Posts Tagged ‘erik

10
May

Gaboogie - conference call podcasting

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday was a bit crazy, we saw some great posts from some great technologists on the net but I think the way the day ended (and the way the next day started) was the topper.

A while back I podcasted the Future of IM with Chris Pirillo. About a week ago I pinged Chris to let him know about Gaboogie and last night I circled back to let him know the service was live. Chris is a very spontaneous guy and I should have known what would come next.

Chris Pirillo - Live Online 

What ensued was a 1.5 hr conference call with Chris leading on his Live Tech broadcast. Gaboogie called Chris and brought him into the call. Chris then opened up the lines and several of his listeners dropped into the Gaboogie call soon after. Several hundred combined minutes later we had over an hour and a half of great conversation about live podcasting, community and the human association with real time open conversation.

Here is the podcast:
Chris Pirillo and Gaboogie Founders Talking Openly about Live Podcasting and Community

PS: Thanks also to Bear for his insightful feedback. 

08
May

Conference calling - updated, successfully.

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , , , ,

It's really great when you can come to work feeling good about what you are doing but to have your peers tell you that you are doing a brilliant job and to be recognized by respected media, plus have customers come a calling on your second day of business is even better.

Conference Calling. Updated and LIVE!
L to R, Craig, Erik, Russ, Steve, Dan
(Mike was at pre-natal classes)

Thanks to everyone who participated for making our launch a great success! This is only the beginning and we are already looking forward to the years of fun ahead. 

02
May

Deep fried Gaboogers

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It's coming down to the wire at Gaboogie, and guess what? We're all edgy, bitchy, and itching to get this product launched:

Listen to the temperature rising…

Little by little we went insane. He's our very own Colonel Kurtz.
 

 These Brits have no stamina. Poor show.

Like these two know what they're doing… 

14
Apr

Do it yourself?

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , ,

Oddly enough it's the areas in which you're supposed to be frugal and do the work yourself that I don't want to. Oil changes, painting, even mowing the lawn, none of these is my thing.

There's some good stuff by Toni Schneider on Found + Read, the new GigaOM site, about the virtues for start-ups of genuine word of mouth. I might very well be one of the marketing people Toni suggests you keep away from the product for the first year, but still I buy in to the idea that it's about a great product that really fills a need; a genuine story instead of a contrived pitch; and making it easy for the first group of users to engage their network simply by using the product.

Perhaps I'm missing the point, wanting to look at sales in the context of this discussion, but when, like Gaboogie, your product is primarily for business users it's unavoidable. And the thing about sales is it's the job that everyone's always tempted to hire for rather than do themselves. It's also why sales people often have a bad rap in the start-up community. They do a job the founders don't necessarily like or respect, and inevitably because the technology is new and resources are scarce they underperform, further reinforcing distrust and all kinds of bad feeling.

DIY for Start-Ups 

From my perspective the answer as a founder is (bet you can't guess where this is going) to do it yourself. If you genuinely believe the product you're creating has unique value (I'm 200% sure that's true of Gaboogie), then that enthusiasm will be infectious, and it becomes an intelligent conversation rather than a sales pitch. It'll certainly be a lot more compelling than the competitors who've created a yawning chasm between the people behind the company and the people out in front trying to sell it.

So Erik, does that mean I just signed up for a couple of years on the road?

03
Apr

Conference calling of old = no fun

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are quite a few services out there providing phone conferencing and conference calling services but none are really leveraging the technology that is available today to make the experience pleasant for the attendees or moderators. So many conferences start late, or attendees forget altogether to dial-in, meaning valuable time is wasted and the benefits of meeting with remote employees, clients or partners go out the window.

Reservationless or operator-assisted, old school conference calls might as well be in the dictionary, next to "bad user experience".

courtesy of www.soundghost.co.uk 

Gaboogie was conceived to do what other conference providers are not: make phone conferences easy and even fun to use!

Why do I have remember PINs and dial-in numbers? Why doesn't the conference call me?

Why would I want a conference call operator to control my call when I can have my Executive Assistant attend to that with little or no effort?

Why would I pay two people to do something that one person can easily deal with or maybe I want to deal with myself!? Come on, that's crazy talk!

Yes, Gaboogie calls the moderator and all the attendees; no-one needs to remember to call in. As the moderator, you can mute/unmute, drop and add new callers on the fly during the call.

Watch as attendees put up their hands and answer them on a private channel / sub-conference simply by clicking on their hand. Record the conference to MP3 and it's autmotically transformed into a podcast for you to share or to review privately at a later date.

These are just some of the features available in the upcoming public release of Gaboogie.

If you'd like to be one of the first to try Gaboogie, just visit Gaboogie.com and submit your email address.

01
Apr

Even Erik likes the pretty boxes

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , ,

I don't have time to hate Microsoft, even though for some it's a full-time job.

But when I was on the phone with Erik today he happened to be in Future Shop (whose parent company, Best Buy, incidentally just bought business VoIP provider Speakeasy) walking down the aisle stacked with boxes of Vista and was struck by the brightly coloured moulded plastic packaging. Now leaving aside that for Erik walking down the MS aisle is akin to being spotted walking into a leather bar, it struck me that all this pretty packaging is symptomatic of just a little bit of desparation in Redmond.

jumping the shark, retail style 

Perhaps it's just me, but the woeful try-hard design of the boxes feels a bit too much like the introduction of a quirky new character in season nine of a series that ought to have been retired years ago.

Whatever, my gut tells me the user experience is better outside the box than in.

28
Mar

If only Dan would move his head.

By Erik Lagerway 0 Comments
Categories: Conference Call
Tags: , , , , ,

OK, so this post is a little self-indulgent, but we're genuinely excited about how close we're getting. Here's Erik and I reviewing the GUI and getting to see the app really come to life.

If only you could see behind the iChat window 

So close, it hurts. Now if only Randy would get himself that MacBook Pro he keeps talking about, Erik and I wouldn't be the only ones with embarrassing pictures for all the world to see. I really need a haircut.