Today we have a guest post from Cindy Huggett, CPLP. Cindy is the author of Virtual Training Basics, and co-author of ASTD Infolines "Simple, Effective Online Learning" and "Designing for the Virtual Classroom." She has taught hundreds of synchronous, online classes for a variety of audiences. Her favorite passion is to help trainers deliver effective and engaging live online classes. She also assists clients on their transition to blended solutions and conversion to virtual training. Cindy served on the national ASTD Board of Directors in 2009-2010 and was one of the first to earn the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) designation.  You can find Cindy sharing training tips via Twitter at @cindyhugg. Contact her via her website www.cindyhuggett.com. Are you an early riser? Or do you wait until the alarm clock rings, hitting the snooze button several times before dragging yourself out of bed? When it comes to virtual training, the alarm clock is ringing. Maybe you were one of the early risers, with a head start on providing virtual training to your workforce. Or maybe you are just now hearing it and biding your time while you figure out how to respond. Either way, the time is now for virtual training. The most common path to virtual training is to convert your existing traditional in-person classes to the live online environment. My new white paper, 3 Simple Steps to Move Training Online, will help you do just that. It examines the most common conversion mistakes and walks you through the three steps necessary to translate your traditional training to the online classroom. Still not sure that virtual training is right for your organization? Here are three reasons why the time is now for virtual training: Increased mobility of the workforce. According to IDC, nearly 75% of the American workforce and 35% of the global workforce will be mobile by the end of 2013. And ASTD’s recent research study on mobile learning reveals that over 85% of organizations supply mobile devices to at least part of their workforce. As your organization’s workforce goes virtual and mobile, so must your organization’s training. Increased globalization of organizations. The world continues to shrink as organizations expand their reach across international borders. Virtual training allows you the opportunity to create a community without borders. Anyone with Internet access can attend a virtual training session. And you can now provide training to employee populations who were previously excluded due to time, space or location issues.  Increased productivity for employees. When employees can stay at their desks to participate in training, they will undoubtedly realize productivity gains - less time traveling means more time getting things done. Another big advantage of virtual training is the ability to deliver it in smaller chunks of time. Employees can attend short, just-in-time training classes from their desks.  So what are you waiting for? The time is now! Download 3 Simple Steps to Move Training Online by Cindy Huggett.

First up, I'd like to welcome my new assistant, Jake Walter, to the Robiety project. He was one of the lone souls who knows Flash and to that I am very appreciative for his help. Jake has been helping with coloring, which I am very happy with, and he is now jumping head first into animating a couple shots. I'm anxious to see what he comes up with as I'm sure it will be awesome.I also have my good friend Andrew Jakubowski working on some basic toon shading for the 3D cityscape which will be used for quite a few backgrounds, so I told him to make it look nice.I've just been animating everyday doing what I can. Only a few more shots need inbetweens/cleanup/colors and then everything should be good as far as main character animation. I still have some backgrounds to paint and the implementation of sound, but I got dissss.[Begin Rant]So, last week was a very hellish week for me. Usually I go through my weekly routine with no bothers and have been doing so for the entire semester. I've been having issues with one of my LCD monitors since last fall where it would begin to flicker upon a cold boot.In the beginning it would only last a few minutes, so it was bearable. Over the weeks and months it got progressively worse. The constant flickering would take an hour or more to cease and recently took 15 straight hours before it decided to stop being a shithead.At that point I figured to leave it on 24/7, disabling sleep mode, and turn on the screensaver. That worked for a week until I cleaned my room and turned off the PC and monitors for 10 whole minutes. After that, all hell broke loose.After 72 hours of being on, the flickering wouldn't stop and I deemed the monitor unusable as of early last week. I went back to a single monitor set up from the days of old only to have my other monitor crap out in the exact same way, only it took all of 10 seconds to kill itself. I turned it on, it flickered for a few seconds, and went dim to the point where it looked like it was off.They're both 3 and 4 year old Samsungs and were quite expensive when they first came out, so I can't afford to go out and buy new ones. I did some research and it's a common problem after the 3 year mark, right after the warranty expires.I cracked open both monitors to find that the capacitors on both boards have been blown out. A normal cap has a flat top whereas the bad ones have a raised top with some inner goo leaking out.I had to desolder the bad caps to remove them and of course Radio Shack didn't have the correct capacitance I needed so I had to special order them and am waiting on those to arrive before I can hope to attempt to fix my screens. So for the time being, I've been using an 11 year old 17" HP CRT that takes up 90% of my desk and has a max resolution of 1024x768 at a refresh rate that almost doesn't kill my eyes.tl;drfml

Today we have a guest post from Mike Agron. Mike is an entrepreneur, speaker, thought leader, author and the executive webinar producer and co-founder of WebAttract, LLC. WebAttract is a professional services organization of B2B webinar experts, helping sales and marketing professionals excel at using webinars for demand creation to convert more prospects into customers. When he’s not producing webinars, Mike is an avid road cyclist. In September 2011, Mike rode 525 miles from San Francisco to L.A. in the California Coast Classic bicycle tour to raise funds for the Arthritis Foundation. I have worked with hundreds of companies - from Fortune 500 to two-person startups - that were not getting the results they expected from their webinar program because they tried to shortcut the planning process.  Do you know what you get when you do that? Disappointment! The key to successful demand-generation webinars boils down to doing three things really well: Target and attract the right audience. Keep your audience engaged. Follow up after the webinar. Here are three practical tips to help you succeed at your next webinar. Tip #1: Work the plan. You have to start with a work plan to identify and track your objectives. Included in this plan should be the details of whom you are trying to reach, what you want them to do and the details of the topic you are discussing. This work plan helps you profile your target audience, identify the desired outcomes, document your messaging ideas and, finally, define your success factors and a call to action. At the end of the webinar, what do you want attendees to do? Tip #2: Write a compelling invitation. Using the work plan, craft an invitation subject line that will compel the recipient to want to open your invite and, after reading it, click on the registration button to attend the webinar. This sounds simple enough, but I find that most invitations don’t present the topic as a "must have." Must-have information describes a pain point, and the audience you are looking for is not indifferent; they are either dissatisfied with the status quo or are actively looking for a new solution or provider to solve a vexing business challenge. This is the time to use your thought leadership. This is your opportunity to add value and to educate your audience. If you don’t communicate the must-have value of your webinar, you can bet your invite won’t get opened and considered. The invitation is where the qualifying and selling really begins. Tip #3: Track your progress using metrics. Metrics help you track and measure your progress to reach your target audience. A good predictor of webinar performance is the click-through rate (CTR). This measures how many people coming to your landing page register and how many don’t complete the form or even start to fill it out. CTR and five other key metrics are explained in more detail in the ebook download below and will help you benchmark your performance. You’re already on your way to producing more engaging and better performing webinars! I wish you continued success in meeting and achieving your webinar demand-creation objectives. Please share your questions and comments. Download the ebook: WebinarReady: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hosting Successful Webinars

I managed to fix one of two monitors by replacing the capacitors so I'm happy about that. It's been quite a few years since I've worked on a single monitor, so I have to change up my workflow to accommodate between school and home.Over the weekend I managed to get roughs in for the waterfall shot and began tie-downs and cleanup on the villain's cloak. It took me about a week to get the cloak right, having a bunch of different fully drawn attempts before I scrapped them and began anew. It looks really good now, so I'm just finishing cleanup before I send it off to my assistant, Jake, for coloring.Speaking of Jake, I got back the work I sent him last week which entailed color and rough inbetweens for a couple shots. At first I thought he didn't do anything because it played and looked fine. Then I remembered I only did keys on these shots! It looked as if I had animated it myself. It blends in so well and I'm really pleased with his work.

Robiety Work Reel 4-11-11 from Jeff Yandura on Vimeo.Those daring to dream ideals must dare to share them as realizations, lest they remain so.Robiety is the story of evolved social systems like our own, and of the ordinary individual encompassed by them. The daily grind takes both literal and figurative meanings for Sector 51's S.I.M.B. (Standard Issue Maintenance Bot) as he struggles to differentiate himself in a unified, rigid society steeped in efficiency and perfection. Working to perpetuate a civilization believing to have achieved its technological apex, he, like his fellow citizens, strives to obtain scant upgrades that enhance his status in the Robiety. With the lofty goal of attaining that one screw or bolt that elevates him to the upper echelons of Sector 51, S.I.M.B. carries out his redundant existence until a freak work accident changes the perception of his reality forever. An errant malfunction leads to dangerous, yet wonderful concepts in stark contrast to those shared as ideals throughout his world. The imperfection in his programming, S.I.M.B decides, may not be such an imperfection after all. An attempt to share this dream with his colleagues and loved ones also held captive by the monotonous existence of Sector 51 proves both daunting and inspiring. Robiety is the tale of an individual's realization, discovery, and struggle, detailing the pertinence of a utopian societal conflict when juxtaposed with our own.

Robiety is in about as good of a shape as it can be at this point. With a couple weeks before graduation, there's still a lot of animation to finalize in the next week. The movie won't be done by any means. Over summer I want to spend time doing some nice backgrounds as I had done over Christmas break; I was really happy with the way those turned out and I can take my time on them with no rushing around.I do want to put in sound effects before senior reviews on May 2nd, just so the movie engages more than one sense and keeps people interested. Music may be added at a later date but that hasn't been a main concern of mine. Animation and colors is top priority.

After months of on and off work (mostly off), the new site design is finally complete. Now that it's out of the way, I can continue to focus on Robiety and its site as well as my demo reel.

There’s nothing we love more than our customers. So when they love us back, we are proud to share it with the world! We can’t think of anything that showcases GoTo solutions better than positive feedback from our satisfied customers. Occasionally we get the opportunity to feature their stories as case studies. Below are some that we created during the last couple of months, demonstrating innovative ways that you too can benefit from Citrix products. Twestival Citrix GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar prove essential in helping an online not-for-profit organization manage worldwide fundraising events. UNC OneMBA, a global executive MBA program offered by UNC, connects students and faculty across the globe with GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. Branson School Online An online K-12 school uses GoToMeeting with HDFaces for enhanced interaction among students, parents and teachers, and GoToAssist with FastChat for efficient remote support. To read more about what our customers are saying, visit our website. We would love to hear more about how you are using our products and the benefits you are experiencing. For more information on how to share your story, email us at VoiceOfTheCustomer@CitrixOnline.com Image credit Amanda Rose. .

Yes, it's true. After sitting on the domain for a year, I finally got an idea on what to do with the site and just rolled with it. I'm really happy with the way it came out and it will house the movie upon completion.For now, I plan to export a new work reel containing new assets created after graduation.www.robiety.com

 Right now, I’m raising money for a 15 year old blind kid somewhere in Utah who wants to record his first CD. A few years ago, Kuha’o Case was sat in front of a piano for the first time and discovered that he wasn’t just interested in piano: he was insanely talented at it. He learned by himself, plays by ear, can’t read a lick of sheet music (blind, I mentioned, right?), and can hear a song once or twice and play his own interpretation exceptionally well. I decided to push my network to help him raise the $30,000 he wants for the project. Why? No reason. Jesse Stay, a colleague in the same space, posted a link to the project that I saw on the morning I wrote this article, and I watched the little video, found it moving, and decided that it’d be fun to get this guy his money. But what’s really interesting to me is learning whether my network will perform. I started by asking Neil Gaiman for a retweet. Neil has more followers than me, and his famous musician girlfriend, Amanda Palmer, just raised over $1 million on Kickstarter for her project, so I felt he’d be sympathetic. He was. At least enough to click the retweet button. I also sent the post to Bassnectar, whose first name is Lorin, because the kid did a cover of one of Lorin’s songs, so I felt he’d want to spread it. I also turned to my Twitter network plus my blog plus my Google+ network and asked them for $10. This is where it gets a bit depressing, but where it also will help us understand why cultivating a network is critical. If I ask 210,000 people for $10, and 1% of them say yes: That’s $21,000. That means that 1 on every 100 people who follows me on my various social networks could solve this request in about 10 minutes and go back to whatever it is they’re doing. But that didn’t happen. So far, I’ve only raised about $1000, and some of that was my money. That means that I couldn’t convince more than 100 people to give $10. There are other ways I could have accomplished this goal. I’m friends with plenty of reasonably successful people. I could have asked the right 300 of them for 100 dollars, and I’d be done faster. I could have sought a business sponsor to match 10,000, and then used that to leverage the money. But all of these require a bit more of an ask, and this project, while important, isn’t the same as my core charity/fundraising efforts (homelessness and autism). So, learning who to ask, how much to ask, when to tax your network, and more, are part of this. Let’s talk about some more of the knobs we can and should tweak. How Big Is Your Network Most people don’t think of the people they interact with as a network, and some people accidentally mislabel their connections as a network. Both are something to consider, and it’s up to you to determine who’s who. The biggest mistake people make is over-counting people they "can" reach as being in their network. This is practically the entire basis of public relations measurement, in my somewhat jaded opinion. For instance, though 210,000 people follow me on Twitter, probably a few thousand are people who know me fairly well, another ten thousand are very versed in my work, beyond that are people who subscribe to me because their friends do, and beyond that are maybe robots and people who don’t actually use the system. Of that number, though, how many do I think will stand up and take on any challenge at my request? Let’s call that number 200, though on some days it might be five or six people. You should think about this the same way: there are "people you could reach, people who might notice, people who pay attention, people who care, and people who love you." Those lists should be smaller and smaller and smaller, obviously. So how do you work with them? How do you Cultivate a Network? Some people (like me) work to grow an audience and then convert some percentage of them into a community. Through my writing, my speaking, my social network presence, my video shows, and more, I have built up a following of people who are interested when I create something. But from that number, the way I’ve cultivate relationships is that I do one of the following (in order of their level of involvement): Acknowledge and respond to people who speak to me. Point out the good works of others. Promote someone else’s product or service. Show allegiance or camaraderie with certain people. Offer to help certain people. Passively seek repeat opportunities to pass business to other people. Actively pass business to other people and actively help them grow business through promotion, partnership, joint ventures, and selling. Partner with other people. Those are the eight ways I know how to do it. #1 is anything from commenting back to someone on Twitter, to answering an email, to replying to a comment someone has left on my website. #2 is anything from my retweeting someone else’s work, or linking to someone’s blog post, etc. #3 is what I did at the top of this letter, by promoting Kuha’o Case’s project. And so on. I think most of us stay around the 1-3 level and rarely venture further into the fray. If so, then it’s unlikely that you’ve got a very responsive or participatory network. 1-3 is the "you scratch my back" set and isn’t especially motivated to help you beyond what you’ve done for them when the time comes. But obviously, 4-6 take some time, and 7-8 are actual work. And there, of course, is where you find the gold. It takes work to get value. And that’s the work that needs doing. An Assignment If you’re serious about wanting to grow and cultivate the value of your network, open up a spreadsheet. Start listing the names and whatever contact info you have of people, and then assign them a rank of 1-8 of what you’ve done for them LATELY. The next-to-last column are notes from your last interaction. The last column is the date of your last interaction. Remember: you SHOULD have more 1-3 ranks than most other numbers. But if you don’t have any 7-8s, you don’t have much of a network. Never on this spreadsheet keep track of who you feel owes YOU a favor. There’s never any value in that. If you do it right, you’ll have done so many favors and done so much to build up the quality of the 7-8s that if you have to ask for help, you’ll feel confident that you’ve done so. Oh, and if the last two columns are fading, it’s less likely that your 7-8 ranks are accurate, are they? So, adjust them and move on. One final detail: you’ll get a lot further and gain a lot more success if you don’t work on the "stature" of the people you help and serve. Meaning, don’t kiss up. Instead, promote the rising stars. They will always do more with you over the years than those who have "made it" and don’t likely need your help. That’s vital.

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How do you keep customer service personalized when customers want to use mobile apps and other technology? Can technology enhance customer service? Answer from Jeff Hargett, Senior Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: "There’s an app for that!" In August 2013, a mobile testing service, StarDust, released a study showing on average, 2,371 new apps are published every day. Technology is helping us be more self-sufficient while speeding up our lives with quicker ways to get work done. It is also squeezing out the one thing that is the core of service: our humanity. Excellent service comes from people, not technology. The warmth and sincerity of a genuine smile can only come from the heart of another human being. With that said, we do need to embrace technology because it is necessary to remain relevant and engaged. Product and Process, or as we call them, "The Systems Behind the Smiles," create the platform for training our Ladies and Gentlemen. We must stay up-to-date on the latest technology, and in 2014, The Ritz-Carlton rolled out an app that successfully married technology with the luxury experience. The mobile app provides a convenience, but it is the enlightened leadership and engaged employees that create the outcome. In other words, what really matters is how we deliver excellent service alongside the most current technological advances. Genuine care and comfort can’t be downloaded on your smartphone but only uploaded from my heart to yours. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Does Technology Enhance Customer Service? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

 What a weekend! On Sunday, Bradley Wiggins raced through the streets of Paris to become the first British winner of the Tour de France. Team Sky and Wiggins also sealed an historic fourth Champs Elysees stage win for Mark Cavendish, thr 23rd Tour stage victory of his career. We’re sure these results will give Team GB athletes and the rest of the country a huge boost ahead of the Olympics, which are now just days away. Although this is very exciting, it does come with its own problems, too. It is not hard to notice that London has already started to swell in size. Even walking down the streets there seems to be more people about and that’s before you even get into a train or tube station. With an estimated 11 million visitors planning to head to the capital at some point during the next month, it’s going to get busier. So the questions is, will you be braving the M4 each morning or will the trip from your bed to the sofa be as treacherous as your commute gets? Will you be squeezing yourself onto a packed Northern line train to get to that client meeting or will this finally be the month you get your boss using video conferencing? Either way, we really hope everyone manages to enjoy the games, but just in case you haven’t had a chance to get fully prepared yet, here is our guide to surviving the next four weeks: If you can’t view the embedded guide below, you can download it here: Citrix Olympics Survival Guide Citrix Olympic Survival Guide For Small Businesses from GoToMeeting You can also follow our updates and tweet us any questions that you have at @GoToMeetingUK.   Photo credit: Andy Wilkes

Working in customer service may not always seem like a privilege. Customers can be unkind, irritable and even angry. However, when you are an empowered customer service agent who is told to surprise and delight customers, your role takes on new meaning. You are allowed and encouraged to express creativity and initiative. But more than that, you can look for ways to bring extra joy to people. You become a sort of fairy godmother for your customers because you can make wishes come true. What a privilege! Your job is no longer just checking people in or dusting a room. Your job is to make genuine connections with customers and create lasting memories. The following excerpt from a guest letter is one example of what happens when empowered employees transform customer service into genuine caring and giving. Thank You Letter from Guest "I am a working mother of two little boys, and in September 2012, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was quite a shock, but I had a successful surgery and started chemotherapy. When I thought my chemo was going to be complete, I decided the best way to celebrate was a girls’ night at The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte, with my best friend. I called the reservations line and the woman on the phone asked if it was a special occasion. I told her not really, just a girls’ weekend to celebrate the end of my chemotherapy sessions. I never gave that call another thought. "Last Saturday when we checked in, we were greeted by [a woman from Guest Relations], who introduced herself and congratulated me. I truly had no idea why she was congratulating me! My friend and I were handed a glass of champagne and a gentleman took our bags. I did notice that [the Front Desk Agent] and the rest of the staff were all wearing the signature pink breast cancer awareness ribbons, but I assumed there was something else going on in the hotel. I would never dream they were wearing the ribbons for me!! "Upon entering our guest room, I noticed a wrapped package on the bed. I opened it and it was a compilation of 56 different hand-written notes from the staff/employees, all put in a frame. These notes were all to encourage me during my cancer journey. I was shocked and touched. "I know The Ritz-Carlton has built its brand on customer service, but to me, that gift was more than just customer service … that was family. I am not a prominent citizen. I am not famous. I will probably not meet most of the folks that took the time to write a note to me. Your staff truly had nothing to gain by going so far above and beyond for me, making the experience all the more special. I will always treasure that gift, and my weekend at The Ritz-Carlton! "Thank you for instilling a culture of kindness and personal touch at your hotel." The Privilege of Serving The motto of The Ritz-Carlton — "We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen" — ensures that all customers (and employees) are treated with dignity, grace and courtesy. When organizations put customers first and empower employees to follow through with this priority — customer service becomes a privilege and results in cherished and lasting memories for all. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post The Privilege of Customer Service appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Ever since I read Anne-Marie Slaughter’s controversial article "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All" in The Atlantic, I’ve been thinking about what having it all really means. For me, having it all has evolved throughout my career. When I was starting out in the business world after graduate school, having it all meant working 60-hour work weeks, laser-focused on advancing my career to the stage where I could make a real difference for an organization. With no family at that time, my job was my only priority. I was moving up the ranks of my company with a role that meant something - in my eyes, I had it all. Over the next dozen or so years, I got married, had two wonderful daughters and found a senior role at Citrix as the VP and GM of Access and Cloud Services. My priorities changed, and with them, my version of having it all. Delivering an inspirational presentation at the annual sales conference was just as important as watching my daughter’s lacrosse game.  It wasn’t easy, but I knew what having it all meant to me, so I adapted to achieve it. Nowadays, I get up at 4:30 AM every morning to sneak in a workout and some morning emails before my husband and kids leave bed. By 7:00 AM, I’m back in mom-mode making sure the kids have breakfast, packing their lunches and getting them out the door for school. If I need to slip out in the middle of the day for a parent-teacher conference, I make sure to block out my calendar and let my teams know when I’ll be out and when I’ll be back online. Having it all takes work, and there are 3 main factors that make it possible for me: A supportive husband and family who recognize the demands of a high-pressure role A flexible employer who allows me to work where and when I need to, providing the work gets done (my job is never 9 to 5) A set of tools that allow me to untether myself from the office and collaborate effectively with my teams - wherever they are Having it all is a journey, and it’s a journey that requires compromise. Sometimes having it all is a 60-hour work week; other times it’s being there with your family for the moments that matter. You have to recognize what matters most and tailor your life accordingly. Take my sister-in-law for example. She was a senior expat executive at a Fortune 100 company, and when her children were teenagers, she left her job. For her, having it all then was staying at home and being a full-time mom during her children’s most formative years. After 3 years of being a stay-at-home mom, her kids left for college and she re-entered the workforce. At one time in her life, having it all was a full-time job, and at another, it was being a full-time mom. Having it all isn’t a one-size-fits-all notion, and it’s not just about balancing your work and life - it’s the evolution of work and life. For me, having it all is working at a great company, raising my wonderful children and having my supportive husband by my side.   Photo credit: The Atlantic

"Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business." — Zig Ziglar, American author, salesman, and motivational speaker The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Our hearts beat faster and our palms get a little sweaty as we step up to greet the customer who wants to "speak to the manager, now!" How would that conversation change if we introduced ourselves with: "I understand you have a matter to bring to our attention, and I want to thank you"? As a leader, we should approach our customers as partners who help us constantly improve, and we should appreciate the gift of feedback. The Ritz-Carlton leaders view critical guest comments as a necessity in order to remain the top luxury hotel brand. When a guest hands us an opportunity, every Lady and Gentleman is empowered to rebuild the trust with our guest and show them why they chose to stay with us. ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Gift of Feedback appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

By the end of 2012, the number of mobile devices will exceed the world’s population of almost 7 billion people, says TechCrunch.com. We know everyone’s mobile, everyone’s wireless and everyone’s device is different. From smartphones to tablets and laptops, mobile devices have simply become a pervasive business necessity. They are the tools we can’t live without. My first thought is: who is going to support all these mobile devices? OK, IT managers, directors and VPs. Probably someone from your team. So today, I dedicate this post to you and all the tech wizards whose job it is to keep mobile devices up and running. Mobile Device Support is something you probably perform on a daily basis, and Citrix understands that all too well. We face those same challenges. That’s why we recently introduced the ability to provide support to iPad and iPhone users and their mobile devices. Yes, your technicians can conduct secure chat sessions, update profiles and configure device settings directly from the GoToAssist Remote Support web UI, system tray or from an iPad or Android device. GoToAssist, the market leader in remote support, delivers cloud-based tools to help IT professionals support people and machines. The GoToAssist Remote Support service newest feature, Mobile Device Support for iOS, enables IT pros to proactively assist end users on iOS devices via mobile optimized chat. Technicians can also share profiles that they have created with the iPhone Configuration Utility to troubleshoot problems and set business policies. Mobile Device Support for iOS capabilities: End-user web chat optimized for receiving support on a mobile device. IT can share device configuration profiles directly with end users. Integrates with iPhone configuration utility. IT admins can specify each shared configuration profile’s "time to live." Profiles can be shared directly via mobile chat. GoToAssist’s mobile optimized chat combined with the ability to share profiles enhances IT’s ability to support iOS devices and improves end-user satisfaction. And don’t forget, your technicians also have the ability to deliver support from anywhere using an iPad or Android mobile device. This is great for the support from use case, where techs can instantly connect to computers and solve clients’ technical issues directly from their mobile device (yes, it’s free). Access unattended machines and provide advanced remote support with a paid subscription. Not a current subscriber of GoToAssist Remote Support and IT Monitoring? Try it out today - FREE for 30 days.  

Dear Ritz-Carlton: Does employee empowerment impact employee engagement? Answer from Jennifer Blackmon, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: There is an unlimited amount of dialogue available today surrounding the concept of empowerment and how that can lead to an engaged workforce. Unfortunately, many organizations that are marking that off their checklist are still missing the mark. The real meaning of empowerment, at least from an employee perspective, is freedom. To truly be empowered means that you are free: free to make decisions to the best of your ability in the moment and regardless of cost — and you don’t need to check with anyone first. Free to take care of a customer’s needs without any hassles or policy binders restricting a successful outcome for you or for them. Free to look for ways to emotionally connect with a customer that is supported and encouraged through time and resources. Empowerment can be a driving force on the path to employee engagement but it must be given fully — no questions asked. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Employee Empowerment and Engagement appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Olympics 2012 is an opportunity for businesses to think long-term and establish more productive working practices. We’ve had the record-breaking rain, the teething problems, even the odd fiasco - but really, what British event would be complete without them? The fact is, London is now well and truly raring to go for the Olympics. Even the sun has come to the party. But let’s not jinx it by talking about it too much.  If you’re a business owner in the capital, it’s likely you’ll have considered how the Olympics is going to affect you. This may be a daunting prospect, but it’s also a brilliant opportunity to establish new, more productive working practices. Think long-term Being stuck in a traffic jam or elbow-to-elbow on a delayed train is no way to carry on business as usual. By getting a remote working solution in place an organisation can call on those resources immediately in the event of unforeseen circumstances, knowing that they work in practice. Whether it’s attending a virtual meeting, training session or accessing vital files securely, a remote working solution can ensure continuity and a ‘business as usual’ approach is maintained, even if you or your staff can’t physically make it into the office. Get the business onboard It’s not too late to implement an operational change such as remote working. There will be new systems and new ways of working to get used to and this may seem challenging. However, if ever there was a time to reduce business travel time and cost, and improve work-life balance, it’s now. You can make the transition to new solutions and strategies smoother by implementing them step by step. Plan out a strategy that takes account of likely workforce interruptions, emphasise the benefits to staff and the business, and you’ll take control of what in the past may have been an unpredictable situation.  Get specialist support So you’re ready to go. Even so, it can be hard to know where to start. Fortunately there are specialist providers out there who are able to offer support throughout the transition. By using bespoke hosted solutions, easy-to-use technologies can be put in place rapidly with best practice in mind. These solutions also tend to be very cost-effective as there is little up-front investment and you only pay for what you require. Good luck! We’re offering GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting free for the duration of the Games. Visit gotomeeting.co.uk or gotomypc.co.uk and enter the code GOTOGOLD. Plus, we’ve put together a guide for surviving the Olympics, available here (PDF). Photo credit: siddienam

85% of workers are open to finding a new job—even when they are satisfied in their current position. In today’s competitive market, being a good manager and leading from the head is not enough. You need more than good business expertise and the right organizational structure to foster employee retention. You need managers who lead with the heart as well as with the head. Employees crave authentic connections to their leaders. When workers are able to trust their leaders and believe that their leaders care about them, then they feel a greater sense of loyalty—which increases retention. The Credo card of The Ritz-Carlton reminds employees—known as our Ladies and Gentlemen—to provide guests with genuine care and comfort. Leadership must extend this same genuine care and comfort to employees. When your employees feel supported, respected and appreciated, they are more likely to stay in their positions and represent your organization with pride. How can leaders reassure employees that their contributions are valued? One way is for leaders to step out of "autopilot mode." Managers need to move beyond just going through their daily routine and try to be in the moment. When they are in the moment and alert to employees’ needs, leaders have a much better chance of connecting with employees. Here are some practical steps leaders can take to cultivate employee loyalty: Listen (to groups and individuals) Now more than ever before, you need to wear the hat of Chief Listening Officer in your organization. You need to make sure you devote a few meetings each week to simply listening to staff, colleagues and customer comments. When you are in these meetings, you should be in the moment and show you are engaged through eye contact, nodding, and good body language. Be Visible It is tempting to gain extra time in the day by eating a quick lunch at your desk where you can return emails and phone calls. However, your peers are in the employee dining room wondering why you never join them for lunch. Make it a point to join your colleagues for lunch at least once a week. Or drop in on a departmental staff meeting. It’s not necessary to say anything; just your presence conveys that their work matters to you. Show Gratitude To an overworked employee, a word of thanks can make a huge impact. Recognition is always important, but especially when circumstances don’t allow you to reward them financially. Find a contribution that you particularly appreciate about an employee and explain why it matters to you. The more specific you can be the better. It makes your praise all the more believable and meaningful. Invest Be sure that your teams are engaged in meaningful work and that you have good development plans for them. If things slow down for your team, turn the employees loose on key projects that are coming down the pipeline for them in the future to help build their skills now. Showing a genuine interest in your employees’ professional development demonstrates your commitment to their long-term success. By acknowledging employees efforts and showing genuine care, leaders can increase employee engagement, inspire trust and create loyalty. The by-products of an engaged workforce include less absenteeism and greater employee retention. Employees who feel valued work harder and are more comfortable expressing initiative. When managers lead with both their heart and their head, they can bring out the best in their employees, who will share their best with their customers, and everyone will win. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Connecting with Employees appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

It may be easier than you think to maintain "business as usual" despite hurdles such as the Olympics. From Danny Boyle’s inspiring opening ceremony staged by thousands of volunteers to the incredible feats performed by the world’s top athletes, it’s been an amazing first week for the Olympics. We should also congratulate London’s public transport services. According to news reports and our own observations, there has been less disruption to commuters than expected. I think this can be attributed, at least in part, to the number of businesses embracing flexible working, which has lessened congestion in the capital. The benefits certainly stack up. For example, according to an experiment carried out by O2 ahead of the Olympics, 88 per cent of employees were just as productive working remotely, with one-third even finishing more work than usual. These positive results are due to the right preparation and the right technology, which together enable businesses with remote staff to match, and even surpass, the productivity of office workers. Making it happen A common misconception is that implementing an effective flexible working solution is an intensive and costly process. In fact, it can be surprisingly easy, as well as affordable. Today’s remote working software is effective across a wide range of corporate and consumer devices. In many cases, this means that staff will be able to use their own devices, resulting in productivity boosts and cost savings for the business. And since the software is simple to install, apps can be loaded on select devices quickly and tailored to individual employee needs. Of course, another barrier to the spread of flexible working is the widely held belief that the practice is a "skiver’s paradise", as Boris Johnson put it. I have to respectfully disagree with the mayor of London. As more businesses experience the benefits highlighted by the O2 experiment, we’ll see flexible working become much more commonplace, in both the next few weeks and the foreseeable future. In addition to world-class facilities, urban regeneration and golden memories, the Games will leave a lasting legacy with flexible working. London Commuter Mood We’ve been monitoring the mood of London’s commuters on Twitter during our summer of sport, and it’s been a fascinating experiment so far. It remains to be seen whether the current low levels of disruption will continue. Follow @GoToMeetingUK for our daily #LoCoMo updates! Photo credit: pondspider.

"Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people." — Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Human nature makes people want to feel special and remembered. Taking a moment to understand who your employees and co-workers are outside of the office is a simple way to demonstrate they are important to you. Delegating tasks and showing you trust them allows them to take ownership and feel like valued members of your team. These two small actions will help your team be more fully engaged. Your customers also need to feel important. The Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton spend each day talking, sharing and learning about our guests. Asking customers about small details—such as how they enjoyed their dinner at the restaurant you booked for them—personalizes the experience. By understanding our guests’ passions, hobbies and lifestyles, we are able to give them The Ritz-Carlton Mystique and create genuine, lasting relationships. ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Make Me Feel Important appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Today we have a guest post from Kim Gusta. A content marketer and copywriter, Kim creates engaging content and sound marketing strategy for small businesses and technology companies. Visit her blog for more information about content marketing. One of the most frequent reasons companies want to use content marketing is to generate high-quality leads. And I couldn’t agree more - content marketing is terrific for finding leads that fit your optimal target market, but to do it well, you need to know the right strategies. I’ll be covering how to use content to generate leads in my upcoming webinar for GoToWebinar, "5 Keys to Using Content for Effective Lead Generation." Key #1: Understand your buyer really well. I can’t overstate how important this step is. The better you understand your buyers and their hot buttons, the better your content will be. As a result, they’ll be more inclined to register and download it. If you build awesome content that really speaks to your buyers, I guarantee they’ll want more. And that makes them a better lead for you, because they’ll learn more about your company and your solutions. I’ll cover some low-cost methods for researching your buyers on the webinar. Key #2: Focus on "How can we help you?" vs. "What can we sell you?" This is a mindshift you (and your company) might need to make. Successful content marketing is built around offering your buyers helpful, high-value content that addresses their challenges, talks to their concerns, describes their issues and so on. Content that only sells your product or company is likely to be deleted or ignored. Think educational content and not sales content. Key #3: Use economies of scale when creating content. There are ways to make the process of creating content easier while also avoiding content overload. First, inventory your existing content and capture a list of everything you already have in a spreadsheet. Then whenever you’re about to create a new piece of content, review your list and ask "What are at least 5 different ways I can repurpose one of these?" If you get in the habit of doing this every time before you create something, you’ll soon have a large repository of high-value content. Key #4 Expect incremental buyer movement. Yes, we’d love our buyers to quickly move through our sales funnel, consume all our content and get on with buying something from us, but it doesn’t work that way. Customers will take their research and buying process at their own pace. As Ardath Albee explains on her blog, we need to be patient with our buyers. We can’t constantly bother them to buy - we must let the content process work. I’ve seen this issue alone derail content marketing programs. You may want to proactively educate others in your organization about this reality so they have appropriate expectations. The Final Key Want to know the next step for how to use content to generate high-quality leads? Attend my webinar "5 Keys to Using Content for Effective Lead Generation" on August 9. I’ll discuss these steps in much greater detail and give you a 60-day action plan for getting started. As a bonus, all attendees will receive my free Reference Guide to Using Content for Lead Generation plus customizable content templates that’ll save you lots of time in your content efforts. Register for the webinar. Photo credit: daniel_gies

Dear Ritz-Carlton: What does empowerment mean for an employee at The Ritz-Carlton? Answer from Joseph Quitoni, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: At The Ritz-Carlton, we believe in empowering our Ladies and Gentlemen through trust that releases their greatness and contributes to the mystique of our brand. "Empowering through trust" instills a sense of pride, leading to service excellence at every level of our company. The word empowerment means "giving employees the power to do their job and engage the guest." The presence of empowerment creates an environment where there is no fear of retribution and an environment where employees understand that they not only fulfill functions, but also have a purpose. Each employee at all levels is empowered to spend $2,000 per guest, per day if needed to engage with our guests. However, empowerment is rarely about money. It’s about having the ability to connect with each guest to leave an imprint that is a unique, memorable and positive experience. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Empowerment at The Ritz-Carlton? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

After writing "Women Can Have It All (But What Does "All" Really Mean?)," I found myself discussing the topic with my Citrix colleagues on a number of occasions and was fascinated by the stories they shared. To explore the subject further, I asked two of those co-workers, Erin Hintz, VP and GM for Marketing and eCommerce, and Diane Gonzalez, VP of Engineering, to join me in a round-table discussion via GoToMeeting with HDFaces. You can watch the 3-part series here: (or on YouTube here) Video 1: Women in the Workplace: Having It All Video 2: Women in the Workplace: Advice for Having It All Women in the Workplace: Future Predications What does having it all mean to you? Do you have advice for achieving work-life success? Do you think it will be easier to have it all in the future? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.