Blogs - The Virtual Edge Institute

Virtual Events and Virtual Meetings Hit 96% Usage According to Study by CWT Travel Institute

The Meeting & Events: Where Savings Meet Success study surveyed of 2300 event and meeting producers and provides some good basic information for face-to-face as well as virtual events and meetings. They pegged the global meeting and event industry at $650 billion per year with historic growth at 4 to 5 % per year. The market dropped 20 to 30% from 2008 to 2009 in developed economies and 30 to 40% in developi… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on August 13, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Importance of Platform Orientation for a Successful Virtual Event

Submitted by Nanci Brown- Director of Events at VirtualEvents365

The formal starting point of every project is the kickoff meeting wherein the VirtualEvents365 and organizer teams meet to review the project scope.
A number of essential meetings are then scheduled, namely best
practices, platform orientation, timeline review, and, of course, a
weekly status meeting. The

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Published by Hesha Patel on August 11, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

Virtual Meetings & Events - Think Like a Broadcaster and You’ll Find Success

reprinted with permission from Steve Sulkin's blog. Steve is Founder & CEO of MBM Productions In'tl®

Up until recently, one could argue that for millennia meetings haven’t changed very much. When I see most in-person meetings, what strikes me is that just like in ancient Greece, we walk onto a stage, head for dead center and orate from a lectern. For a long time now, I’ve

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Published by Michael Doyle on August 4, 2010 at 9:24am — 2 Comments

Edutainment, Adult Learning Principles, and Virtual Events

Frank Iorio, Director of Health Sciences Virtual Solutions, CGS, Inc./VirtualEvents365

The term

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Published by Frank T. Iorio on July 28, 2010 at 6:07am — No Comments

Tablets to Drive Next Wave of Virtual Engagement

The iPad has kicked it off but the others (see Cisco Cius story) rushing to market with fully functional, user friendly wireless internet tablets will have real impact on the events, meetings, learning and collaboration…just as soon as they hit the market. I spoke at a recent Event Tech meeting and the last note I made was that I felt these new devices would drive a whole new round o

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Published by Michael Doyle on June 30, 2010 at 12:33pm — No Comments

The Healthcare Industry’s Foray into the Virtual World

As healthcare industry stakeholders embrace new technologies they are empowering themselves to expand their connection to, improve their communications with, and better serve their employees, constituents, customers, and peers.

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Published by Frank T. Iorio on June 25, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

Linden Lab to Back Away from the Enterprise and Focus on Consumer Use of Second Life

Linden Lab, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life, announced today a strategic restructuring to increase focus on the company's consumer business including investments intended to enhance ease of use and participation i

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Published by Michael Doyle on June 9, 2010 at 6:30pm — 1 Comment

A Newcomer's Impressions of the Virtual Market

http://web.me.com/haquette/IIR_Telecoms/Blog/Entries/2010/5/16_%E2%80%9COh_Brave_New_Virtual_World....html Continue

Published by Greg Hackett on May 16, 2010 at 7:32am — No Comments

‘Perpetual’ Virtual Environments May Unlock Long-Lasting Customer, Employee, Partner Relations & Drive ROI

As we prepare for the next Virtual Edge Summit trade show (both in the physical and virtual world), a powerful idea that has been percolating for a while seems to be coming closer to a reality. This virtual event and meeting space and now virtual environment sector is converging and getting very interesting. Really, there’s something new happening every day. I get calls about new technologies practically every week, I hear about new… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on February 1, 2010 at 4:30pm — 1 Comment

WEB.ALIVE BETA 2.0 COMES OUT SWINGING

Soon to be released as the AVAYA web.alive application it certainly sports some neat detailing: The latest features of the Web.alive 2.0 beta include : · drag and drop documents and images into web.alive to make presentations, collaboration, and training easy · voice just works (even better!) – noise suppression & echo cancellation allows for a great experience with your built-in laptop speakers and microphone · web rendering – it can render virtual any web content in world. This powerful… Continue

Published by Joe Rigby on December 22, 2009 at 2:22pm — No Comments

NORTEL WEB.ALIVE: IS IT A CONTENDER?

Immersive Environments using Web.Alive There are game engines, originally created for development of computer/video games, which can be used for non-game virtual worlds. Unreal Engine (UE) by Epic Games ( http://www.unrealtechnology.com ) is probably the strongest, robust and most popular. UE is a complete 3D development framework for PCs, Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3, providing a vast array of core technologies, content creatio… Continue

Published by Joe Rigby on November 8, 2009 at 5:10pm — No Comments

Forget “Content is King”; You’d Better Start Thinking the “Attendee is King”

Many physical event and meeting producers know how hard it is to get an audience. Virtual events have become an attractive option for those professionals, as they figure if they take the expense and travel out of the equation, it will just be easier to attract an audience. But virtual event producers have their own challenges when it comes to attracting an audience, and keeping them engaged. And, according to a recent survey, it’s only going to get tougher -- even in a down economy where virtua… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on November 5, 2009 at 6:40pm — 1 Comment

Uniting the Virtual Worlds Will Benefit Everyone

If ever there was a win, win, win situation here it is. When Virtual Worlds decide to unite the event will make front page news. The entire industry will benefit in three key areas. It will allow the owners to speak with one voice enabling them to define their own agenda. It will allow an entry point for needed sponsorship. Third the end user will gain a better sense of community and shared responsibility as pioneers of this wonderful technology. Continue

Published by Charles Gatlin on November 5, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

The Reality of Virtuality

Only a few weeks ago we held our first ITM forum in second life and the feedback has been great. Attended by around 20 delegates (a similar number to the amount who attended the real-life event the day before at the NEC) the forum we designed was created to test the boundaries of this technology in a business environment and its application for meetings and events. As part of ITM’s goal is to innovate and explore the use of technology in the travel and meetings arena our introduction to Second… Continue

Published by Paul Tilstone on October 21, 2009 at 8:58am — No Comments

Who is Responsible for Your Virtual Event’s User Experience?

It has been a busy few weeks for virtual events and we have had the luxury to attend a few recently that were overall pretty good but still have some issues that shouldn’t be happening. Remember, just because it is a “virtual” event doesn’t mean it should anything less than a perfect experience for your attendee—in fact, it’s even more important in my opinion. Why? The obvious reason is that people are in front of their computers with the ability to connect to a world of information or their ema… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on September 21, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Forbes in a Funk over Virtual Meetings and Events

The new Forbes Insights document titled Business Meetings, The Case for Face-to-Face poses the question: Can webconferences, videoconferences and other virtual meetings really take the place of face-to-face contact? The answer is presented somewhat ambiguously in the report as they state "business executives overwhelmingly agree that face-to-face meetings are not just preferable but… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on September 1, 2009 at 2:54pm — No Comments

Taking the Next Step in our Development--the Virtual Edge Institute

At Virtual Edge, were taking the next step with the creation of the Virtual Edge Institute (VEI). VEI will serve as the overriding organization for all of our activities. The Virtual Edge Institute is dedicated to advancing the development and adoption of virtual event and meeting technology and best practices for collaboration and marketing. So what does that mean? Our mission is to help marketers and event professionals plan and produce successful events and meetings utilizing virtual event t… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on August 28, 2009 at 5:57pm — No Comments

Another Compelling Rational for Virtual Events—if Done Right

HOW LONG BEFORE A HOT LEAD GOES COLD? For most B2B markets, the correct answer is one hour, after which the lead is no longer “hot.” (or it could be what Dennis Shiao calls an “A” lead in his blog The ABCs of Lead Follow Up http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/the-abcs-of-lead-follow-up-for-virtual-events/). It’s still a lead, but it’s no better than any old lead taken from a list. Applying a statistical measurement to extract patterns of success and failure, Dr. James Oldroyd of the Kel… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on July 20, 2009 at 10:45am — No Comments

On the Eve of eComXpo there’s a Story I Just Have to Write—But Not Now

eComXpo starts tomorrow and runs July 8th and 9th and targets the ecommerce and affiliate markets. What is interesting is that this event has been around for years --I think the first one was February 2005 but I could be wrong and I don’t have time to track someone who knows down—but it has been around for a long time in this business and they were producing more than one a year since it started. So what’s interesting about this? Let me share some stats. The March 2007 eComXpo virtual event had… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on July 7, 2009 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Don't Overwhelm Your Attendees

Twice in the last two weeks (which is not exactly a full on trend but…) I have had people say something related to the amount of unwanted emails they are getting after they attend a virtual event. I have to admit, I think there is a certain understanding that if you attend an event for free or you register and don’t opt out of follow up emails from the show or the exhibitors, you should expect to be contacted. Same might even go if you visited a booth and downloaded some materials…I can understa… Continue

Published by Michael Doyle on June 26, 2009 at 4:14pm — 1 Comment