4 Tips to assure yourself and Your Guests a Flawless Experience during your Video Conferences

February 2nd, 2018 by ali No comments »

Video conferencing has become an essential tool for most people today. These four useful tips will help you to prevent troubles and have a smooth experience during your video calls

How many times have you thought of video conferencing as a pain in the neck? Especially technical problems can make your video session a nightmare, but there are also other less-known issues, like, for example, our bad appearance on the screen, which could spoil your conference and then your day. Luckily, video conferencing has been in use for long enough that there is a plenty of golden rules, best practices and tips available that can help you to keep troubles away.

  1. Know your tools

Most people simply want to start using their video conferencing technology immediately, with little or no grasp of the topic. Now, it is true that the graphic interfaces of video conferencing apps are generally easy and intuitive, one just for all R-HUB`s TurboMeeting ; but it is also true that everybody must spend some few minutes on reading  the instructions of the video conferencing tool at least once.

In general, a good knowledge of the tool you are going to use is essential for having a smooth session. Consider that human errors are still the cause number one of problems during a video conference.

  1. Visuals matter

Once you feel sure on the technical side of the thing, it is time to consider your appearance and the one of your surroundings. Look matters also in digital life, and many details are often enhanced by the keen eye of your cam, especially if you wish to experience telepresence.  Therefore, dress properly, set the background in a convenient way and spend some time in adjusting your cam and your microphone. You are going to find detailed suggestions and tips about this topic on R-HUB`s blog at http://www.rhubcom.com

  1. Adjust the sound

Remember, between you and your interlocutor there are a microphone, some wires and a complicated technology. Don’t speak to your microphone, as it were a human person; first check it and, if it is necessary, adjust it, so that your voice doesn’t come off as too loud or too soft. Table microphones are the worst choice, as they can easily pick up some annoying noises like accidental or involuntary body movements. Prefer ceiling microphones.

  1. Try to be engaging

During video conferences, it is easy to fall into the trap of routine or be monotonous. Don’t read some text or slides, but speak to your audience. Make an effort to use some of the many tools that are available on today’s web conferencing platforms exactly to engage video conference participants, like the whiteboard and the polls.

In conclusion, learn the technical instructions of your video conferencing tool, then adjust your cam, audio and surroundings, don’t forget to dress properly, and try to engage your audience. If you follow these simple four tips, your conference will be a success.

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How to Work Effectively and Successfully with your Remote IT Support

January 28th, 2018 by ali No comments »

Turning to remote IT support services has become a necessity for almost every organization that employs remote workforce. How to manage the relationship with your IT provider, in order to make it a success? Here come three basilar tips that can help you to make the relationship with your provider fruitful and helpful

More than a matter of choice, outsourcing IT services has become a sheer need for many organizations today. In facts, this solution is oftener and oftener the only way to get access to experienced and well-trained IT resources, because the increasing complexity of the fast-growing IT technology makes the costs of training internal IT teams unsustainable, especially for small organizations.

Statistics confirm this assumption. According to BDO’s 2015 Technology Survey, more than twice as many US companies have outsourced their IT services in the last few years. According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, 72% of global companies outsource their IT services, with an increase of 31% in the use of outsourcing and a rate of satisfaction of 78%.

Therefore, developing the skills to successfully manage your remote IT support has become crucial for your organization. Luckily, this is not a difficult task.

1) First, think about your requirements.

Knowing your needs, especially your IT support needs, is naturally the first step. There is nothing like a kind of universal IT support service available out there; every provider offers a specialized IT support service (or a range of specialized IT services) that is targeted on a set of specific needs or technologies. So, it is important that your needs match the competences, capabilities and technological equipment of your provider. Window support is different, for example, from Apple support or Android.

It is also important to understand when, why and how your staff asks for support. Remember that the members of your team are the final users of the service in the end; Therefore, everything works if your collaborators feel at ease with the service and find it useful.

2) Train your staff to properly use your remote IT support service.

An IT support office cannot be deemed as responsible for everything. It is then important to set boundaries and manage the expectations of your collaborators. A good idea is to explain your team what kind of support they can expect and when, and to agree with them on what it is to be handled in-house. You will avoid misunderstandings, squabbles and quarrels that way.

3) Remember that staff training is still important.

Outsourcing IT support does not mean the end of the necessity to train your employees. Human errors are the main causes of IT issues, especially in the domain of data security, and your remote IT support can do nothing to prevent them. Therefore, teams must be always trained to a safe and correct utilization of the technology they get, despite of the engagement of a remote IT support service.

In conclusion, good communication with your remote IT support provider is king, like in any relationship. Be clear about your needs and expectations and speak up. Listen to what your provider can actually do for you and involve your team in the process, as your employees are the ultimate users of your remote IT support service.

Are you interested in remote IT support and the possibilities and advantages that it brings to an organization? You are going to find more resourceful posts and articles on R-HUB`s Blog at http://www.rhubcom.com

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When and Why to Move to the Virtual Office?

January 26th, 2018 by ali No comments »

De-location (that is moving from a physical to a virtual workplace) is the new mantra for many digital and non-digital companies, like Zapier and Mozilla. But when and why is de-locating the right choice?

According to the Blog Flexjobs, telecommuting grew of nearly 80% between 2005 and 2012. The magazine Forbes wrote in 2014 that the percentage of remote workers ranged between 30%-45% in most US companies.  In the Zinc survey of 2017 upon customers, we read that mobile workers are expected to grow up to nearly three-quarters of the US workforce in 2020.

Remote work is then definitely all the rage today, despite the contrasting opinions of some managers like Yahoo CEO Melissa Mayer who decided to physically gather Yahoo employees again a couple of year ago.  This is not surprising at all, if we consider the advantages of the digital workplace both for employers and employees. These range from time and money savings (employees do not need to travel or commute anymore, firms can save on costs like offices, buildings, office equipment) to the opportunity for companies to hire the most talented candidates without geographical barriers.

However, moving to the virtual office is not always a good choice for an organization.  Some tasks, like signing a document or team projecting are almost impossible in a digital environment, and most old-economy industries (for example, automotive) still requires a physical location where to manufacture their products. Therefore, it is important to understand when and why to take the jump.

First, consider the kind of activity you wish to de-locate. De-location works great for services, IT, and in general immaterial activities. Marketing, accounting, human resources, some general management tasks, staff training are among the common business functions that can be easily given to remote workers or managed remotely.

Second, are you and your staff really ready for the virtual office? Remote work is not exactly Valentines and roses. The main problems are connected with the need of keeping consistent communication and building trust among the members of your remote team.

In other words, working remotely is more challenging than working in the traditional physical office.  Exchanging text messages through messaging apps are not enough; it is also important to periodically speak to each other through face-to-face video calls. As a rule of thumb, building a company culture and motivating people in a virtual workplace is harder than in a physical office.

Third, do you have the right technology? A digital workplace necessarily relies upon a sophisticated technology that supports all the multiple daily tasks of remote workers, from teleconferences to document sharing and virtual meeting recording.

Today there are many solutions that offer a total support to the virtual office, from Facebook to R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com), an inexpensive suite of servers that can be used by remote workers to perform almost any task, from real time collaboration to remote IT support. Therefore, it is important to choose the right one.

In conclusion, if an organization wishes to move to the virtual office, it is basilar to make a plan that includes the detection of the business functions that is opportune to de-locate, the training and preparation of the staff, the careful choice of the right technological solution for the needs of the organization, and, last but not least, an accurate budget provision of the costs, profits, pros and cons of the whole operation.

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How to Work Effectively and Successfully with your Remote IT Support

January 23rd, 2018 by ali No comments »

Turning to remote IT support services has become a necessity for almost every organization that employs remote workforce. How to manage the relationship with your IT provider, in order to make it a success? Here come three basilar tips that can help you to make the relationship with your provider fruitful and helpful

More than a matter of choice, outsourcing IT services has become a sheer need for many organizations today. In facts, this solution is oftener and oftener the only way to get access to experienced and well-trained IT resources, because the increasing complexity of the fast-growing IT technology makes the costs of training internal IT teams unsustainable, especially for small organizations.

Statistics confirm this assumption. According to BDO’s 2015 Technology Survey, more than twice as many US companies have outsourced their IT services in the last few years. According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, 72% of global companies outsource their IT services, with an increase of 31% in the use of outsourcing and a rate of satisfaction of 78%.

Therefore, developing the skills to successfully manage your remote IT support has become crucial for your organization. Luckily, this is not a difficult task.

1) First, think about your requirements.

Knowing your needs, especially your IT support needs, is naturally the first step. There is nothing like a kind of universal IT support service available out there; every provider offers a specialized IT support service (or a range of specialized IT services) that is targeted on a set of specific needs or technologies. So, it is important that your needs match the competences, capabilities and technological equipment of your provider. Window support is different, for example, from Apple support or Android.

It is also important to understand when, why and how your staff asks for support. Remember that the members of your team are the final users of the service in the end; Therefore, everything works if your collaborators feel at ease with the service and find it useful.

2) Train your staff to properly use your remote IT support service.

An IT support office cannot be deemed as responsible for everything. It is then important to set boundaries and manage the expectations of your collaborators. A good idea is to explain your team what kind of support they can expect and when, and to agree with them on what it is to be handled in-house. You will avoid misunderstandings, squabbles and quarrels that way.

3) Remember that staff training is still important.

Outsourcing IT support does not mean the end of the necessity to train your employees. Human errors are the main causes of IT issues, especially in the domain of data security, and your remote IT support can do nothing to prevent them. Therefore, teams must be always trained to a safe and correct utilization of the technology they get, despite of the engagement of a remote IT support service.

In conclusion, good communication with your remote IT support provider is king, like in any relationship. Be clear about your needs and expectations and speak up. Listen to what your provider can actually do for you and involve your team in the process, as your employees are the ultimate users of your remote IT support service.

Are you interested in remote IT support and the possibilities and advantages that it brings to an organization? You are going to find more resourceful posts and articles on R-HUB`s Blog at http://www.rhubcom.com

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How to Choose the Right Web Conferencing Provider for your needs in Seven Easy Steps

January 20th, 2018 by ali No comments »

When equipping a digital workplace, the ability to detect the right web conferencing provider for your organization is crucial, as the members of your team will necessarily have to use video conferences to work together. In order to make the choice easier for you, we have created this simple scheme articulated in seven steps

Sooner or later, any organization grows and faces the problems connected with remote working. One big problem is to choose the right web conferencing provider: today, it is difficult to think of a virtual workplace without this fundamental tool because video conferencing mergers the advantages of audio calls and video conferences in one at affordable costs. This is the reason why this service is so much in demand. But how to choose the right provider?

1 – Set your budget. There are web conferencing services available for all budgets. Small organizations should consider the free versions that many provider offer, or, alternatively, cutting-edge solutions like R-hub’s TurboMeeting servers (http://www.rhubcom.com) that combine high quality and efficiency with inexpensive prices. Scaling up to more powerful (and expensive) versions is then generally possible with almost every provider.

2 – How is your team going to use web conferencing? From webinars to demonstrations, there are multiple possible uses of web conferencing.  It is important to understand the functionalities that your team need with a glance on the future, in order to be able to choose a product that really satisfies your organization needs without having to scale up almost immediately after its installation.

3- What kind of contents are you are going to share? Audio and video are not enough. A team usually needs to perform some basic operations like the sharing of documents in several formats, from PDF to Words, and other media, typically YouTube videos. Does the provider you are choosing assure these services?

4- Find the solution that accommodates the larger number of people. Especially for organizations that offer webinars, it is important to be able to host the largest possible number of guests during their virtual events.

5-Is session recording included? Web conferencing sessions can be recorded for several purposes, for example to make webinars available on demand on your organization website, or to allow your team members to review the record of a conference later and take notices. Unfortunately, session recording is not provided for free by every provider. Therefore, you had better check for that.

6- Solutions that are independent from a specific operation system are better. Remote workers use a wide set of instruments to connect that ranges from Apple to Huawei and Windows. Multi-platform solutions are thus crucial in this kind of scenario.

7- Consider the necessary encryption requirements. Data encryption is essential to protect your data, as sensitive information and documents are often exchanged through a web conference. Choose a solution that assures a strong protection, for example the 256-bit encryption.

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