that require written input, you can have them vote agree/disagree with their response buttons, if their microphones are live, let them talk and ask questions as you go instead of holding them til the end. RULE OF THUMB… you should never go more than 3-4 PowerPoint slides without some kind of interaction with your audience, even if it’s just checking in to see who’s still awake.
• Have you practiced? Nothing kills a presentation like lots of ummm, errrs, looking for lost notes or sounding like you’re reading off the page. Practice the important pieces of your presentation, make notes to yourself, and don’t be afraid to move your arms, talk loudly and look up from your script. These things all add colour to your voice. And reading your slides or notes over to yourself is not practicing. Practice out loud… in real time….. a lot.

Wayne Turmel is the president of www.greatwebmeetings.com, a company that specializes in helping people use web-based presentation tools to do more than simply present, but to communicate and connect. He is also the host of the Cranky Middle Manager Show podcast, and doesn’t suffer bad meetings well. He can be reached at +1 630 347-8369 or wturmel@greatwebmeetings.com

Using free HR webinars to reach new customers

I recently had a chance to speak with Erik Bartz, Marketing Manager at Pivotal HR Solutions.  To better reach potential customers, Erik started a program offering free webinars.   Like many companies they use Dimdim to provide sales demos, but Erik wanted to do more to develop better relationships with their prospective customers.

Once a month they host a webinar on relevant HR topics.  (They even offer a full list of topics with descriptions on their site.) While some companies we work with use this type of webinar to move into new markets, for Erik it's about better reaching customers in the Toronto area. 

Many companies are looking to move their events online like Erik has done, so I asked how he manages the sessions and what he recommends.  For each of their webinars, Erik acts as host and moderator.  He uploads the presentations, manages the microphones for the consultants presenting, and monitors the public (text) chat.  He even puts a placeholder slide at the front of the slide deck for the attendees that join the meeting before the presentation begins and to remind himself to hit the 'Record' button.

Each consultant presents on their topic for about 15-20 minutes before they take questions from attendees.  Erik’s found that having another person control the slides and use the laser pointer to highlight key items frees up their consultants to focus on the topic.

When someone registers for these sessions, they get a confirmation email, then starting 3 days before the event they get daily reminders, with the final reminder going 1 hour before event.  Erik has found this helps to promote good attendance. 

When Erik was looking for a platform to help him make this happen, he started with Dimdim Free.  Once he was comfortable Dimdim suited their needs, he purchased a Dimdim Pro account primarily for the ability to add their own logo to the meeting room.  He also set up a redirect to a satisfaction survey when attendees exit the webinar.

Attendance to their webinars continues to grow.  If you're in the Toronto area and are looking for HR solutions, check out their HR Resource Centre.

Thanks,

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Dimdim Community Manager
e: kevin@dimdim.com / Twitter: @dimdim

Have an interesting story?  Tell us about it!

We must be doing well if our biggest competitor resorts to spreading false information

David Chao of Cisco/WebEx published an article yesterday (9/16/2009) on "The Web Conferencing Blog" called "Dimdim Review".  The idea that he (as a competitor) would publish a "review" of Dimdim surprised me.  The fact that he would base his review on false information shocked me. 

Three and a half years ago Dimdim was created because the existing web conferencing tools weren't doing what the team needed and they were too expensive.  The goal was (and continues to be) to democratize web conferencing.  We want web conferencing to be available for everyone, not just large companies with big budgets.  

We not only built the technology, we built our own data centers to host the service.  

In the blog David says:

It's a testament to the work we've done if David feels our only risks are based on a relationship with Amazon (that doesn't exist.)  Dimdim can run on Amazon EC2, and a few customers have chosen to do that, but they are the exception.  David goes on to say:

I'm most offended by this article because David presents it as a "Review" of Dimdim, when in fact it's a technique some of our customers have told us the WebEx sales staff uses.  I seriously thought a company like Cisco wouldn't resort to tactics like this.

We're either being attacked for our CEO's comments that "WebEx is history" or because our work to democratize web conferencing is hitting too close to home for them.  I understand it's tough to compete with free web conferencing when you're a big expensive player, but it's not acceptable to create fiction for your arguments.

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim
facebook: dimdim.com/facebook

p.s. In the interest of fairness, I did post a comment to David's blog  around 9am EST this morning (9/17/2009) to clarify that we do not use Amazon's EC2 infrastructure, but it has since been removed.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Draft Your Fantasy Football Team Online & WIN PRIZES!

I was talking to my cousin Mike this week and he gave me a great idea. Then I heard from my friend at FanDraft, a fantasy football live draft tool. Because so many people draft their Fantasy Football teams in person or via the phone, Dimdim is a great solution to save them time, money and travel. After all, fantasy football is about making some money and winning...so let Dimdim save you some money and help you win!

Here is how to use Dimdim to draft your team:

1. Sign up for Dimdim for free. You'll be able to host draft sessions with up to 20 people on your fantasy football team. (if you need bigger rooms you can easily upgrade at any time.)

2. Schedule a Dimdim meeting for draft day and enter the email addresses of your draft partners - an invitation will be sent automatically. Or grab our instant Webinar Widget and post it on your site or blog or tweet it to your partners & teammates.

3. Start your Dimdim meeting on draft day and share your desktop or web browser. Your partners all join via the link in the email and instantly see your computer screen while everyone talks to each other via the telephone conference bridge that comes with Dimdim for free.

4. Now collaborate in real time and pick that great team together! And don't worry, none of your draft partners need to install anything to help you pick the best players.

Ready... Set... Dimdim!

P.S. If you sign up for Dimdim or follow or RT @Dimdim or tweet #DimdimFantasy between now and Sept 13 you can win Madden 10 with a PS3, XBox or Wii system and FanDraft software! We're celebrating Dimdim, Madden and Fantasy Football!

Here is Kevin and Lou with the stuff you can win!

Here is the video description of the aforementioned Webinar Widget:

Online interviews and web conferencing

If our hiring process was the same as rest of our industry then we would build an organization like the rest of the industry. We aspire to do better. We want to attract exceptional players and build a great team. And I can guarantee you that Dimdimmers are exceptional not only in terms of skills but also in terms of being a team.

It is my belief that organizations fail not because they lack vision. Look around you and you will find that for each successful company that had a great vision there are dozens of failures with the same vision. Organizations fail because they cannot execute. And organizations cannot execute not because of the lack of talented individuals but because these individuals are not able to play as a team. The main reason for great players not playing as a cohesive force is culture. So the cultural fit between the individual and the existing team is of utmost importance.

When it comes to interviewing there are two different philosophies for determining cultural-fit between the candidate and the company. The first is called the behavioral method. In this method the candidate is asked a series of insightful questions, such as - “Are you a team player?”; What does the interviewer expect to hear? “No, I am not a team player?”; Some interviewers get sophisticated by asking, “Give me an example from your past experience when you played as a team player.”; Again, what’s the expectation here? Does the interviewer expect the candidate to say, “I am sorry I am drawing a complete blank on that one?”; If the candidate does say that then the interviewer can see that there isn’t an alignment between the company’s goals and the candidate’s goals. But a smart candidate knows what the interviewer wants to hear. And so the interviewer is faced with a dilemma - “I am being told this answer because the candidate knows that this is what I want to hear? Or is this really true?”; The interviewer can never make a positive decision based on the answer - unless he’s a trained psychoanalyst and most of us are not.

The second method is a task oriented approach. This is what we use at Dimdim. In the first conversation, the candidate is not asked any questions. He’s urged to ask us questions with the second conversation in mind. In the second conversation, the candidate delivers a presentation on a certain topic. For example, a potential VP of Sales might be asked to present a sales plan for the first six months. An engineer might be asked to learn and present on a topic that he knows nothing about.

We have seen that candidate’s questions tell us much more about her than the answers to those insightful behavioral questions. Which should not be surprising because questions are more interesting than answers - aren’t they?

During the presentation (which of course, is done using the candidate’s Dimdim Free web conference account) we look for 3 abilities. 1. Communication ability 2. Ability to learn 3. Ability to execute. We are usually able to decide within the first few minutes whether we have a hire or not.

This is the process we have followed for every hire. We know it works and btw, we are looking for a great VP of Sales.

Free web conferencing just got bigger

We recently introduced a new benefit for our Dimdim Free members: refer a friend and your Dimdim room automatically gets bigger!

It is super easy:

1. Log into your Dimdim Free account
2. Click Refer a friend
3. Invite your friends

For each friend who signs up, your Dimdim Free room size will automatically grow to accommodate 5 more people (up to 100).

We'll be giving away a prize each day to a random friend who accepts an invite. Check back daily for winners and prizes or follow @dimdim on Twitter.

Thanks!

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
twitter: @dimdim

New Headquarters for Dimdim Free Webinars & Web Conferencing

This week we officially moved into our new offices in the Cross Point Towers, Lowell, MA. As we're settling in I'll add more pictures. For now, here are some shots of how the space was transformed for us.

Thanks!

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim
facebook: dimdim.com/facebook

Experience the Dimdim Live Webinar! Register at:
http://www.dimdim.com/aboutus/events.html