PowerPoint Blog
Labels: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark, Inc., founded the company in 1999 to help knowledge experts accelerate the flow of information to their audiences in a highly effective format. Under Joe's leadership, Brainshark has become a leader in on-demand business communications and a successful Software-as-a-Service company. Joe has been instrumental in the development of Brainshark’s Channel Solution, which solves critical challenges for companies looking to increase channel revenue.
Geetesh: What is the Brainshark Channel Solution, and whom is it geared to?
Joe: We’re excited to launch the Brainshark Channel Solution, encompassing new product capabilities and services that help technology suppliers/OEMs and their channel partners increase the reach and impact of their communications. Suppliers can equip their partners with Brainshark on-demand multimedia presentations, and then partners can use this content for their own sales and marketing outreach, as well as for training and certification. Best of all, everyone can tap into in-depth analytics from Brainshark, letting them measure the value of the communications they deliver.
Here’s a more in-depth look at how it all works. Through our Channel Solution, suppliers and their partners have access to their own unique and secure site with Brainshark content. Suppliers can create and publish Brainshark multimedia presentations – uploading PowerPoint presentations and other documents, and easily adding voice, video, attachments, interactivity and more – and share this information with their global partner community.
Then, when channel partners – for example, distributors and resellers – log into their own sites, they have free access to content from all the suppliers they work with. As I mentioned, they can use the presentations to shore up their knowledge on supplier offerings or to bolster their own sales and demand generation activities. There are upgrade options for partners too, including the ability to add their own logo to presentations – or apply further personalization by adding their own voice-enriched intro and closing to pre-approved supplier presentations. Also, major distributors that want to create their own content and publish it to their own partner networks can license the full Brainshark Channel Solution.
Geetesh: Can you share some scenarios in which the Brainshark Channel Solution will help technology suppliers, partners and end-users?
Joe: Sure. We’re looking forward to bringing the already-proven benefits of Brainshark to the tech channel – and think there’s a great opportunity to help suppliers and their channel partners streamline communications, improve productivity and ROI, and really cut through the communications clutter with high-impact material. Our current customers have realized impressive results with Brainshark – including reducing communication costs by 90 percent over previous methods, cutting training time in half, and increasing lead generation results by five to 10 times (and more).
We tend to discuss benefits of our Channel Solution as they pertain to two audiences: tech suppliers/ OEMs and their channel partners (such as distributors and resellers). For suppliers, there’s no question that they face limitations as they deliver critical information to their channel partners today – through vehicles including underutilized portals, cost-prohibitive travel and webinars that partners can’t find time to attend. In fact, statistics show that 66 percent of webinar registrants don’t show up, 80 percent of marketing collateral is unused and 90 percent of product knowledge is forgotten one month after training. Brainshark’s multimedia format, on the other hand, really makes content stand out from the pack; the on-demand delivery means it can be viewed and revisited anytime, and the incorporation of voice and multimedia makes the content both “sticky” and memorable. In terms of channel communications, Brainshark provides a cost-effective way for suppliers to reach all tiers of partners worldwide – helping them maintain mindshare and build tighter relationships.
In addition to differentiating their communications, suppliers also benefit from message consistency and control. For example, once they change the “master copy” of a presentation, this change is reflected everywhere that presentation exists in the channel, including in any personalized partner versions. In this way, they can keep content timely and relevant, and be of greater value to their partners. And, as I mentioned, the tracking abilities we offer are key – letting suppliers see which content their partners are using, and how effective that content is at capturing audience attention.
Partners realize significant benefits too – a big one being the tracking information as well. The info they receive is on a more granular scale, allowing them to track individual viewing activity so they can qualify interest and prioritize follow-up. In addition, Brainshark’s multimedia format means that partners’ customers and prospects are much more likely to engage with the materials they receive. Also, as I mentioned, partners can use the Brainshark content available to them for their own training and certification – viewing the material at a time that’s convenient and doesn’t intrude on their day.
It’s worthwhile to mention, too, the benefits for individual customers and prospects, who can return back to the Brainshark presentations they receive at any time for more information, viewing them online – no downloads required – at their convenience. This can reduce the need to call a company for more info – and still leaves the viewer feeling that he/she has received personalized attention.
Finally, I’d love to point you to a brief (two-minute) Brainshark presentation, where you can see firsthand more examples of how companies can use Brainshark to positively impact channel communications. We’re looking forward to bringing these benefits to an even greater audience.
Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark, Inc., founded the company in 1999 to help knowledge experts accelerate the flow of information to their audiences in a highly effective format. Under Joe's leadership, Brainshark has become a leader in on-demand business communications and a successful Software-as-a-Service company, with more than 1,100 world-class customers, including a third of the Fortune 100. Most recently, Joe has led Brainshark to a series of significant company milestones – with Brainshark presentations netting more than 25 million views, and the company doubling its profits in the last year.
Geetesh: In a recent announcement, your company declared that 25 million Brainshark presentations were viewed since the launch of your flagship product, and 1 Brainshark presentation is viewed every 5 seconds by users around the world. Those type of stats would make anyone proud – what else does it mean to you?
Joe: Not only is it a great milestone for our company, but it’s indicative of how multimedia has become a part of the way people want to communicate and share information – in both our business and personal lives, it has become pervasive. And the most popular content of all on the Web is user-generated – not high production value content – but that which engages and is authentic, because it is created by everyday people who have something to say. And I think businesspeople like me look at this trend, or they see what their kids are creating and sharing over the Web and think, how can we leverage the power of this in business? If you make it easy for any businessperson to communicate in more powerful ways, and make it possible for their organizations to manage that process across their enterprise – and, at the same time, make it more enjoyable and convenient for their audiences to experience these messages – they will embrace it. That’s what those numbers mean to me.
Geetesh: With such a successful business model for a product that’s not free, what made you decide to go ahead with myBrainshark, that’s a free albeit less powerful version compared to Brainshark?
Joe: We think we’ve developed the easiest way for any businessperson to communicate using multimedia. But just seeing a Brainshark presentation doesn’t nearly illustrate the possibilities. We want you to try creating one. When you record your very first presentation, and hear your own voice coming back to you over the speakers while you watch it, you’ll see how easy it is to use and how fast it is to create. From that experience, we expect that many users will think about how this could be applicable to their business to get their message out quickly and cost-effectively. Some myBrainshark users will be interested in talking to us about our enterprise offerings – and some won’t; and that’s okay too! We hope they love our free site and tell their friends and colleagues about it.
Our goal with myBrainshark is to get more people exposed to our technology and to how it can be so powerful for business yet be so easy to use. And thousands already “get it” today – more than 1,100 companies whose names you’d recognize already use Brainshark across their organizations and to communicate to global audiences, along with thousands of additional myBrainshark individual users. More than 8 million minutes of content are viewed each month. In an economic climate where everyone is trying to do more with less, it’s silly not to use myBrainshark to tell your story.
Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint 
Andy Zimmerman, VP of Business Development, is responsible for developing and managing strategic partnerships and programs for Brainshark, the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution provider for on-demand presentations. Andy played an integral role in the launch of myBrainshark.com in September 2009 and continues to drive the initiative. Prior to Brainshark, Andy launched SaaS offerings for other software providers including Theikos, a leading Salesforce.com partner (acquired by Astadia) and e-billing provider Edocs (now part of Oracle). Andy earned his BA from Brown University and MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
In this conversation, Andy talks about myBrainshark.
Geetesh: Tell us about the raison d'être for myBrainshark – how did it evolve?
Andy: Brainshark has experienced substantial commercial success over the years – serving as a critical communication vehicle for more than 1,000 companies across industries. We conceived of myBrainshark as a way to reach out to a much larger audience of business professionals, enabling individuals to tap into the benefits of our product with absolutely no price barriers.
Registration is simple and free – then it’s an easy process to create and share on-demand multimedia presentations. You simply upload a PowerPoint presentation or other content, and dial a Brainshark-provided number to add your voice narration or upload MP3 audio. If you’d like, you can also add in video, survey questions and attachments to enhance your presentation. Then, it’s time to share it You can send out a link to your target audience, embed the presentation in your webpage or blog, or share it through social media tools including LinkedIn and Twitter. myBrainshark’s reporting capabilities also enable you to see when people are viewing your presentation, how often it has been viewed and even from where in the world it’s being viewed.
myBrainshark offers a way for people to communicate on and off the job – delivering far-reaching messages at no cost, but with maximum impact to promote themselves, promote their products/companies, and share expertise. We’ve been pleased with the site’s reception and with the creative ways people are using myBrainshark to showcase content –creating everything from sales and marketing materials to training content to “talking résumés” to real estate listings to holiday greetings and much more.
Geetesh: How is myBrainshark different from Brainshark, and the other slide sharing sites like SlideShare, SlideBoom, authorSTREAM, etc.?
Andy: Among our key differentiators as compared to slide sharing sites is the ability to easily incorporate phone or MP3 audio – which has been one of Brainshark’s hallmarks throughout the last decade – helping users create high-quality, personalized presentations. Also, our service preserves PowerPoint animations, so it’s very easy to time your audio appropriately with those animations to deliver maximum impact.
Additional distinguishing features include our ability to support various media types – going beyond PowerPoint presentations to also include documents, videos, web pages and audio-only podcasts. In addition, myBrainshark enables you to incorporate interactivity – such as survey questions – within presentations, and see how your audience responds. With these analytic capabilities, you can even view dashboards showing how, when and from where people are engaging with your presentation Furthermore, presentation pages are search engine optimized – helping more people find your content.
Here’s another unique feature – through myBrainshark, users who are experts on business or training topics can apply online to become “Learning Providers.” As such, they can price their content if desired, while site visitors can preview and/or buy it. The premium content available on myBrainshark currently spans topics including leadership, selling skills, compliance and more.
Of course, myBrainshark is also backed by the Brainshark brand and proven infrastructure, meaning it’s built by a company with the highest standards of quality, reliability and security, which has been helping businesses succeed with on-demand presentations for more than a decade. In fact, this makes for a good transition into the other part of your question – concerning our commercial offerings and differences from myBrainshark.
Like our commercial offerings, myBrainshark has a powerful feature set that lets users differentiate and extend the reach of their communications. Use of myBrainshark is completely free, and content created on the site is publicly available – letting users easily communicate with a worldwide audience. Brainshark’s paid offerings, meanwhile, are geared toward organizations (versus individuals) that often need to share private or proprietary content with their own target audiences.
Brainshark’s commercial offerings also include other enhanced functionality for businesses. Through Brainshark, organizations can easily manage and organize content created by any number of users and manage their access permissions. The tracking and reporting capabilities available to our enterprise users also provide much more granular reports and viewing details. In addition, our enterprise editions provide numerous optional features such as learning management, marketing campaign management, content approval, content archiving, and offline viewing – as well the ability to integrate with CRM, LMS and other software applications.
With both Brainshark and myBrainshark, we continue to help businesses and individuals create far-reaching, high-impact communications that resonate in a measurable way with their audience.
Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: brainshark, online_presentations, powerpoint
Almost everyone these days is comfortable creating a set of slides using PowerPoint, but tell those same users to create online presentations or e-learning content, and you'll find them not too happy! myBrainshark is a free online application that makes it easy to create on-demand online presentations with just your PowerPoint slides and a phone connection to add voice-overs -- it all works very intuitively, and you can create your first online presentation in less than an hour.
So how does myBrainshark fare? Read on to learn more...
Categories: brainshark, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint 
Irwin Hipsman is the director of customer community at Brainshark, a leader in on-demand presentations. He has more than 20 years of experience in the cable, conferencing and collaboration industries, and has worked with communications technologies including with multi-point video conferencing; audio, video and Web conferencing; and distance learning via satellite. Prior to Brainshark, Irwin was involved in the management of public access cable television stations.
In this conversation, Irwin talks about the Brainshark Insurance Network.
Geetesh: Tell us about the Brainshark Insurance Network, how it is set up, and whom it is geared to?
Irwin: Sure. We’re very excited to have recently launched the Brainshark Insurance Network. It’s a central site for life insurance carriers and their distribution partners, such as brokerages, and enables everyone to tap into the benefits of Brainshark on-demand presentations. Using the site, life insurance carriers can equip their distribution channels with pre-approved multimedia presentations, which the distributors then use for internal product education, as well as their own sales and marketing outreach.
As background on Brainshark, our technology enables businesspeople to easily create voice-enhanced presentations that are available online, on demand. You can easily turn content like PowerPoint presentations, marketing collateral, and Web pages into interactive Flash-based presentations, incorporating animation, video, survey and quiz questions, and more. Because your audience can view the presentation at any time and have the full benefit of both seeing and hearing your message, it leads to greater reach and knowledge retention.
Now, with the Brainshark Insurance Network, life insurance carriers have a trusted network for communicating effectively and productively with their distribution channels via Brainshark presentations. From within their own Brainshark application sites, carriers can easily publish selected presentations to the Network and update them anytime, so keeping content fresh is a cinch. In addition, by letting their distributors access and send out content from the Brainshark Insurance Network, life insurance carriers can rest easy that their offerings are being communicated in a consistent and high-impact way.
Now if you’re a distributor, you can access the Network, and view and send Brainshark presentations for free. No more combing through e-mails, scouring individual portals and searching back through newsletters for your carriers’ content – everything you need from all the carriers you work with is right here, in this central, secure Network. For a monthly fee, you can also get access to advanced features, including the ability to personalize carrier content – adding in an intro and closing that includes your own voice, as well as a photo or logo to convey the value of your brand. Additional options include using Brainshark’s authoring tools to create your own presentations in a private site, and accessing best practice tutorials from Brainshark. Check out this overview presentation which goes into more detail.
Life insurance carriers and their distribution partners can also take advantage of Brainshark’s tracking capabilities. Carriers can see, for instance, which of their presentations are being used and which distributors are using them – letting them know how content is resonating. Distributors get even more granular info and receive instant notification of individual viewing activity for free – showing who watched a presentation, how much content was consumed, how any questions were answered and more – enabling them to prioritize follow-up. Distributors can also provide direct feedback to the carriers in the form of comments and ratings of content.
We’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm around the Network and already have an impressive roster of life insurance carriers participating, including American General Life, American National Insurance, Jackson National Life, Lincoln Benefit Life, Liberty National Life and United American Insurance, with others joining weekly. There’s a lot of traction on the distributor side as well – with more than 100 brokerages participating.
Geetesh: So in effect, this is a subset of the entire Brainshark content selected and geared towards a vertical industry?
Irwin: That’s a good question – the answer is yes, and much more. The Brainshark Insurance Network is an extension of what we’re doing today and what life insurers have been doing with Brainshark for several years now – using Brainshark-delivered presentations to train and educate distributors and to help them sell using multimedia presentations to tell a compelling and consistent story. And now with some unique capabilities of this new Network, participating carriers are able to increase their reach to distribution partners they haven’t done business with before and better enable distributors by providing them with the technology and content to do their own marketing and selling. In addition, both carriers and their distributors are able to measure the impact of their communications more than ever before.
Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint 
Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark, Inc., founded the company in 1999 to help knowledge experts accelerate the flow of information to their audiences in a highly effective format. He is an experienced leader in the technology-based training industry, and prior to Brainshark, was the founder and CEO of Relational Courseware, Inc. (acquired by Gartner). Under Joe's leadership, Brainshark has become a leader in on-demand business communications and a successful Software-as-a-Service company, with more than 1,000 world-class customers, including a third of the Fortune 100. In this interview, Joe talks about the new myBrainshark site.
Read the interview here...
Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
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Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. His client list includes Intel, Chase, Barclays, IBM, Nokia, and many others. 
