ProtonMedia

ITExpo East - Another Great Event

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:44:15 PST

I spent some time last week at ITExpo East. It was a great event and I left with some wonderful new bits of knowledge.

I also had the opportunity to present at the event with a great panel of individuals. Our topic was: “Beyond travel avoidance – the real value of HD videoconferencing and collaboration” and it was an awsome experience.

One of the true highlights of ITExpo East was a wonderful interview with Susan Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor, regarding "Leveraging the Power of Social Collaboration". It was a great conversation and I want to thank Susan for her time and article!

This was a big show for us as we also announced (and demoed for the first time) ProtoSphere 2.0! ProtoSphere 2.0 has been a significant undertaking for ProtonMedia, and I could not be prouder of what our team has accomplished with this release. We have believed for some time that meetings alone are not real collaboration.

ProtoSphere 2.0 is an extraordinary combination of a 3D immersive environment, a deep unified communications platform, the power of social networking, and the functionality of a next generation e-learning platform, all delivered in a cost-effective cloud offering. This holistic blend of content with context will bring new levels of efficiency and creativity to knowledge-focused industries.

I look forward to sharing it to all of you!

Ron

ProtonMedia Announces ProtoSphere 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:36:38 PST

I'm very excited to announce ProtoSphere 2.0!

I wanted to share this press release with all of you.

LANSDALE, Pa.—January 26, 2012—ProtonMedia has introduced ProtoSphere 2.0, the company’s immersive business collaboration environment for the enterprise. ProtoSphere 2.0 is an innovative approach in immersive, social, learning and collaboration for global, multi-national enterprise organizations in life sciences, health care, insurance, consumer products, high-tech, energy/manufacturing, and other vertical markets. Organizations can now create an always-on virtual workspace where, at any moment, they can bring together the right people from around the globe and their content to increase the speed and effectiveness of knowledge transfer, learning, and social engagement and provide context to business-critical information.

ProtoSphere 2.0 includes major new features, including:

Deeper integration with Microsoft Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) offerings – Lync Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010. ProtoSphere 2.0 features Lync presence extending throughout the virtual immersive environment. This includes contact cards, voice conferencing, text messaging, enterprise-wide IM integration, application sharing, and the ability to invite individuals to join you directly in ProtoSphere with just a single click. ProtoSphere 2.0 also has compatibility with Microsoft Office Communicator.

Enhanced integration with Microsoft SharePoint 2010. ProtoSphere 2.0 includes integration with enterprise SharePoint 2010 deployments for native content storage and full read/write access to document libraries. SharePoint enterprise social networking via MySite profiles can be tied to each collaborator’s avatar in a ProtoSphere immersive engagement.

Enhanced Media Boards. New multi-content media boards within the immersive environment encourage dynamic presentations of live and stored content from multiple-sources, simultaneously, each with its own information format. All media boards can be co-viewed and discussed interactively by collaborators in a virtual social engagement. Media boards can be used to post and update content for brainstorming, forecasting, onboarding, business strategy, product development, and focus-group collaborations. Supported formats include popular Microsoft Office file-types used by PowerPoint, Word and Excel, text and image content, broadcast or stored video feeds, Adobe .pdf and Adobe Flash interactive, and any application that can run on the desktop.

Build Your Own World. Administrators and virtual session organizers can now choose their own immersive rooms and spaces and monitor permission and access to meet their specific needs on demand. This provides the ability to select from a wide range of virtual room sizes, layouts, styles, and the number and arrangement of media boards, note boards, and SharePoint boards.

Greater Moderator Controls. Moderators now have the ability to lock rooms, restricting access when meetings are in progress, and lock content within a location. Moderators can also proactively send individuals to specific locations enabling breakout meetings for corporate learning/training sessions.

An Updated UI. ProtoSphere’s new application interface focuses on the end user, removing any unnecessary clutter and providing the most immersive experience possible. A new action bar provides contextual navigation elements when needed without taking up valuable real-estate on the interface. And existing Microsoft Lync users will find familiar interface elements of that platform.

Usage Reporting and Monitoring. ProtoSphere administrators are provided the ability to run usage reports anytime they require from a simple-to-use web interface. This enables them to track the amount of time spent in different locations and overall product usage.

Secure Authentication with Federated Services. All authentication in ProtoSphere is now accomplished via a federated relationship with a trusted identity provider. This allows users access into ProtoSphere without the need to create additional accounts, and frees IT and network administrators from the burden of managing a separate user store.

“ProtoSphere 2.0 has been a significant undertaking for ProtonMedia, and I could not be prouder of what our team has accomplished with this release,” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “We have believed for some time that meetings alone are not real collaboration. ProtoSphere 2.0 is an extraordinary combination of a 3D immersive environment, a deep unified communications platform, the power of social networking, and the functionality of a next generation e-learning platform, all delivered in a cost-effective cloud offering. This holistic blend of content with context will bring new levels of efficiency and creativity to knowledge-focused industries.”

ProtoSphere 2.0 is available via ProtonMedia direct sales and select systems integrator partners and can easily be deployed within any organization through either a cloud-based SaaS offering or a traditional on-premise installation. Call 215-631-1401 for sales information.

For more information on ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s website or blog.

To download a free demo of ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s website.

Dr. Tony O'Driscoll Joins Our Advisory Board

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:43:22 PST

I would like to welcome my good friend, and mentor, Dr. Tony O’Driscoll to the ProtonMedia advisory board.

LANSDALE, Pa —January 5, 2012 – ProtonMedia, the developer of ProtoSphere, the immersive social learning and collaboration cloud environment, today announced that Dr. Tony O’Driscoll has joined the company’s Executive Advisory Board. O’Driscoll is currently a Professor of the Practice at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business where he teaches and conducts research in the areas of strategy, innovation and technology management, organization learning, services management, and management consulting.

As a member of ProtonMedia’s Executive Advisory Board, O’Driscoll joins executives from Microsoft and Polycom in providing the company’s management team with expertise and counsel on industry partnerships, business development, and overall corporate strategy.

“I have spent much of my career working and researching the areas of organizational learning, knowledge management, change management, business strategy, technology disruption and corporate innovation,” says O’Driscoll. “ProtonMedia is uniquely positioned as a key driver of ROI for these business sectors. Through the marketing and development of its Protosphere immersive social learning and collaboration cloud environment, ProtonMedia has created the need for virtual collaboration technology in the enterprise and I’m looking forward to help shape such a forward-thinking organization.”

O’Driscoll is an accomplished author and has been featured in top publications such as Management Information Sciences Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Performance Improvement Quarterly and the Journal of Product and Innovation Management. O’Driscoll is also the author of “Achieving Desired Business Performance,” a comprehensive study of the application of Human Performance Technology and “Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration,” which examines the impact of the emerging immersive Internet on organizational human capital practices.

“I’ve worked with Dr. O’Driscoll for a number of years and have followed his thought leadership for even longer,” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “I’m extremely honored to have him sit on our advisory board and bring his innovative thinking to our company. He provides a unique view on the market and the needs of enterprise organizations and will be invaluable to the future success and growth of the company.

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA
ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading immersive social learning and collaboration SaaS cloud for the enterprise. ProtoSphere’s virtual immersive environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.

Thank You CNNMoney

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:42:54 PST

I'd like to send a very big THANK YOU to CNNMoney for featuring ProtonMedia as one of the "12 Entrepreneurs Reinventing Health Care".

We are very proud of our work in Health Care (and many other fields). If you missed it you can read the article here.

Thanks again CNNMoney!

ProtonMedia featured in SmartCEO Magazine.

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:02:42 PST

I would like to thank SmartCEO for featuring me in a recent article.

We spoke about the challenges of starting a business, specifically the topic of raising capital.

It was a great experience speaking with SmartCEO and I can't wait to do it again!

Thank You Microsoft

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:44:52 PST

We would like to thank the folks at Microsoft for publishing a case study about the use of ProtoSphere Lync Edition, at PPD.

PPD is experiencing some very positive results from using ProtoSphere. Give it a read, it is full of some very interesting metrics.

Also a big thank you to PPD for taking part in this case study. It it very insightful.

A Double Dose of ProtoSphere 2.0 Feature Peeks

noreply@blogger.com (Dom Naccarato) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 07:39:05 PST

We are so excited that ProtoSphere 2.0 is right around the corner. I love creating these feature peeks because it allows me to share all of the cool new features in ProtoSphere with all of you.

This time I'm doubling up on peeks! So be sure to check out both videos.

The first one shows the new capabilities we're providing to moderators within the environment:

And for those of you who need customized spaces, we're now offering a way to "Build Your Own World":

Keep a look out... more feature peeks are on the way!

Thanks to AlwaysOn for naming us to their top 100 list

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:25:30 PST

I would like to send a very big "Thank You" to AlwaysOn for including ProtonMedia in their Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic 100 Top Private Companies listing. We are certainly proud to win this award!

The awards were given to organizations that are challenging established players and creating new solutions that will help change the way we do business.

ProtonMedia has been working to change the way organizations meet, collaborate and learn. A good percentage of the knowledge workers in our economy, who benefit from this kind of environment, are located here in the Mid-Atlantic region. It's great to see the venture community, and the number of start ups from this area, move the market and achieve this kind of recognition.

To view the entire list of the AlwaysOn Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic 100 Top Private Companies here.

ProtoSphere 2.0 Feature Peek – Lync Integrated Conversations

noreply@blogger.com (Dom Naccarato) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:41:04 PST

We all use instant messaging – no surprise there. The challenge for many virtual environments is how to bridge the gap between the messaging that takes place in the virtual environment, with the messaging that takes place outside of it. We think we’ve come up with a good solution for this problem, utilizing our deeper integration with Microsoft Lync.

In this video I show off the new capabilities of ProtoSphere 2.0, where people not only have that ability to communicate with each other beyond the confines of the virtual environment, but are also able to quickly and easily escalate their conversations into full collaborations within the environment.

Check it out below.

Be sure to let me know what you think by leaving comment!

ProtoSphere 2.0 Feature Peek - New User Interface

noreply@blogger.com (Dom Naccarato) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:14:54 PST

I can't tell you how excited I am to announce that ProtoSphere 2 is right around the corner. There are so many new features in this product and I can't wait to share all of them with you.

Since ProtoSphere 2 has so many new functions, I'm going to do a series of peeks over the next couple of weeks.

This first feature peek focuses on our enhanced user interface for ProtoSphere 2. You will get to see all of the ehancements that we made to the toolbars, menus, people lists, 3D window and the new ProtoSphere action bar.

I don't want to spoil everything here...so click the picture and see ProtoSphere 2 in action.

As always, take care, and I'll see you in world.

Dom

Collaboration Takes Many Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 06:45:54 PST

I ran across this article about Bell Labs today and it was very interesting. Bell Labs is a very forward thinking organization and they are looking at the value of persistence and serendipity in remote work.

ProtonMedia has discussed both of these topics a number of times and noted that persistence and serendipity are only possible when you move your idea of collaboration away from time-bound events and start thinking about the value of always-on virtual spaces. These limitless virtual spaces connect people over both distance and time.

I may be slightly jaded, but I believe that this can be done more effectively in collaboration software like ProtoSphere, but it is interesting how one might solve the same challenge with a Telepresence Robot. Check out the Bell Labs blog and read what they are saying by clicking here.

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:38:31 PST

Congratulations to our friends at PPD for being Named Best Contract Research Organization and Honored for Best Technological Development in Clinical Trials.

If you missed it, this came over the wire late last week:

WILMINGTON, N.C., Nov 04, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Pharmaceutical Product Development, Inc. today announced it has been named the best contract research organization by Scrip Intelligence, which also has honored PPD for deploying the best technological development in clinical trials.

Scrip presented both awards to PPD at the seventh annual Scrip Awards ceremony on November 3 in London. PPD was recognized for its expertise and innovation in helping clients develop life-changing medical treatments. The judging panel called PPD "a great organization -- open for new approaches, even more for driving new technologies."

"At PPD, we share our clients' passion for delivering new therapies to help people live healthier lives," said Raymond Hill, chief executive officer of PPD. "These awards pay testament to the hard work, dedication and inspiration that our employees deliver every day to provide exceptional client service. We are committed to delivering consistent high quality, innovative ideas and forward-focused technologies that help our clients achieve their vision."

Launched in 1985 as a one-person consulting firm, today PPD is one of the world's leading contract research organizations. PPD has worked with 49 of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies to speed the delivery of life-changing therapies to people in need.

Scrip also recognized PPD's innovative technology solution, created in collaboration with Microsoft Corp., that improves the efficiency of managing Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) programs mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Designed to improve patient safety, REMS programs help ensure the safe distribution and administration of certain marketed drugs.

The PPD REMS solution is a first-of-its-kind technology platform that integrates, manages and tracks all REMS resources, data and information. It is based on the Microsoft Amalga Unified Intelligence System, a data aggregation platform that gives healthcare professionals access to the information they need when they need it, and Microsoft HealthVault, a personal health application platform that lets consumers gather, store and share health information online.

"PPD's technology focus is to deliver solutions that provide meaningful advances for our clients," said Mike Wilkinson, executive vice president and chief information officer of PPD. "Our REMS solution builds on PPD's extensive strategic, scientific, operational and regulatory capabilities in designing and implementing comprehensive REMS and risk management programs."

The Scrip Awards acknowledge achievements across a broad range of areas in the pharmaceutical industry. Attracting hundreds of industry professionals from the world's leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the awards have become a distinct mark of superior achievement. Pharmaceutical, biotech and contract research organizations compete for awards in 15 categories, which are decided by an expert panel of judges.

Scrip's recognition is the most recent in a series of awards PPD has received this year. PPD earned the number one spot among contract research organizations in the 2011 CenterWatch global site survey. PPD also was named to the 2011 InformationWeek 500, an annual list of the most innovative users of business technology in the United States. In addition, PPD and ProtonMedia won a Microsoft 2011 Life Sciences Innovation Award for PPD(R) 3D, a virtual, collaborative environment improving the cost-effectiveness, speed and quality of training for clinical research associates.

About PPD
PPD is a leading global contract research organization providing drug discovery, development and lifecycle management services. Our clients and partners include pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic and government organizations. With offices in 44 countries and more than 11,000 professionals worldwide, PPD applies innovative technologies, therapeutic expertise and a commitment to quality to help clients and partners accelerate the delivery of safe and effective therapeutics and maximize the returns on their R&D investments. For more information, visit www.ppdi.com.

Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations and assumptions, including statements, expectations and assumptions about PPD in relation to the Scrip Awards, contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Although PPD attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based and could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Other important factors which could cause future results to differ materially include the following: overall global economic conditions; economic conditions, research and development spending, and outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and government-sponsored research sectors; consolidation in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; competition in the outsourcing industry; PPD's ability to win new business; loss, delay or modification of large contracts; higher-than-expected cancellation rates; the rate of conversion of backlog into revenue; actual operating performance; fluctuations in currency exchange rates; the ability to attract, integrate and retain key personnel; risks associated with and dependence on strategic relationships; risks associated with acquisitions and investments, such as impairments and integration, including PPD's investment in Celtic Therapeutics; rapid technological advances that make our services less competitive; risks associated with fixed price contracts and cost overruns; compliance with drug development regulations; changes in the regulation of the drug development process; international economic and political risks; risks that we may increase, reduce or discontinue our annual dividend policy; and the ability to control SG&A spending. These and other PPD risk factors are set forth in more detail from time to time in our SEC filings, copies of which are available free of charge upon request from PPD's investor relations department. PPD assumes no obligation and expressly disclaims any duty to update these forward-looking statements in the future, except as required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing PPD's estimates or views as of any date subsequent to the date hereof.
SOURCE: Pharmaceutical Product Development, Inc.

Microsoft & ProtonMedia Hosting Innovation Event

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:09:55 PDT

As the Life Sciences industry looks to reinvent itself in the wake of slowing industry growth and other macroeconomic stresses, the move to transform fixed costs to variable costs has become common place. It's a great strategy - but how do you execute on that strategy?

The clinical trial is one of the most important and complex areas where we see this trend emerging. The pain point is so acute, and the stakes so high, that we are encouraged to see this component of the Life Sciences industry leading the way in fostering innovation, specifically the Virtual Clinical Trial.

A number of our partners have expressed that the Virtual Clinical Trial is one of the hottest topics in the industry today, and that was reinforced at this year's Partnership in Clinical Trials event. At that show, the buzz was focused almost solely on Virtual Clinical Trials. Also at that show, ProtonMedia announced a strategic relationship with one of the leaders in the CRO space - PPD.

In addition to PPD, we have also been participating in the Pan-Asian Clinical Trials Association (PACRA) with some very positive results. And finally, Microsoft is providing a great set of solutions to support this industry change.

Join us, for an in-person event, at the Microsoft Technology Center in Malvern, PA to discuss and explore these trends. The session is titled, "Innovation in Clinical Trials" and will be held on December 7 from 10am-12pm EST. with lunch immediately following.

The session will feature several life sciences executives, including:

- Les Jordan, CTO - Microsoft Life Sciences
- Mike Wilkinson, CIO - PPD
- Steven Bukvic, Executive Director - Merck MPI
- Lisa Clune, CEO - Kaplan EduNeering
- Sam Batterman, Technology Strategist - Microsoft Life Sciences
- Ron Burns, CEO - ProtonMedia

Seating is limited! Register online now - Click here!

Why learning departments should 'collaborate like crazy'

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:48:52 PDT

Writer Rama Ramaswami recently penned an article for Campus Technology about four ways to make the most out of virtual environments. Her points are worth a look, and one in particular deserves some more exploration. She recommended to "collaborate like crazy."

You're probably all too familiar with the budget cuts that have sliced through learning and training departments at life sciences companies in recent years. But as I've talked about before, learning is not a black hole that you throw money down. It's a crucial vehicle for transferring knowledge among organizational teams to drive innovation and execution.

That naturally requires tight collaboration between employees. So when it comes to developing learning programs using virtual environments, collaboration is a crucial to facilitating knowledge transfer and bringing context to content.

Employees should be able to interact and engage in formal training sessions, as well as attend ad hoc, one-on-one meetings according to their business needs and scheduling realities. They should be able to, as Rama put it, "collaborate like crazy."

I wrote a bit more on this in the comment I left for Rama, so hop over for her article and the rest of my thoughts. What do you think about this notion?

Life sciences PLM needs to start earlier, go longer, and be more collaborative

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:11:12 PDT

PharmaVOICE's October cover story is worth a read for anyone in life sciences, especially if you're involved in product life cycle management (PLM). The story, "A Changing Market Environment Requires New PLM Strategies," drills into some of the latest thinking and analysis about PLM strategy and coping with the ongoing challenges of pipeline maintenance.

Writer Robin Robinson featured insight from five industry sources, including Rob Bazemore, President of Janssen Biotech; Chris Bogan, CEO of Best Practices; Andrew Hunter, Senior Manager of Kalypso; Mike Rea, CEO of IDEA Pharma; and yours truly.

(By the way, I was excited to see the editors published a photo of me with one of my six strings in the table of contents. Rock on.)

I encourage you to grab a copy of this month's PharmaVOICE or flip over to the digital edition (page 8) to read the piece.

Find out the three major themes Robin distilled from our collective insight, and what it means for your PLM strategy as we prepare for 2012.

New benchmark report compares 33 virtual environments

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:16:29 PDT

You might be surprised to learn that there are 33 virtual environments out there. The fact that there are shows this is a vibrant and competitive market, with technologies that can have many possible use cases.

But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Well one researcher who's done that is Sami Ahma-aho from the Business, Innovation, Technology (BIT) Research Centre at Aalto University in Finland.

He's part of the research team for the Professional Collaboration and Productivity in Virtual Worlds (ProViWo) project. The ProViWo team is studying how virtual worlds can be used for professional collaboration, and if virtual worlds can enhance productivity in globally distributed teams. You might recall we interviewed his colleague, Petra Bosch-Sijtsema, twice last year about it.

ProViWo has since been moving along. Sami led the latest phase where the team looked at 33 virtual environments that, according to the researchers, can be used in professional contexts. Since Sami's in Finland, we took a new route to interview him using Skype. Hit play to hear about what the researchers have found.

Sami and his team have published their findings in a benchmark report, "Benchmark of 3D virtual environments." ProtoSphere was one of the environments the researchers studied, and cited it as a technology that can be used for small collaborative events and large events. I encourage you to read the full report online for your own market understanding, and see what you think of the technologies featured and the researchers' conclusions.

Thanks again to Sami for taking our interview, and his entire team for the insightful work they've been contributing to the industry. Readers, we'll continue to keep you updated on their progress!

TMCnet says ProtonMedia is 'shaking things up with innovative collaborative tools'

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:35:17 PDT

Not long after TMCnet's editors posted the interview between its founder, Rich Tehrani, and myself, TMCnet contributor Mae Kowalke penned an article about ProtonMedia's approach to collaborative learning and training.

She pulled out some of the points from my interview with Rich that struck her, writing that we're "shaking things up with innovative collaborative tools to help make meetings and corporate trainings more productive and more fun."

You can read her article in full on TMCnet. Thanks for featuring us, Mae.

Talking with TMCnet's Rich Tehrani about the virtual room for the conference call

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:07:39 PDT

I got the opportunity to meet Rich Tehrani last week at TMC's ITEXPO West 2011. Rich is one of the biggest pioneers, evangelists, and influencers in the IP communications industry. He founded TMC (Technology Marketing Corporation), which grew into TMCnet and the ITEXPO. Rich also owns the registered trademark for the term "Internet telephony."

At the ITEXPO, Rich and I got to talking about ProtonMedia's approach to using VoIP in ProtoSphere. Rich thought to interview me as part of TMCnet's coverage of the show. Here we are, talking about how ProtoSphere is the virtual room for the conference call, the role Microsoft Lync plays in our product road map, and my vision for ProtoSphere being used in the enterprise.

Thanks for the interview, Rich. It was a pleasure.

ProtoSphere 1.5.4 is here in a Flash

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:35:35 PDT

ProtoSphere 1.5.4 is now out for general release. The major new functions we've added are video and Flash-content support, as well as Mac support. So companies can now train in ProtoSphere using videos, Flash-based courseware, and other interactive learning modules.

We've been teeing you up for the new features with the feature peek videos we've been rolling out on our blog. Now when you give our ProtoSphere trial demo a whirl, you'll be able to experience them all in living color.

For all the details on what's new in ProtoSphere 1.5.4., read over the press release we issued announcing it. Next time you fire up ProtoSphere, test out the new features and let us know what you think!

New ProtoSphere v.1.5.4 Now Supports Video and Flash Content

Five new features extend ProtoSphere’s lead as the virtual collaboration environment for learning and training

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ProtonMedia today released ProtoSphere Standard Edition v.1.5.4 with new video and Flash content support. Now large enterprises can train in ProtoSphere using videos, Flash-based courseware, and other interactive learning modules. In total, ProtoSphere v.1.5.4 includes five new features to help companies streamline their learning and training activities, accelerate knowledge transfer, and improve knowledge retention. They include:

Video playback on Presentation Boards. Now users can upload and play back videos directly on ProtoSphere’s Presentation Boards for all users in the room to watch. It's a snap to upload videos, and there's no server-side conversion, so they're available for playback immediately after upload. Supported formats include FLV, F4V, F4P, MP4, MOV, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, and streaming RTMP feeds.

Flash content support. Any Flash content can now be brought into and used in ProtoSphere, including courseware materials or other interactive learning modules. Users can interact with the Flash content to suit their schedule and learning needs. This feature also lets users interact with Flash content from a Web link on ProtoSphere’s Presentation Boards.

YouTube and other Web-hosted video support. In addition to uploading video files from a computer, users will also be able to bring videos into ProtoSphere via a URL path, such as from YouTube. This gives greater flexibility in what video content users can bring into and use in ProtoSphere.

Mac Support. ProtoSphere v.1.5.4 runs on Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or Leopard 10.5.8.

New Avatars. These will replace the existing set of avatars with higher quality, higher polygon faces, helping provide a more life-like experience for users.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen a significant increase in the use of video and other interactive learning materials within large enterprise organizations,” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “We’ve responded by adding video and Flash content support in ProtoSphere. When you couple the increasing use of interactive content with the growing adoption of ProtoSphere you have a powerful pairing for accelerating knowledge transfer and improving the knowledge retention of global teams.”

ProtoSphere v.1.5.4 is available via ProtonMedia direct sales and select systems integrator partners. Call 215-631-1401 for sales information. For more information on ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s website or blog. To download a free demo of ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s website.

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA

ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative PLM in life sciences. ProtoSphere’s virtual environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit http://www.protonmedia.com/.

PRESS RESOURCES

Visit the ProtonMedia press kit online.

Contacts

Gregory FCA
Alicia Buonanno, 610-228-2096
Alicia@GregoryFCA.com

Video conferencing: 2 years later, same results

noreply@blogger.com (Reggie Best) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:38:00 PDT

I follow the video conferencing industry closely, so when I saw the headline "Why Video Conferencing Sucks" in my news reader, I had to click over. What I found was an opinion piece by TechNewsWorld columnist Rob Enderle.

He wrote about how video conferencing is still failing to meet business users' expectations in this heavily saturated market -- not only from a technology and cost perspective, but also a human perspective.

"The big problem that no one seems to want to address is that we generally don't like conversing for long looking someone else in the eye," Rob writes. This, he says, is a major reason "why people generally need to be forced to use these systems."

We've been seeing this same trend among enterprise users too. As I told Rob in the comment I left for him on his article, most people don't like to be on video all the time. It can be intimidating and intrusive.

I wrote about this almost two years ago on our blog. And it appears not much has budged in how employees want to use video at work. Technological offerings still haven't solved the issues around personal comfort.

I said it then, and I'll say it again now. Telepresence fails to address the human and cost factors that have, to date, prevented large-scale video deployments from achieving critical mass in the enterprise. Video conferencing as a stand-alone communications platform still sucks.

Polycom's Steve Pattison is our newest Executive Advisory Board member

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:26:11 PDT

Polycom's Steve Pattison

One of the things we strive for in the composition of our Executive Advisory Board is industry diversity. Even though we're the only virtual collaboration environment built on the Microsoft stack, we haven't looked for board members who live just in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Rather, our focus has been on unified communications and life sciences. We've sought out executives with a broad array of experiences and customer inputs, including IBM's Cindy Skirvin, Microsoft’s Sam Batterman and now, Polycom's Steve Pattison.

Steve is the newest member of our board, and will be helping to counsel and guide our management team on a range of business initiatives, including industry partnerships, business development, and corporate strategy.

So if you take a look at the composition of our board now, you'll see leaders in business analytics and innovation, life sciences technologies, networking, and UC. The result is one of the reasons why the unified communications and collaboration experience in ProtoSphere is so outstanding.

We announced Steve's joining in a press release today, which has more details on his background and how he'll be supporting us.

Welcome aboard, Steve!

Polycom’s Steve Pattison Joins ProtonMedia’s Executive Advisory Board

Pattison will advise ProtonMedia’s leaders on the company’s business development and strategic direction of its ProtoSphere technology

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ProtonMedia, the developer of the ProtoSphere virtual collaboration environment, today announced that Steve Pattison has joined the company’s Executive Advisory Board. Pattison is the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for Polycom.

As a member of ProtonMedia’s Executive Advisory Board, Pattison joins executives from Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco in providing the company’s management team with expertise and counsel on industry partnerships, business development, and overall corporate strategy.

“ProtonMedia has carved a strong position in the unified communications and collaboration space over the past couple of years,” says Pattison. “I believe the company has a clear view of the future of collaboration, team engagement, and productivity, and is making significant inroads in the life sciences and other key industry sectors to demonstrate the value of and need for virtual collaboration technology. I’m looking forward to working with its executives in developing new strategic alliances, partnerships, and other opportunities that will bolster its growth trajectory.”

Pattison has over 10 years of experience in the rich media and enterprise video software and technology industries. He has been responsible for a number of significant partnerships aligning leading vendors in the networking, video conferencing, encoding, and storage industries.

“Steve brings to the table invaluable experience and expertise in business development and strategic alliances within the unified communications space,” says Ron Burns, founder and CEO of ProtonMedia.

Prior to Polycom, Pattison was responsible for business development, corporate development, product management, and product marketing at Accordent Technologies and negotiated Polycom’s recent acquisition of the company. Pattison has held numerous leadership roles in the high-tech industry, including executive positions at Interwoven (acquired by Autonomy) and Documentum (acquired by EMC). He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota.

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA

ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative PLM in life sciences. ProtoSphere’s virtual environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit http://www.protonmedia.com/.

PRESS RESOURCES

Visit the ProtonMedia press kit online.

ProtonMedia website: http://www.protonmedia.com/

ProtonMedia blog: http://blog.protonmedia.com/

Contacts

Gregory FCA
Alicia Buonanno, 610-228-2096
Alicia@GregoryFCA.com

Texas bound next week for ITEXPO West 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:57:02 PDT

The unofficial start of fall means the show and event circuit is kicking into high gear. My September is filling up with conferences and meetings here in PA and around the country.

And a new one I'll be hitting next week is ITEXPO West 2011 in Austin, Texas.

If you're not familiar with ITEXPO West, it's one of the largest and longest-running communications and technology conferences in the U.S.

Thousands of attendees come every year to learn about and discuss the latest trends, issues, and technologies in telecom, wireless, mobile, and unified communications.

This year's line up is stacked with 200 exhibitors; keynotes from leaders at Polycom, Cisco, IBM, and other major companies; and dozens of tracks, sessions, and workshops.

I'll be joining three other panelists bright and early at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15 to discuss "Innovation for Real-Time Business Collaboration," which is part of the Business Collaboration track. Here's the synopsis of the discussion.

Call it anarchy or call it progress. Regardless, customers -- both internal and external -- are demanding the same ubiquity, ease of use, and anywhere, anytime, any-device functionality from their day-to-day collaborative tools that they've come to expect from their social media providers. For those responsible for enterprise-wide collaboration, the headaches are apparent: security concerns, the need for architecture provisioning and management, the requirement that myriad devices and platforms be accommodated. Equally apparent are the benefits: collaborative architectures that are both borderless and validated; that are scalable from end to end; that are business-focused, and -- most importantly -- result in a more agile, more responsive, more innovative enterprise.

The incredible pace of technology evolution has delivered an entirely new generation of contextual collaboration tools, but the key to business success is understanding their benefits, how to integrate them into the business environment, and how to induce buy-in from end users -- in other words, knowing how to leverage all these advancements to achieve true collaboration.

This session will discuss the latest generation of collaboration tools available to businesses today, their benefits, use cases, and integration into existing infrastructures and business models, including desktop solutions as well as mobile alternatives. At the end of the session, attendees will understand how to build a comprehensive collaboration strategy for their businesses to create a real, unified, communications experience.

Joining me will be Mark Castleman, CEO, PBX Central; Michal Cohen, Product Evangelist, harmon.ie; and Theresa M. Szczurek, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO, Radish Systems. Moderating will be David H. Yedwab, Founding Partner, Market Strategy & Analytics Partners.

If you're planning to attend ITEXPO West, I hope you'll join us for our discussion. I think with our brains combined, we'll get a thought-provoking dialogue going about the latest thinking on collaboration and new approaches for tying together organizational departments -- like trainers, knowledge workers, and IT -- to create a collaborative culture that fosters innovation and improves business efficiency.

I'm looking forward to talking with my fellow panelists on this, as well as hearing what attendees have to say. So if you're in the audience, don't be shy to throw your hat in the ring or grab me after the discussion to chat!

If you haven't registered yet for ITEXPO West, you can still do so online. Hope to see you there!

Great list of virtual training best practices

noreply@blogger.com (Dom Naccarato) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:46:07 PDT

There are a number of things you can do to increase attendance and encourage engagement among participants when you hold a virtual training event or other activity in a virtual environment. I recently found a great list of virtual training best practices from writer Robin Heyden that I wanted to share here with you.

She posted 11 tips for successful virtual training on Hypergrid Business. It was great to see that much of her advice falls in line with the recommendations we give our customers (which I let her know in the comments on the article).

After reading Robin's tips, I thought of some of the resources we supply our customers with when they start using ProtoSphere for virtual training and other activities.

One set of recommendations came to mind as particularly useful for those conducting virtual training events. I thought I'd share it here to keep the knowledge flowing.

These tips address one of the most fundamental areas for creating a successful virtual training event: how to be a good presenter. Good public speaking skills are just as important in a virtual environment as they are in the real world. Nothing can hide a genuinely bad presenter! So here are some of our tips for how to be an engaging presenter in a virtual environment.

Keep your energy level high.
Address individuals by name.
Interact with your attendees and keep them involved. Ask them to participate if possible.
Allow time for introductions.
Spend the first 15 minutes of your meeting conveying the most important concepts and ideas.
Keep the number of slides to a minimum.
If slides are necessary, use less text and more visuals.
Don't multi-task.

Hopefully this will help you get a standing O after your next virtual training presentation! What other tips do you have to add for conducting successful virtual training events?

Life sciences executives, are you seeing this trend in your organization?

noreply@blogger.com (Reggie Best) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:29:50 PDT

We've seen a common thread running through our conversations with life sciences executives over the past 90 days, and I wanted to blog about it to see if you are experiencing or observing the same thing. I'm thinking this could be an emerging trend that we as an industry need to be paying attention to.

Our team has continued to hear life sciences executives talk about how they are planning to shut down parts of their physical campuses, and set up virtual workplaces and remote working programs.

Executives have told us the primary reason driving their creation of virtual workplaces is their need to shrink their cost centers. Training facilities, for instance, are one of the largest cost centers we hear life sciences executives talk about.
Global enterprises have multiple training facilities that they need to replicate around the world for all their training activities. But executives say if they take a virtual approach, they could create a virtual facility once and have all their attendees use it no matter where they are located.

SciMed's new Virtual Diabetes Institute is an example of this. It's a virtual training facility created in ProtoSphere for physicians caring for patients with Type 2 diabetes. We recently announced it in a press release, and more details and screen caps of the Virtual Diabetes Institute are on our blog.

Many life sciences executives we've talked to lately believe virtual workplaces like the Virtual Diabetes Institute is a sound and necessary solution. But it isn't without its challenges. Nearly all these executives are facing two major obstacles in their efforts to close physical buildings and set up virtual workplaces.

Firstly, they want to maintain their corporate culture and sense of togetherness and camaraderie while employees are working remotely. They're concerned that the lack of face time will dissolve the team spirit that drives creativity and innovation, and decrease the water cooler banter that helps make their company an enjoyable place to work.

In addition, executives want to increase engagement around knowledge transfer activities in a virtual workplace. They want to be able to conduct interactive training and learning activities, such as employee onboarding or clinical research, and see measureable improvements in knowledge retention and productivity.

In short, executives want to get rid of costs, but the work hasn't gone away. In fact, the work involved with product development and launches, training, continuing professional education, maintaining compliance, and so on, is increasing in the face of the need to decrease costs.

So here's what I'd like to know. Are we seeing the beginnings of an emerging trend in the way executives are striving to cut costs, maintain and foster corporate culture, and increase colleague and customer engagement?

Would love to know if this is something you're seeing where you work and how you're planning to deal with these issues.

How the Virtual Diabetes Institute keeps continuing medical education costs low and engagement high

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:13:04 PDT

Completing continuing medical education coursework has become increasingly challenging over the past several years, primarily due to escalating program and travel costs, and already massive time pressures on physicians. Yet the need to improve disease treatment through engaging educational activities and professional competency standards has not gone away.

One of the goals of SciMed's new Virtual Diabetes Institute is to address this issue for physicians caring for patients with Type 2 diabetes. I recently talked to writer Miriam Pia about this, and she penned an article for Hypergrid Business covering how the Virtual Diabetes Institute supports more engaging and interactive training at lower cost for these physicians.

She wrote about how the environment (created in ProtoSphere) lets physicians learn, network with peers, and complete their continuing medical education coursework on their own terms, without having to travel. For more details on these benefits of the Virtual Diabetes Institute, I'd encourage you to flip to her article. Thanks for covering this, Miriam.