A discussion about business and marketing communications (or marcom).

A new book is about to be released that is closely tied to communications and business communications – Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. It is written by the same group of people who wrote the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations, another great book involving business communications. Influencer is scheduled for nationwide release to book stores on Oct 1, 2007. The authors are Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler of the company VitalSmarts.

I’m excited to get a copy of this book. Influencer is the culmination of a 20-year long project to document the best and most powerful ideas social science has accumulated in the past five decades. As one of the authors, Joseph Grenny, said: "Our new book describes vital work done by the most influential social scientist of the past 50 years who have shown repeatedly that most any behavior can be changed if you just know how to do it. In addition, we've traveled over 100,000 miles to report first-hand about the miraculous work of some quiet but brilliant influencers who have solved world-scale problems in world-class ways—by influencing the behavior of millions of human beings. The stories are astounding and the principles are life changing. We've felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to do justice to these ideas. I hope we came close. You be the judge!"

I feel this book could be very impactful and inspirational—it discusses scores of amazing people from all walks of life, business, and nationality, who have made real changes in this world, who have answered the question "How can one person change the world?" I’m curious to see the role of communications in these stories.

The book is available for pre-order online at a 34% discount through Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble if you order before Oct 1, 2007. Also, you can then access a free case study video about some of the Influencers around the world by going back to http://www.influencerbook.com/offer and entering your order confirmation #. Here is a great new Influencer book trailer video on YouTube:

The process of communication between business buyer and business seller is facilitated online by SellMyTimeshareNOW.com, a company that uses its website to link timeshare sellers with buyers. A new press release speaks of the challenge of managing the communication between all these buyers and sellers in the timeshare industry, even on a global level.

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One of the services that I use quite often is free telephone conferencing.  Web-Scheduled Standard is a free telephone conferencing service that can be use immediately after signing up for a user account.  The way it works is everyone participating in the conference call the same dial-in number.  This service is free; the caller may be charged a long distance or tolls by their individual phone companies.  The moderator or host of the conference usually calls in first and can have up to as many as 100 callers; although the conference begins when the first caller enters the conference and ends when the last caller exits the conference.  The maximum time is 3 hours per conference call.  This only one free conference calling service and they are great to use.  I use them all the time.

Octopz is an online service that facilitates online collaboration, in either synchronous or asynchronous environments through the use of digital media, web conferencing, VoIP and content management technologies.  You can easily import and collaborate on any printable document including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  Octopz requires no training or downloads.  It features on-screen annotation and allows you to markup files and add personalized time-stamped comments, in text or audio format.  You can invite people to participate by sending them invitations via email.  You can collaborate and brainstorm using a shared online whiteboard.  Communicate with other participants via text messaging and promote your company identity through custom branding.     

Now here’s an online tool that really caught my eye.  GoToAssist advertises to control your customers, resolve more support calls the first time and “significantly increase customer satisfaction.”  It definitely does not sound like outsourcing.  GoToAssist is a secure Web-based screen-sharing solution that enables full remote desktop sharing with mutual mouse and keyboard control between you and your customers.  It requires no installation on end-user machines, and it works with firewalls.  Get this, they guarantee you will see immediate results.  Scott Antczak, Manager of Technical Support says, “With GoToAssist, we can handle more calls in the same amount of time, while improving the level of service.”  Hey, you know me; I’m all for helping improve customer satisfaction. 

WebEx Mail is a fully-hosted business-class email on the web.  Although it is integrated in your WebOffice, it is equipped with all the features you’d expect from online collaboration and its accessible anywhere you may be working.  With WebEx you get your own domain name.  It provides SSL encryption for server connections that ensure a high level of security for your information.  You can create mailboxes, assign permissions, manage contacts, and track travel and entertainment expenses for all employees online. It boasts to deliver a professional desktop-like email experience using your web browser.  With right-click menus, drag-and-drop functionality, keyboard hotkeys and fast page updates.  

Internet telephony boasts revolutionizing business communications as BlueWave Computing hosts a free lunch seminar on Internet Telephony for small businesses.  The free lunch seminar is to take place on October 26, in Atlanta, .  BlueWave Computing is a computer and network management company that assists small and medium-sized businesses get back control of their technology.  The event will be free to attend but only limited, reserved seating is available.  BlueWave’s CEO Dr. Steven Vicinanza said, “Experts predict more than 75 percent of all businesses will end up using this technology so we wanted to create a risk-free, comfortable environment for business owners who want honest answers to their questions and help them identify a solution that works when they need it.”  So if you’re a small business owner and in the vicinity, check it out.

It’s time to share a new product.  Office 2.0 is new online collaboration that brings business communications and productivity through your web browser.  Rajen Sheth at a conference said, “Office 2.0” collaboration will be about composing a document, publishing it, collaborating with others and then being able to easily find that document afterwards.”  Currently, workers often collaborate via e-mail and then file various parts of that exchange in disparate enterprise systems and this is where Office 2.0 is closing the gap.  Key for business users in the ability to share, edit and add outside information to a document in real-time online. Office 2.0 includes various web tools, such as forms, databases, blogs, wikis, images and drop-down lists.