Performance Challenges - (Not) Waiting For the Hourglass…

You’ve just started a process that will take several seconds to complete, in your demo, and now the audience’s attention is riveted watching the hourglass cursor do its thing, emphasizing the delay.

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant noted that moving the mouse to the far right of your screen (or bottom-right corner) hides the cursor from view, reducing the impact of what might be perceived as less-than-optimal performance!

Fuze – Another Entry in the Web Collaboration Marketplace

Fuze Box, Inc. (www.Fuzebox.com) has announced three offerings to enable presentation and sharing of information over the web:

- Fuze Meeting – (www.fuzemeeting.com)
- Fuze Messenger – integrates multiple IM accounts into a single app
- Fuze Movie – ability to share, view and annotate video, audio and pictures.

Unfortunately, Fuze Meeting does not support annotation over a live application. This continues to leave GoToMeeting, WebEx and Adobe Connect as the leading packages suitable for Remote Demos.

Show Document – Web Sharing Tool

A reader noted another tool for sharing content over the web: Show Document (http://www.showdocument.com).

While it doesn’t appear to have capabilities to support sharing of live applications for demos, it does appear to support sharing documents and PowerPoint presentations (and mutual editing of some document types). And it is free, currently. Any comments or experiences on using it?

Best, Bester, Most Bestest

I was watching a demo yesterday and heard the presenter say, “Now here’s the best part of our software…” at least 5 times. Hmmmm.

Attention-Retention Curves – The “Serial Position Effect” – The Basis Behind a Very Important Concept

In Great Demo! Workshops we execute a wonderful exercise designed to help participants understand the importance of “chunking” information – of organizing demos into consumable components, rather than a long, serial delivery of features and functions. The “Attention-Retention” exercise enables Workshop participants to prove these ideas to themselves.

The basis for the Attention-Retention exercise is known as the “Serial Position Effect”. More on this can be found on Wikipedia for those who are interested (and who wouldn’t be?) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_position_effect. (Many thanks to the Great Demo! Workshop participant who provided this information!)

Props for Demos

I saw a great prop yesterday in a Great Demo! Workshop: one of the participants used his laptop as the prop, holding it up for audience view while saying, “it’s like having mainframe in your laptop!” (They provide software to support mainframe emulation and some very cool related capabilities).

Props are interesting and energizing – they capture audience attention and reinforce concepts. They help bring life to demos – both for the audience and the presenter!

I typically use a range of props in Great Demo! Workshops, such as:
- CD
- Cell Phone
- Newspaper
- Book
- Telescoping pointer
- Stack of papers
- Customer collateral
- Raft of razor-sharp pencils…

What props could be used in your demos?

Mikogo – New Web Collaboration Tool

Mikogo (www.mikogo.com) is providing a free web collaboration tool, for sessions with up to 10 users. My understanding is that they currently support Windows and have Mac support in beta testing.

Free? Yes – they are offering Mikogo free, in the hope and expectation that customers will move up to their for-sale BeamYourScreen offerings.

Mikogo appears to offer many of the “standard” capabilities you’d expect for Remote Demos – including, I believe, the ability to annotate over the live application being demonstrated. This appears to be part of their “Whiteboard” functionality – but needs to be confirmed.

Comments and feedback from users welcomed…

DimDim NOT Recommended for Remote Demos

Another new player to the web collaboration tools space is DimDim (www.dimdim.com), who offer a range of web presentation and webinar tools. While part of their positioning is as a low-cost provider, which can be attractive, they do not offer the ability to annotate over a live application (e.g., the product you want to demo). This is an important limitation which prevents me from recommending it for use with Remote Demos.

They do offer a free version of their tool, but I’ve yet to see it in use.

Interestingly, I was unable to find out if they support annotations over live apps from exploring their website –and it took two emails and two calls to finally get the information, over the period of a week. Their sales/support was not impressive.

Equally (or more) interestingly, I had sent a single email to the folks at eConference Pro (www.netbriefings.com) with the same question, with a much more positive outcome. A response came within a day – and it included a “player” version showing the capability in use. Very nicely done, remarkable, and memorable!

Other comments, notes and opinions solicited!

Great Demo! Implementation Tactic - Weekly

For Presales Managers:

Hold weekly progress calls with the presales team to encourage and uncover success stories, Illustrations, tips, etc. and to reinforce the key ideas. Teams that do this (or similar) report excellent success with the method for individuals and appear to achieve high implementation rates for their teams as a whole.

This shouldn’t be a surprise… Management support (particularly first-line management) is typically very important for achieving substantive change with personal skills and processes.

Management support, however, can be passive or active. Passive support is often weak and may manifest in terms of not being negative…! Active support, such as the weekly team calls, serves to catalyze positively the process of change. A little effort each week can yield enormous overall returns over time.

Manager “Chaperone” for Demo Prep Calls

Here’s a terrific implementation tactic, suggested by a Great Demo! Workshop manager: Join pre-demo discussions (via phone, for example) between sales people and their presales counterparts as a “chaperone”. The idea is to both facilitate the conversation between the sales and presales participants, and to guide the discussion as necessary or appropriate.

Additionally, this approach can help identify those sales people who need more “encouragement” to gather discovery and qualification information that might be needed before a delivering a demo. Similarly, this tactic helps to train presales people to ask the right questions to get the information they need to prepare credible demos. Terrific idea!

Additional thoughts or comments on this are welcomed…

Public Great Demo! Workshop – San Francisco Bay Area – November 19

[Warning: Shameless self-promotion alert!]

In conjunction with the 280 Group, we are offering an Open (public) 1-Day Great Demo! Workshop in San Jose, California on November 19th.

You can find more information including an overview, agenda, location and pricing at the 280 Group website. Registration for the event is available here.

This is a terrific opportunity for individuals or small groups.

[And this should be the last posting for this event on this blog...]

“Not Yet…”

Very often, presales managers are asked to qualify sales opportunities before assigning a presales resource for a demo. This often takes the form of reviewing the information entered into a CRM system by a sales person or submitted by that sales person on an internal form. There are typically only two answers:

“Yes” – you have provided enough information/the opportunity is sufficiently qualified (or senior management has decreed that it is…!) and yes, we’ll schedule a presales resource for your demo.

“No” – the opportunity is insufficiently documented; no demo resource for you. [“No soup for you…!” – my apologies for the Seinfield reference…]

“No” answers often cause trauma in the organization. Sales people may run to their managers to complain, etc.etc. Here’s a wonderful alternative to consider: “Not yet”.

“Not Yet” – you don’t have enough information yet; please go back and do a more complete effort of qualification/discovery. Here are a few questions we need answered – then we should be able to provide you with a demo resource…

A wonderfully gentle, but firm way of accomplishing the same objective!

Using the Bicycle Story to Get Customers to Talk

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant noted that we can use the “bicycle story” (follows in a moment, be patient…) to encourage customers/prospects to talk about their needs and interests - rather than to show them a long stream of stuff they are not interested in. Here’s the story:


“You are riding a bicycle rather fast. You skid on some gravel and fall, scraping your legs and arms. You are bleeding moderately and you hurt, but your bike seems to be ok.

Someone sees you fall and comes to offer help. He offers you water – but you aren’t thirsty, you’re bleeding. He offers you a patch kit for your bike, but your tires are fine – and you are still bleeding. Now you are not only hurt, but also irritated! He offers food, music, asthma medicine, dancing girls, a new chain, a map, handlebars, bicycle bags, and a cell phone.

All are very nice offers, but clearly what you need is:
1) a few bandages and
2) a couple of aspirin”


The point behind the story, of course, is to present the Specific Capabilities the customer is interested in, rather than present a pile of features and functions that are of no interest for the customer at that time.

The Workshop participant commented that many customers will say, “Just show us what you have…” instead of allowing a discovery or qualification session to take place. He noted that sharing this story (via a PowerPoint slide) may help the customer realize that a conversation before doing a demo makes better sense!

It looks like Netbriefings has released a new or improved version of their web collaboration tool (http://www.netbriefings.com/solutions/econfpro.shtml). I haven’t yet seen it in action, but the collateral sounds good…!

Does anyone have experience using it for Remote Demos?


From their website:

Netbriefings Conference Pro Feature List
Flash-based Meeting Viewer - Participants only need a web browser and Flash to attend a meeting.
Cross-platform solution - Host or attend a meeting from a PC, Mac, or Linux computer.
Screen sharing - Show your entire desktop or a window on your desktop to all attendees. Annotate a shared display.
Zoom in on important areas.
Adjustable resolutions.
Full screen viewing for attendees.
Presentation sharing - Import a PowerPoint presentation and share it with meeting attendees. Display slide thumbnails and titles in a navigation window.
Annotate (and allow attendees to annotate) shared slides.
Support Flash slides including animations.
Full screen viewing for attendees. Whiteboard sharing - Share an interactive whiteboard and allow anyone to draw.
Support multiple whiteboards in a meeting.
Media streaming - Stream Flash videos or MP3 audios to all attendees and control their playback.
Allow everyone to annotate and draw on the shared video.
Picture sharing - Share a picture with all attendees and allow everyone to annotate and draw on the shared picture.
Control the zooming and panning of the picture.
Video/Voice over IP - Show up to 12 webcam windows with voice over IP.
File transfer - Transfer desktop files to meeting attendees.
Desktop snapshot - Take a desktop snapshot and send it to all attendees.
Pass presenter control - Promote an attendee to be a presenter during a meeting and allow the attendee to control a presentation or share his screen.
Remote control - Allows an attendee to control your desktop during a screen sharing session. Chat messaging - Send text messages or web page links to meeting attendees.
Open or restricted as configured by Moderator.
Attendee management - View a list of meeting attendees and their profiles.
Give attendees permission to draw on a whiteboard or a slide.
Remove unwanted attendees.
Lock the meeting.
Audio conference integration and controls - Control an audio conference from the attendee list, including mute, un-mute, hang-up a caller, or dial-out to a participant.
Full audio integration with toll-free audio service.
Meeting recording - Record audio and web conference as a synchronized
Flash-based recording on the server.
Viewers can play recording right in their browser without having to download any proprietary players.
Embeddable Content - Embed live meetings or archived on-demand recordings in any website. Polling/Quiz - Poll attendees with multiple-choice questions and monitor the responses in real-time.
Show polling results to attendees instantly.
Create impromptu or scheduled meetings - Instantly create and start impromptu meetings. Create a scheduled meeting and add it to your calendar.
Meeting invitations - Send meeting URL via email or IM, or simply ask a participant to join with a meeting ID.
Access control - Control meeting access with a password or to registered users only.
Publish meetings - Publish a meeting to the web site home page to allow anyone to join without an invitation.
Personal meeting room - Create a personal meeting room for all meetings.
Customize Meeting Viewer - Customize meeting viewer to display your own logo, banner, and background image.
Online content storage - Store presentation slides, video, and audio files in a personal content store online for accessing from any computer.
Activity reports - Activity reports log all meeting sessions, attendees, and time.
Export activity reports in XML or CSV formats.
User registration - Option to require user registration prior to attending a meeting.
Export registered user profiles for post-meeting follow-ups.
Feedback and comments - Allow participants to post comments and feedback to your meetings and publish them in the Homepage.

The “Rule of Three”

It is said that humans hear and retain information presented in groups of three very well. A Blog reader offered the following article that explores this further:

http://www.presentationmagazine.com/rule-of-three-836.htm (Thanks, Kevin!)

I certainly see the same effect and map accordingly in Great Demo! methodology. For example:

Questions:
- Great Questions (which we address right away)
- Good Questions (which we queue-up for later)
- Stupid Questions (which we also queue-up for later)

Bugs and Crashes:
- Cosmetic Bugs (which we ignore)
- Serious Bugs (we acknowledge, jump over and move on)
- Crashes (we acknowledge, direct attention away from the disaster, and move on)

General Great Demo! Method:
- Illustrate (show the Wow!, the main take-away, the end result)
- Do It (the fewest steps to get to that end result)
- Peel Back the Layers (in accord with audience depth and level of interest)

[And, of course, Learning:
- Adults learn by repetition (let me say that again…)
- Adults learn by repetition (one more time…)
- Adults learn… (yes, by repetition!)]

I’d be grateful for more insight into why the “Rule of Three” works so well – as well as other examples…

Great Examples of Using PowerPoint – Wonderful YouTube Videos

Very funny and excellent examples using PowerPoint (extra amusing for those who were/are chemists and related…)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXFi7AdhhGk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRzCG3_LceI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-JhqMVHT8c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IydcSuhWoW0

Which Would You Prefer?

I often hear that companies “Eat their own dog-food…” to communicate the idea that they use their own products for their internal processes. Nice thought, but potentially rather unappetizing – and arguably an unsavory description of one’s own offerings.

I heard a wonderful alternative yesterday to communicate the same idea, “We drink our own champagne…”

Stunningly Awful PowerPoint Examples – Wonderful YouTube Video

For some, this may be a repeat posting, but well worth 4 minutes to review. Very funny and illustrative!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp8dugDbf4w

The Effectiveness of Odd Numbers of Bullet Items

A colleague commented that people appear to better absorb and remember lists when they are in groups of odd numbers (as opposed to even numbers). This includes bulleted PowerPoint slides, verbalized lists, and lists developed on whiteboards and other media.

I’ve noted, personally, that there appears to be a “power of three” effect – that people remember lists of three items very well. Conversely, we certainly know that a list of 10 words is very tough to remember…!

As a self-test, it would be interesting to read and compare/contrast your own marketing literature’s bulleted lists of features/benefits with that of your competition or related third parties…

Does anyone have feedback, comments or data regarding the effectiveness of remembering odd-numbered lists vs. even?

Public Great Demo! Workshop – San Francisco Bay Area

[Warning: Shameless self-promotion alert!]

In conjunction with the 280 Group, we are offering an Open (public) 1-Day Great Demo! Workshop in San Jose, California on November 19th.

You can find more information including an overview, agenda, location and pricing at the 280 Group website.

This is a terrific opportunity for individuals or small groups.

How About a “Do It” in Zero Mouse Clicks?

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant semi-seriously suggested implementing a Forecast/Pipeline-screen-saver for VP’s of sales. This would be a terrific example of a “Do It” in zero clicks…! (And how many heads of sales wouldn’t like this idea?)

The Menu Approach Using a Spreadsheet

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant cleverly noted that using a spreadsheet (e.g., Excel) for the dynamic process of a group voting on individual menu items of interest enables rapid sorting of the results. This yields a ranked, prioritized list of topics in accord with group’s overall interests.

Previously, I’ve used Word or PowerPoint for the same process, but have to drag-and-drop items to rearrange the order as a result of the vote. With a spreadsheet, multiple steps can be reduced to a couple of clicks!

Corporate Overview Presentation – The Good News and the Bad News…

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant described a wonderful tactic he uses to introduce the fact that he will not be starting with a painful and boring corporate overview presentation:

He says, “Regarding our corporate overview presentation, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I have a 90 slide PowerPoint deck that takes 40 minutes to go through; the good news is that I’m not going to inflict it on you!”

(Sighs of relief and occasional applause from the audience…)

Scroll-Zoom in Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer provides the ability to zoom the view (enlarge or shrink) using Control-Scrolling-Wheel. This is a great way to help customers focus on the specific items you want them to see on the screen. Give it a try!

Another Webinar Listing Service – www.webinar-directory.com

We’ve come across a another website that provides the ability to post and search for upcoming webinars and past webinars: www.webinar-directory.com.

You do have to register to use the service… This could be a good service to use both as a marketing vehicle and to aid in personal or team-member growth. Check it out…