Webinar Title: Creating High Impact Seminars, Webinars and Presentations that Lead to Business Every Time
Presented by Jean DiGiovanna
Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Time: 2pm ET / 12pm MT

Description:
Do you know how to package your expertise for high impact to reach a larger audience, gain exposure and leave people wanting more?
In this rapid age of social media, new technology and short attention spans, you not only need to stand out with a unique message, you need to package your message to create high value so that people ultimately purchase from you. Jean DiGiovanna, founder of Workshop University, will show you how to make your messages the most memorable and impactful experiences for your listeners.

In this highly engaging webinar, you will leave with:
• Critical success factors to creating high impact seminars, webinars and speeches
• A repeatable process to set the direction of your seminar, webinar or presentation
• Techniques for creating experiential learning and high impact
• Common pitfalls to avoid when getting started
• Specific action plan to reach a larger audience and grow your business

Register here: http://www.copperconferencing.com/go/e0f33

Have questions about Copper Conferencing or need to do an audio conference or web meeting?  Contact a Conference Coach today.

Webinar Title: Creating High Impact Seminars, Webinars and Presentations that Lead to Business Every Time
Presented by Jean DiGiovanna
Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Time: 2pm ET / 12pm MT

Description:
Do you know how to package your expertise for high impact to reach a larger audience, gain exposure and leave people wanting more?
In this rapid age of social media, new technology and short attention spans, you not only need to stand out with a unique message, you need to package your message to create high value so that people ultimately purchase from you. Jean DiGiovanna, founder of Workshop University, will show you how to make your messages the most memorable and impactful experiences for your listeners.

In this highly engaging webinar, you will leave with:
• Critical success factors to creating high impact seminars, webinars and speeches
• A repeatable process to set the direction of your seminar, webinar or presentation
• Techniques for creating experiential learning and high impact
• Common pitfalls to avoid when getting started
• Specific action plan to reach a larger audience and grow your business

Register here: http://www.copperconferencing.com/go/e0f33

Have questions about Copper Conferencing or need to do an audio conference or web meeting?  Contact a Conference Coach today.

Webinar Title: Creating High Impact Seminars, Webinars and Presentations that Lead to Business Every Time
Presented by Jean DiGiovanna
Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Time: 2pm ET / 12pm MT

Description:
Do you know how to package your expertise for high impact to reach a larger audience, gain exposure and leave people wanting more?
In this rapid age of social media, new technology and short attention spans, you not only need to stand out with a unique message, you need to package your message to create high value so that people ultimately purchase from you. Jean DiGiovanna, founder of Workshop University, will show you how to make your messages the most memorable and impactful experiences for your listeners.

In this highly engaging webinar, you will leave with:
• Critical success factors to creating high impact seminars, webinars and speeches
• A repeatable process to set the direction of your seminar, webinar or presentation
• Techniques for creating experiential learning and high impact
• Common pitfalls to avoid when getting started
• Specific action plan to reach a larger audience and grow your business

Register here: http://www.copperconferencing.com/go/e0f33

Have questions about Copper Conferencing or need to do an audio conference or web meeting?  Contact a Conference Coach today.

Carolyn Bradfield

I like to stay on top of what’s going on in the world.  I’m a total “newsie” checking in with every local and national channel available to me.  Sometimes I following a world event like the tragedy in Haiti and other times it may be something that seems small that has a big impact on how I feel about the world around me.

A story on World News Tonight struck me the other day.  It seems that research has shown that the average middle school student spends over 75 hours a week engaging with media – music, texting, gaming, TV, Facebook occupying most of their time.  In addition, 2 hours daily are devoted to the cell phone with an hour and a half of those spent texting.   Only 38 minutes A WEEK is devoted to reading.  Even less time is spent just talking to someone.

The same research also shows that students who engage with their electronics don’t do that well in school.  47% get bad grades compared to 23% who moderate their consumption.  Media consumption drops by an average of 3 hours a day if parents make the effort to set guidelines with their child’s grades going up.  If my 15-year old stepdaughter is any indication, then this research is absolutely dead on.  The iPhone is never far from her fingers and she must check it 20 times an hour for the latest from her friends.  Hours are spent alone in her room on Facebook or on the Internet.

I worry about what type of workforce we’re creating when these texters and Facebook fanatics get old enough for jobs.  With the large number of young people at Copper Conferencing, I’ve started to pay much more attention to the impact of their electronic habits.   For simplicity sake, let’s give this generation a name that describes them – The “Text-X Generation” will suit me for now.

My Text-X group has some positive attributes.  They are unafraid of anything relating to the Internet.  They know how to determine which organizations are best suited for Copper Conferencing and who to talk to.  They are unafraid of all types of web conferencing, easily logging in and holding Internet meetings and remote sales calls.   They think of creative ways to use social media to get Copper’s business message across.

However, I am concerned.  I hear the instant messaging chimes go off dozens of times in an hour where someone has the “tyranny of the urgent” and sends an I/M about everything that’s on the top of their mind.  I worry about the distraction this creates for them and the message’s recipient.  I worry about how many times a day someone checks or posts to Facebook and what’s on their “news feed.”

More than that, I worry about Text-X’s ability to know when a conversation is warranted vs. an email or instant message.  Maybe we should consider the research study that indicates the most successful students are those that spend less time with their electronics.  I think that is also true in business.

The conferencing industry has helped companies and managers shift from the memo and the “directive” to conversation and collaboration.   It’s the art of the conversation, the relationship, the discussion, the collaboration that I believe continues and will continue to breed success in business.    Although I think we should embrace the increase in our knowledge and use of instant media, I think that we also need to instill a balanced diet in our respective organizations.

At Copper, this is made a little easier because we use our services to hold meetings, strategy sessions and trainings over our conferencing technology.  We focus on getting people’s feedback, drawing them into the conversation and asking for their opinion.  My commitment is to go above and beyond that to help Text-X become more balanced.

First, I am going to coach the management team to stop responding to all instant messages and to request that their people set a meeting to talk about issues and requests that are important but not urgent.  I’m going to randomly monitor Facebook and ask people to stop checking and posting during work hours.   I’m going to help people resolve issues or conflicts in person vs. email messages.

And parents, if you have a Text-X kid at home, take a lesson from the research.  They are way less likely to succeed in school if you don’t take the time to set boundaries.  And, I’m going to project that they are going to be way less likely to succeed on the job if they don’t develop the skill set needed to express themselves with others without needing a keyboard to do the talking.  It’s up to all of us to help our Text-X group live a much more balanced existence.

To learn more about what’s new at Copper and how audio conferencing and web conferencing services can help you improve your business and cut costs, contact a Conference Coach today.

If you’re not a fan of bacon, and really I’m not sure there is such a person, then you might want to skip to another article.  If, however, you understand how scrumptious bacon can be, then by all means, read on.

Frying your bacon to perfection is easy using a pan since you constantly monitor its progress. Oh sure, anyone who has ever cooked bacon in a frying pan or on a grill knows about the splatter factor and sometimes it’s down right messy.  For those who have less time to monitor bacon to perfection or just don’t like the splatter factor of a frying pan may have used the standard bacon tray for a microwave.  This is good too but is harder to get bacon to a perfect point be that floppy or crispy or somewhere in between.

Several years ago my dad began looking for a better way to cook bacon.  His quest was to locate a product that better collected the bacon grease during the

Mak'n Bacon

cooking process.  He eventually purchased a Mak’n Bacon bacon cooker, which worked so well that he bought two more.  My dad loves the Mak’n Bacon because the bacon is hung on posts that allows the grease to drip into a pan as it cooks  He uses it almost daily.

Aside from grease collection, one of the best features of this particular bacon cooker is that it stores fairly flat as compared to some other models that have been tested and rejected.  The Mak’n Bacon cooker is used in any standard microwave and can cook up to a pound of bacon.  I must say that putting a pound of bacon in the microwave, setting the time, and then removing it without having to blot the excess grease off the bacon is a real bonus.

So I was seriously contemplating buying a Mak’n Bacon cooker when a Bacon Genie showed up at my house.  Apparently I needed a bacon cooker more desperately than I realized.

Bacon Genie

Nonetheless, the Bacon Genie bacon cooker is similar to the aforementioned Mak’n Bacon because it is a microwave cooker where the bacon is hung on a post and the grease collects below it.  The Bacon Genie, however, has a pour spout so that offloading the grease is actually very easy.  It’s a nice feature.  Unfortunately, there is no way you can put a pound of bacon on the Bacon Genie — a half pound maybe.

So, which one gets my vote?  Actually, I’d use either one of these products any day.  And any day that I’m working from home is a day that I try to have a big breakfast that just might include bacon.  And as for my friend Phil, well might just have to make sure he’s got a Mak’n Bacon or Bacon Genie.

Alycia Maier-Turner is the Director of Marketing for Copper Conferencing, a leading provider of webinars and conference calling services for small to medium sized businesses.  Alycia loves to try new things as trying someting often leads to great conversation.

Carolyn Bradfield

It’s a fact that most people don’t like change.  In fact, they will go out of their way to stick to their routines, watch the same TV shows, do their jobs the same way….it goes on and on.  In business, resistance to change can be deadly.  It stifles growth, prevents employees from progressing and contributing, and makes a business far less competitive.  Based on the pace of innovation, technology and new ways to approach things, businesses and people must get used to change or they will be left behind.

As a business leader, I have found that people are reluctant to change for very specific reasons:

People don’t understand the change needed.

Because of the pace at which we live our lives, we don’t often give ourselves the luxury of standing back from our day-to-day routine to look around us and then objectively look at ourselves.  In order to start any change process, you must have perspective on the fact that a change is needed.

People fear the change.

If change is eminent, it tends to freak people out.  A new boss, new compensation plan, or new product create the immediate feeling that this can’t be good.  The self-preservation instinct can cause people to focus inwardly and close their mind to the upside of the change.

People don’t understand how to make the change.

Most people work better if there is a plan and process that they understand and can relate to.  Change often comes with a lot of unknowns.  If you want a sales person to quit underperforming and hit their quota, sometimes they may just not know the steps required.  Once people accept the fact that change is needed, there is another part of the process – how to do it.

In the world of conference calling, things change all the time and companies, along with its people, have to keep pace.  At Copper Conferencing, we lead people to change and make the process less scary.

Involve people in the strategy

At Copper, I constantly stand back from the business, look at the marketplace, know my competition, look at technology, talk to the customer and think ahead.  I set aside time to have strategy meetings with our team so that they can do the same thing.  When people have an open forum to evaluate the business and generate ideas, they will often come up with the changes that the business needs to grow and thrive.

Make change part of the culture

If change never happens, then people get complacent and imbedded in routines.  It makes it way more difficult for change to happen if the company has no appetite for change and the culture doesn’t support it.  Change doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it’s up to a company to create the culture where new ideas are accepted and tried.

Create a change process

It’s not enough to have a new idea and to say you want to change.  It’s important to take it to the next level and to create an action plan that shows people the steps needed to execute the change that everyone has agreed to.

Copper intends to grow, thrive and offer new way of doing business for our customers as well as our employees.  I’ve made a habit out of leading the conferencing industry with innovation throughout my career in conferencing.  Change is stimulating, creative, allows us to be competitive and improve the customer experience.  You can expect change in 2010 – new ways to use our technology, new ways to connect to our service, new ways to save money.  At Copper, change is in our culture and it keeps us vibrant and growing.

To learn more about what’s new at Copper and how audio conferencing and webinar services can help you improve your business and cut costs, contact a Conference Coach today.

In times such as this, I’m reminded that gaining a new perspective on a situation or problem is often easy.  As easy, say, as putting on a wig.  Yes, I said a wig.

Last weekend, several people from Copper Conferencing attended a social event where wigs were par for the course.  I can honestly say that I definitely gained new perspective on two of my colleagues, Sara Stilson and Sarah Deatherage.

And what I learned about each of them got me to thinking about how this new perspective might translate to not only what we do at Copper but how we provide webinars and audio conferencing to prospects and customers.

I know this may seem like a big leap, but really it’s not a terribly big gap to bridge if you think of the wig as a metaphor for small but significant changes that can be made in any business to simply change an attitude, a way of communicating or perspective on a problem or situation.   Think of how using (or adding) audio conferencing or web conferencing might make a difference in how you approach your clients, communicate with your employees or disseminate information to a target audience.  How much do you have to gain?

So the next time you’re in need of a new perspective, put on a wig.

Carolyn Bradfield

Although it seems like it, I haven’t been in the conferencing industry my whole career.  In fact, I’ve done some pretty interesting things – taught English, worked for a newspaper, wrote a book.  One of the most gratifying things that I’ve ever done is to start and run an adolescent wilderness therapy program – Phoenix Outdoor.

So what is wilderness therapy and how does this fit in the picture of a long-standing career in conferencing?  Adolescents that engage in behavior that put them at significant risk sometimes run out of options when parents can’t correct that behavior despite the best efforts of therapists, psychiatrists, or school counselors.  Wilderness therapy removes adolescents from their risky environment and places them in a natural setting so that issues driving negative behavior can be identified and addressed as they hike, camp, work with a peer group and talk to therapists.

One of the common threads in families we worked with was that parents were crushed by having to commit their child to a program like Phoenix.  Instead of planning for prom, watching the Friday night high school game or helping with homework, they have to face the fact that their child snorted cocaine, failed in school, or ran away from home.  They have to explain their child’s absence from home and school to family and friends that may not understand.  They feel alone and isolated.

Getting parents to come out of their isolation and gain support from each other was critical to helping the family heal while their kids were in treatment.   Phoenix kids came from all over the country so they couldn’t come to the program to get to know each other.  Fortunately, I was in the teleconferencing industry and relied on the service to connect these people together.

Each week, they attended a Monday support conference call where the parents could talk about their feelings and how having a child in treatment affected their family.  They came to a webinar where we dealt with common issues such as setting boundaries or Internet addiction.  They visited with a family therapist over conferencing.  With minimal cost and no disruption to family routines, parents and siblings were able to vent, heal, collaborate and work through a plan for success once the child completed the program.  They were no longer alone.

The program succeeded and was later acquired by a much larger player in the industry.  Why wilderness you ask?  I was one of those parents whose child ran out of options, who tried everything and who sent their child to the woods – in January!  I was embarrassed, traumatized, confused, and yes alone.  What I wouldn’t have given to be on a conference call with others so I could talk about it.

This is a call to treatment providers everywhere whose families are spread out while children are in treatment.  Conferencing is easy, inexpensive and can make a powerful impact on the lives of families who are struggling to heal and move forward.  They need to know that others have the same problems and issues, that they aren’t bad parents, and they are not alone.

You can try Copper Conferencing free for 30 days and make your business and the lives of your client easier. Read more now!

Using Facebook to Attract Clients and Connect with Like-Minded People

Presented by: Marquesa Pettway
Date: Today! Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Time: 2:00 pm ET

Register Now!

Today’s free 60-minute webinar presented by Marquesa Pettway provides participants a clear understanding of Facebook and ways to use it for personal and professional purposes.  In this webinar, you will learn:

• 6 Ways to Create a Magnetic Profile
• 4 Strategies for setting up “The Critical Nugget for Client Attraction:  The Facebook Group”
• 2 Strategies for increasing your business – the Fan Page that keeps you in front of your target audience

This is an hour well spent for anyone who wants to become more familiar with Facebook or for anyone not yet using Facebook.

Register Now!

Who Should Attend:  Everyone

Have questions about Copper Conferencing or need to do an audio conference or web meeting?  Contact a Conference Coach today.

Using Facebook to Attract Clients and Connect with Like-Minded People

Presented by: Marquesa Pettway
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Time: 2:00 pm ET

Register Now!

This free 60-minute webinar presented by Marquesa Pettway provides participants a clear understanding of Facebook and ways to use it for personal and professional purposes.  In this webinar, you will learn:

• 6 Ways to Create a Magnetic Profile
• 4 Strategies for setting up “The Critical Nugget for Client Attraction:  The Facebook Group”
• 2 Strategies for increasing your business – the Fan Page that keeps you in front of your target audience

This is an hour well spent for anyone who wants to become more familiar with Facebook or for anyone not yet using Facebook.

Register Now!

Who Should Attend:  Everyone

Have questions about Copper Conferencing or need to do an audio conference or web meeting?  Contact a Conference Coach today.