Every modern firefighting crew has list of essentials: Polyester industrial fire Hose with nozzle Thermoplastic helmet Tower ladder truck GoToMeeting with HDFaces Hey back up there a minute. GoToMeeting? That’s right. Just ask the station chiefs in Addison Fire Protection District, Illinois, where video conferencing is considered a must. The Addison Fire Protection crew includes 65 staff members and 3 stations. They’re stretched pretty thin in delivering fire protection and paramedic services to the 35,000 residents spread across 13.5 square miles in the Village of Addison, Illinois, and surrounding areas. The fire district chiefs needed to ensure that small groups of remote employees were trained on disaster preparedness and other essential topics. They reviewed the available solutions — WebEx, Vidtel and Skype - but decided on GoToMeeting with HDFaces for its cost-effectiveness, high-quality video, ease of use and versatility. The station chiefs now also use GoToMeeting to collaborate on strategy, while people in the field or away from the district connect back with colleagues from their mobile devices. "Other services force you to use a particular type of device," said Joe Grandolfo, assistant IT manager for Addison Fire. "GoToMeeting with HDFaces works with any computer plus iPads and iPhones. We are ecstatic about the way GoToMeeting is working for us." Altogether, the district saves $5,000 annually in fuel and maintenance costs with GoToMeeting. Read the full case study (PDF).   Photo credit: Global Pierce

I’m a 32-year-old IT man who works in a basement. - Moss, The IT Crowd Once, long ago, it was quite normal to think of the IT team as somehow separate from the rest of the business. Like the characters in UK Channel 4′s The IT Crowd, they inhabited an isolated basement-like room. If your computer broke down, you’d be forced to call them. After a long delay, the phone would be answered, and a bored-sounding person would audibly scratch their head as you tried to explain what had gone wrong. I may exaggerate a little. In fact, today I want to argue that, far from consigning them to the basement, we need to put the people in IT at the heart of business. Technology is rapidly changing the nature of work, and work structures are changing along with it. If we silo IT - or any team - we reduce business agility. By making it easy to collaborate through, for example, internal social networks and remote meeting, by questioning established businesses practice such as the daily commute, by working to mitigate cubicle culture, we make it easier to grasp emergent opportunities across the business. And in today’s highly competitive marketplace, that can make all the difference. You can come out of the basement now, Moss. Take the first step GoToMeeting is simple yet powerful, allowing you to collaborate face-to-face with anyone, anywhere in the world using your PC, Mac or mobile device. It’s easy to use and round-the-clock support is only ever a click away. Try it free here. Join the conversation Reading in the UK? We’ve joined forces with London’s Biggest Conversation to help you discover the benefits of online meetings. Each week we’ll be giving away an awesome prize - like an Apple Macbook, with headset and webcam, and a year’s subscription to GoToMeeting. Find out more here.   Photo credit: 2.bp.blogspot.com  

This morning, a team of Citrix Time Vampires set out to San Francisco’s Temporary Transbay Terminal with one goal in mind: to help commuters avoid the time-suck by encouraging them to work from home with our solutions. Offering free donuts and big smiles, the team talked to nearly 500 commuters on a busy Monday morning about the opportunity to stay home and be productive tomorrow - which we hear made the morning "much better." If you are an inconvenienced Bart rider, take a look at some of the solutions we have to make the rest of your week a bit easier: GoToMeeting GoToMyPC ShareFile Podio Talkboard Want to know more about Citrix amid the Bart strike? Take a look at KGO-TV’s piece on workers using our solutions to avoid the commute hassle. In the meantime, tweet @Citrix and let us know how Citrix is helping you stay productive through the Bart strike!  

On the list of effective ways to bring people together, holidays and celebrations are right up there with food. But, as more and more people adopt flexible workstyles, office celebrations need an online presence too in order to include all team members. If you’re a leader of a dispersed crew looking to have fun this Halloween, read on for tips to spice up your workday, Halloween style. If you’ve got a week to plan… Host a costume contest via video conference. Send out your invite at least a week in advance, and choose a small prize for the winner as an incentive for everyone to participate. On October 31, gather your in-office team members in a conference room and setup GoToMeeting on the viewing screen for those attending online. Then watch the fun unfold as everyone votes for their favorite costumes. If you’ve got a few days to plan… Order festive treats for everyone on your team and deliver them to their desks, either in-person at the office or by mail for remote employees. Nothing says "celebrate" like a pumpkin-spiced cupcake. If you’ve got an hour or so to plan… Put together a collection of Youtube videos of people performing magic tricks or talents, and distribute them out to your team in an email titled "Tricks. My Treat." Or, collect the best Halloween jokes or photos from around the Internet and distribute with a happy Halloween message. How do you keep your dispersed team connected? We’d love to hear your tips. Have you ever hosted an online party? Photo Credit: Kalexanderson via Compfight cc

Update: Wow, what a contest! We were seriously impressed with all the amazing costumes - you guys clearly know how Halloween is done. But they’re can only be winning team, and they are… *drumroll please* Team CampMinder! (photo above) Huge thanks to everyone who participated and helped #MakeMeetingsFun. We hope you had as much fun as we did! Check out all the great photos on the GoToMeeting Facebook page and start planning your costumes to get ready for next year!   **********************************************************************************   Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I was on the job about two weeks before my first Halloween at Citrix, and I showed up dressed as the Flying Purple People Eater. Talk about a conversation starter! It was a great way to get to know my coworkers. Something about walking down a hallway with a giant purple horn on your head is all the opening most people need to talk to a stranger. Fast forward seven years and I still get excited about dressing up for Halloween and heading to the office. The big difference now is that my office is 10 steps down the hall from my bedroom. You see, for the past six years I’ve worked from my home office in Santa Rosa, CA (the #5 city in the U.S. for teleworkers!). But doesn’t stop me from taking part in the Halloween fun! I’ve shared my experiences about being part of a virtual team before and how GoToMeeting with HDFaces was game changing for me. I’ve always had great teammates, but having a webcam during Halloween meetings makes things extra interesting and fun! There’s something amazing about working alongside ghouls, t-rexes, smurfs, garden gnomes and robots - you learn something about the person and their personality that doesn’t always come across when you’re dealing with the task at hand. You can probably guess what’s coming next. In the name of fun and team building, GoToMeeting is hosting our second-annual HDFaces Halloween costume contest. How to participate: Here’s how it works. On Halloween, schedule a GoToMeeting session with your team. Get costumed up and turn your webcams on. Then: Take a screenshot or photo of your HDFaces session. Post it to our Facebook page here or on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and tag GoToMeeting with the hashtag #MakeMeetingsFun. Fill out the form below. Easy as that! The winner will be the team with the most creative costumes. (Yes, it’s subjective.) Need a little inspiration? Here are some of the photos from last year’s contest including the winner Team ThunderSEO! The winning team will have their photo published on all the GoToMeeting social channels, and each team member (up to 6 people) will receive a $100 Visa gift card. Not a GoToMeeting customer? Don’t worry - you can still participate. Sign up for a free trial (no credit card required). Happy Halloween - now let’s see those costumes! Fill out the simple form below to enter and win!  

They light up the webcam screens when they pop up on the video conference. They know how to get everyone on the same page. They make things happen. They’re Collab Champs. But what exactly makes them the caped crusaders of the meeting world? We needed answers. We thought about commissioning a scientific study overseen by a prestigious group of ivy league professors, but instead chose to pose the question on Facebook and offer an iPad mini for the best response. We chose wisely: Over 70 GoToMeeting fans on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ offered their Collab Champ definitions. We also created a word cloud from the responses, and it includes lots of great words like "ideas," "listens" and "together." The two biggest words are "great" and "collaborator" - obviously our fans were paying attention in school when teachers said to begin responses by echoing the question. In addition, we compiled our 10 favorite responses in an ebook, which you can view below or download free.  

Is your meeting necessary? This simple question was recently posed by Daisy McAndrew of LBC Radio 97.3, but it got me thinking: just how much time do we spend on meetings? Research carried out earlier this year revealed the average person spends a staggering 16 hours a week in meetings, and 25% of that time, they say, is just wasted. If I was throwing away that much time, you bet I’d be wanting it back and I know I wouldn’t be alone. So what then constitutes a necessary meeting? The answer is deceptively simple: a meeting is necessary if, and only if, it offers a tangible benefit to your business. If you can’t identify a benefit, don’t have the meeting. These benefits can take several different forms - whether it’s coming up with creative new ideas for the next quarter’s campaign, identifying target customers or assessing what’s gone right and what hasn’t in the quarter. Whatever the purpose, it’s essential we all agree on it and outline that purpose in a simple objective before the meeting begins. A focused agenda can then be built, with a realistic start and end time. A secondary consideration is to ask whether the meeting is necessary for each invited individual. If you can do the meeting with only half of the required attendees, give the other half their time back. They’ll be grateful and this will help create a culture that questions the prevalent tendency to hold meetings. Lastly, consider remote meeting options: it’s not always essential for everyone to be in the same room. If you need a colleague from another office to attend or an external supplier, it’s often more convenient for them and for you to incorporate remote meeting software into your face-to-face meeting, allowing them to dial or link in from their preferred location. Something really needs to be done about meetings. I challenge all of you to ask one question of every meeting you are invited to - is this meeting necessary? Take the first step New technology makes it easy to join online meetings, eliminating travel while giving remote workers the ability to join your meetings. GoToMeeting is simple yet powerful, allowing you to collaborate face-to-face with anyone, anywhere in the world using your PC, Mac or mobile device. It’s easy to use and its round-the-clock support is only a click away. Try it free here. Join the conversation Reading in the UK? We’ve joined forces with LBC Radio 97.3, London’s Biggest Conversation, to help you discover the benefits of online meetings. Each week we’ll be giving away an awesome prize - like an Apple Macbook, with headset and webcam, and a year’s subscription to GoToMeeting. Find out more here. Photo Credit: Roby Ferrari via Compfight cc

Rather than filling desk drawers with confiscated smartphones and tablets, many modern-day teachers are embracing the new tech devices for the potential they bring. Called mobile learning, this new way of engaging students extends education beyond the traditional classroom walls and school bells. It’s a technology trend that’s only getting bigger and bigger, so of course there are growing pains for those in the field. Headquartered in Bakersfield, California, Lightspeed Systems is a software company that specializes in mobile learning for schools around the world. With 150 employees and offices on 3 continents, Lightspeed Systems went looking for a simple way to connect and support more students and staff from anywhere. Lightspeed Systems first implemented GoToMeeting to reduce employee travel and to provide remote trainings for school staff. They soon followed up with GoToWebinar for larger product demos and GoToAssist Corporate for 24/7 support to customers. And just recently, they chose ShareFile over Dropbox and Google Docs for secure data sharing to complement the rest of their Citrix portfolio. Together, the Citrix solutions are helping Lightspeed Systems expand its business and mission globally. "Lightspeed Systems is passionate about education," said John Genter, vice president of global operations for Lightspeed Systems. "Citrix has helped us evangelize change in education by enabling us to carry our message to more people online than we ever could in person." Read the full case study (PDF) or learn more. Interested in sharing your own Citrix story? Get the recognition you deserve and share your experience with others by participating in the Citrix customer reference program.

"Screw up, say no and forget trying to be on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn." This is the kind of business advice we heard at the SOHO|SME Business Expo in Canada this month. Now in its sixteenth year, #sohoSME is a business-to-business marketing event in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary designed to motivate, inspire and drive the success of small businesses. GoToMeeting Canada is a proud sponsor of #sohoSME. It’s part conference and part demo ally, offering practical advice on how to attract customers and drive sales. This year’s event attracted thousands of people from across the country. Expo speakers offered real-world, practical advice for businesses, and a lot of the conversation included tips you don’t always hear at a business conference. The following five unconventional ideas were discussed at the expos. I think they are refreshing, inspiring and something you might want to try: 1. Make a Lot of Mistakes The only way to learn is to make a lot of mistakes, said billionaire and former CBC "Dragon" Brett Wilson. So don’t be afraid of not doing everything right and, yes, see mistakes as a path to improving your business. .@GoToMeetingCA There are MANY. I have tried to learn from all. #sohoSME — - W. Brett Wilson - (@WBrettWilson) October 31, 2013 2. Say No Business owners must manage commitment, says @ColinSprake. Tips ★ Say no more, set office hours, ask for agendas #sohoSME — GoToMeeting Canada (@GoToMeetingCA) October 31, 2013   To truly be successful, entrepreneurial success trainer Colin Sprake says business owners need to have a healthy balance between work and family life. It starts with learning not to overburden yourself and setting boundaries. 3. Stop Going in to Work Many of us can be more productive if we forego long hours commuting into the office and find balance between work and home by being mobile and #workshifting. This is a theme I talked about in both Calgary and Vancouver. Mobile work benefits: 30% increase in productivity, $20K cost reduction per person, 30% reduction in downtime, says @dlpotter #sohoSME — GoToMeeting Canada (@GoToMeetingCA) October 31, 2013 Businesses embracing mobile workstyles not only reap those benefits, but are on the leading edge of a new world of work. @GoToMeetingCA #Future-proofing! The world is more global than ever. Teams need a chance to collaborate virtually to learn critical skills! — WORKshift (@WORKshift) October 31, 2013   The world is getting smaller. Your business can be global. #Workshifting is the way forward. 4. Don’t Join Every Social Platform Social media is a powerful tool for connecting and collaborating, but business owners do not need to be active on every single platform, says cofounder of Webnames.ca Cybele Negris. Instead, for a greater impact, be more targeted. .@GoToMeetingCA Master 1 social media platform before spreading yourself too thin. Choose 1 where most of your audience is on #sohosme — Cybele Negris (@cybelenegris) October 31, 2013   5. Be Nice From the department of the obvious: When working with other businesses, remember the law of reciprocity. SMBs should consider endorsing others on @LinkedIn, says @MelonieDodaro #sohoSME #MeetingIsBelieving pic.twitter.com/3NMvRzU9HT — GoToMeeting Canada (@GoToMeetingCA) October 31, 2013   Spreading the word about great small businesses comes naturally to many owners. Now take that behavior online. You’ll be amazed at what comes back to you when you engage in social media. At #sohoSME, we also had the opportunity to interview business leaders, including: Billionaire and philanthropist Brett Wilson Dell’s entrepreneur-in-residence, Ingrid Vanderveldt Cofounder of Webnames.ca Cybele Negris In each city, I discussed with SMBs the benefits of workshifting and how technology can be embraced inside small businesses. I give my perspective here and would love to hear yours. To follow all the #sohoSME action, check out the newsroom powered by GoToMeeting. Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds via Compfight cc

Playstation recently launched a video showing the evolution of its games console, from 1995 to the present. As we pan around a teenager’s messy bedroom, we see hairstyles and clothing - as modeled by the teenager and friends - transform, along with the room’s decor and, of course, game console. Through a window, London’s skyline climbs ever upwards as new buildings, such as the Gherkin and Shard, arrive on the scene. It’s a brilliant piece of viral marketing that also serves to show the staggering pace of change. The console is the unassuming hero of the piece, but I’m more interested in the role of the teenagers. They fall into the demographic known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y, that is, those born in the 1980s to the early 2000s. This generation has left - or is in the process of leaving - its teenage bedroom far behind as it enters the upper echelons of organizations, not just in London but around the world. And just as the bedroom depicted in the video reflects shifting interests and the arrival of potent new technology, workplaces populated by Millennials are undergoing changes just as radical and transformative. For a start, many are no longer prepared to accept working conditions that were tolerated by previous generations. As you’d expect, there’s a funny side to this (check out the truly excellent An Interpretive Dance For My Boss Set to Kanye West’s Gone), alongside the sobering realization that the landscape of work is undergoing a tectonic shift. A recent report published by Deloitte suggests the first CEO from Generation Y to lead a FTSE 350 company will be appointed by 2016. With young innovators like Nick D’Aloisoi making their presence felt, I think that’s a conservative estimate. The report, which is based on a study of more than 1,000 UK employees, also found that many are frustrated by the "absence of a mobility culture" in British businesses. A further survey revealed that a significant proportion of workers would give up some or their pay and delay a promotion in exchange for more workplace flexibility. The message is clear: Gen Y and its leaders demand business mobility. The authors of the Deloitte report join a growing chorus of voices urging businesses to adapt. Those that do are set to survive and prosper in a new era of work which embraces flexible working. And those that don’t? There’s a definite risk they will be left behind or forgotten, much like an obsolete gaming console. Making it Work The first step to freeing up your work force is to give them the right tools, and there’s no better starting point than a free trial of GoToMeeting. Help your team stay in touch, wherever they’re working from. Photo Credit: greekadman via Compfight cc