Adobe Connect Blog

From the Developer: Mike Kollen, CTO/Architect, eSyncTraining

The Internet and mobile technologies have made it easier than ever for businesses to identify and work with the best people for the job, no matter where they are. But in the legal industry, issues such as information security, ongoing collaboration, and trust often still lead to an emphasis on more face-to-face communication. Whether meeting with clients or opposing counsel, many attorneys will travel across the city or even across the globe to meet in person. Legal professionals are understandably looking for ways to bring the benefits of online collaboration into their work without sacrificing personal, secure interactions.

Face-to-face meetings come with many challenges, ranging from high costs to delays to difficulty coordinating schedules. For example, time spent traveling is simply wasted for any attorney or other legal professional who closely tracks the time spent on cases. Finding a way to effectively eliminate travel would be a big step towards reducing costs and enabling legal teams to focus their time on more productive activities for their firms and clients. Fortunately, a wider range of proven online meeting technologies are available today, offering enhanced security and the tools to collaborate smoothly.

As an example, take Veritext, a leader in court reporting and deposition solutions in the United States, whose customers rely on them to provide services and technologies that streamline the deposition process and help manage even the most complex cases. Seeing the potential benefits of virtual meetings, Veritext set a goal to create a secure web conferencing system that enables legal participants to share documents and ideas in real time, just like they would in in-person meetings, except without the time, costs, and delays of travel, and worked with us at eSyncTraining to accomplish this.

The solution we came up with was StreamText Legal, which we further customized for Veritext’s own Veritext Virtual. Based on the web conferencing software Adobe Connect, the solution offers high-quality live video and not just screen-sharing. It is a more secure file sharing that lets attorneys upload documents or exhibits for all participants to see. The StreamText Legal solution and Veritext Virtual also go a step further, offering a virtual legal deposition and transcription pod for Adobe Connect. With this technology, meetings and depositions gain live, instantly searchable transcriptions for a clear and accurate record.

With these services, suddenly online meetings feel a lot more like in-person interactions. Attorneys can meet “face-to-face” with clients or opposing council and review documents together, all in a highly secure environment. In addition, Veritext Virtual brings some added benefits only possible in online meetings by archiving all audio, video, documents, and transcripts instantly for a complete record of the deposition.

Technology is making the world a whole lot smaller with telecommunications, telecommuting, and teleconferences. It’s no surprise that tele-depositions are already gaining in popularity. Enhanced, more reliable online collaboration is removing physical barriers from business, even in industries like legal where resistance to new approaches is often understandable given concerns about security and other issues. By taking distance out of the equation, clients are free to work with the best legal teams and apply the technology best suited for their situation, no matter where they are located.

For more information on the solution, a case study can be viewed here, and you can learn how to get ahold of the pod here.

As effective as Adobe Connect is with helping companies collaborate more efficiently and save costs in a variety of areas, what often gets overlooked is how various government agencies are benefitting from the use of Adobe Connect.

Recently, FedTech and StateTech Magazines, which focus on the government’s use of technology, spotlighted how the Department of Defense and the Bainbridge Island Police Department are using Adobe Connect Web conferencing in their everyday operations.

Those of you who follow this blog know that Adobe Connect has been used in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Connect Online (DCO) program for some time, but you may not know that the DoD expanded its use of Adobe Connect to support Adobe Connect Mobile in its new Defense Information System Agency’s (DISA) Mobile Project.  FedTech Magazine interviewed DISA enterprise collaboration services program manager, Karl Kurz, who talked about how the agency uses Adobe Connect. One of the more interesting uses Kurz talked about is how DCO allows deployed soldiers to keep in touch with family members back home. Kurz said with Adobe Connect, “The ability to respond to visual cues and to see dynamic content on another person’s computer makes this form of communication much more effective than other less media-rich methods.”

StateTech Magazine sat down with Detective Trevor Ziemba of the Bainbridge Island Police Department to discuss its unique use of Adobe Connect. For the last three years, the department has been using Adobe Connect along with Connect Mobile to assist in maritime response, allowing the department to quickly initiate video-conferencing sessions with county and state SWAT teams. Ziemba said, “I could shoot live feeds and still photos and feed it to others in the video conference, and we had the same capabilities as the original system — the ability to interact, share files and data, text and talk via [Voice over IP].”

You can get the full stories of these Adobe Connect applications at the magazines’ websites or by clicking the links above. And if you have any unique use cases for Adobe Connect, we’d love to hear them, so feel free to share in the comments below.

When setting up an Adobe Connect meeting room – whether it’s for a virtual classroom, a webinar, or simply a persistent digital office – it’s important to consider which audio options to use.

The obvious reason to tie your audio information to your Adobe Connect room is so that you can record the meeting and make it available on-demand. There are three different options in Adobe Connect for audio:

1. Voice Over IP (VoIP). This option is provided at no charge to our customers. A meeting host or presenter can use a microphone – typically as part of a USB headset – to broadcast audio to all participants. A microphone button in the Adobe Connect interface toggles the audio on and off. It can be optimized for a single speaker or multiple speakers. This is the most straightforward option since it doesn’t require any phones at all. An Audio Wizard in the ‘Meeting’ menu will help you optimize the sound quality to provide the best experience. VoIP is ideal for large meetings and webinars with a small number of speakers.
2. Integrated Telephony. This feature enables customers to tightly integrate and control an audio conference directly from the Adobe Connect meeting room. The room can dial-out to participants, the host can see who’s speaking at any given time and even control the volume of everyone on the call including the ability mute specific individuals. This tight integration requires a special audio bridge; so it’s not available for every audio conferencing provider. Integrated telephony is available for Arkadin,Intercall, MeetingOne and PGi. Integrated Telephony is ideal for smaller, more collaborative meetings where everyone needs the option to speak.
3. Universal Voice. Our third option combines VoIP and telephony. Universal Voice (UV) is a feature to enable Adobe Connect to dial into virtually any audio conference – even if it is not an integrated telephony provider. Adobe Connect dials into the audio conference as an additional participant – so the host doesn’t get the same level of control over the audio as they might using Integrated Telephony. The audio can be broadcast via VoIP meaning that participants don’t have to dial in at all, they can simply listen via their computer speakers. Participants on VoIP can hear those on the phone and vice versa. UV has the benefit of reducing toll charges since audio can be broadcast and you can use your existing audio bridge for those who need or want to dial in. Because of it’s flexibility, UV can be ideal for meetings of any size. Larger meeting and webinars should take advantage of the ability to broadcast VOIP, where smaller meetings will be better served if everyone dials in.

The Adobe Connect team is excited to announce that a newly updated version of the DCO Connect Mobile app is now available for Android devices! The latest update brings enhanced hosting controls for complete mobile-to-mobile collaboration and training, especially from tablet devices.

Originally launched in 2007, DCO (Defense Connect Online) leverages Adobe Connect web conferencing and instant messaging/presence via an XMPP client, to enable anywhere, anytime collaboration across over 700,000 users at the U.S. Department of Defense. Given the globally dispersed user base, and necessity to collaborate, train, and coordinate time critical efforts, it is not practical to expect users to be at a desk to initiate or drive virtual meetings or training. With this in mind, the updated DCO Connect Mobile app delivers even greater hosting, presenting, and sharing controls to completely drive collaboration and fulfill the many different use cases DoD personnel have for collaboration while operating in a mobile environment.

In addition to the existing features for tablets and smartphones (including hosting/attending meetings, participant management, 2-way video, VoIP, chat, and other interactive features), the updated capabilities include:

• Start, stop, and manage meeting audio and teleconferencing bridge
• Invite others to the meeting
• Start and stop recordings
• Enable web camera rights for all participants at once
• Switch between layouts in the meeting room
• Share content from share history
• Share content from Adobe Connect content library
• Share content from local device photo library or file storage (SD Card)
• Use drawing tools (pencil, highlighter, shapes) on whiteboard and on top of shared files/video
• Use emoticons: Raise Hand (B), Agree / Disagree (B), Speak Louder / Speak Softer, Speed Up / Slow Down, Laughter, Applause
• Stepped away indication appears when multi-tasking away from app
• Device phone number detected and populated when joining audio
• Participate in breakout rooms
(Most new features apply to tablets only; “B” indicates both smartphone and tablet)

Hosts can now whiteboard and annotate with the tip of a finger, change layouts, and foster interaction with a range of emoticons.

In addition to existing hosting controls (begin/end meetings, manage attendance, manage attendee roles – Host, Presenter, or Participant, etc.), hosts can now fully control meeting recordings, audio conferencing, and video.

Share presentations, videos, images and other content stored in your library in the cloud; in the image library; or on the device drive itself.

DCO Connect Mobile (version 2.0) is now available for free download on the Google Play Store.

The app supports the following devices and operating systems on Android:
- Devices: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1), ASUS Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab (7”) , Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xoom 2
- Supported OS versions: 2.2 and higher
- AIR Runtime required: 3.2 or higher

For more information, please see these resources below:
Adobe Connect Mobile webpage
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Smartphones)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Smartphones)

One of the great things about Adobe Connect is the terrific partner community that supports, resells, promotes, and innovates on Adobe Connect solutions. We were very excited when Adobe Connect partner, ConnectSolutions, was awarded the Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice GOLD Award for Blended Technology, for their work with the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy (VAAA). The award was announced in a ceremony several weeks ago at the annual CLO Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The Learning in Practice Awards recognize industry leaders with demonstrated excellence in design and delivery of employee development programs. Awards are given to both practitioners and providers, in a variety of categories, including strategy, global learning, business impact, and blended technology.

“VAAA has a fantastic team of eLearning innovators,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, ConnectSolutions CEO/Co-Founder. “We love partnering with our customers to ensure things run flawlessly, which lets our customers do the things the care most about, like creating and developing innovative content.”

VAAA was created within the United State Department of Veterans Affairs to build a stronger workforce at the Veterans Administration, in the midst of budget cuts, workforce reductions and a high retirement rate. They are committed to best in class training and innovation, including a variety of learner engagement techniques, even creating their own games to integrate into training programs.

A terrific case study on Adobe Connect’s widespread use across the U.S. Department of Defense was recently published by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a nonprofit organization working to address challenges in energy and climate change. The U.S. government has come under pressure in recent years to achieve substantial cost savings and productivity improvements, due to severe budget constraints, as well as mandates to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases. Jason Ye and Stephen Seidel from C2ES have published a full report on how the U.S. federal government is using information and communications technologies to address these challenges. The report includes a series of eight case studies around topics including shifting to cloud computing and redesigning workspaces, but most interesting to me was how the U.S. Department of Defense is leveraging Defense Connect Online (DCO), a service delivering web conferencing powered by Adobe Connect and instant messaging/presence via an XMPP client, enabling anywhere, anytime collaboration across over 700,000 users.

Leveraging DCO, the Department of Defense has been able to achieve benefits including a stronger system supporting continuity of operations (COOP), increases in telework, progress toward environmental and sustainability goals/mandates, and substantial cost savings with reductions in travel.

The report describes examples of some of the key use cases that DCO enables, such as command-and-control for military personnel to coordinate tactical battle planning, sharing information in real-time across ground, satellite, and air; and disaster relief scenarios, namely coordination of efforts during the 2010 Haiti earthquake across military units, non-profit organizations and multilateral organizations, to save lives and maximize relief an rescue efforts.

The complete report can be viewed here, with the case study of DCO available in pdf format here.

It is exciting to see such a powerful example of how Adobe Connect is helping to enable these types of achievements across the world. We look forward to working hard and enabling our customers to achieve greater and greater success.

Our newly released Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 offers new and unlimited possibilities to take your web meetings to new levels.  This week we will take a look at how you can multi-screen your meetings.

One of the key trend in the digital home is multi-screen entertainment.  You can watch TV, but at the same time from a tablet or smartphone, chat or tweet with others watching the same program, or look-up some information about the players in the game or actors in the movie watched.

The same can now be done with Adobe Connect.  Log into your meeting from both your PC and your tablet for example  (Adobe Connect allows you to log as multiple hosts).  Set-up the meeting layout and manage the participants from the PC.  Control the slide changes from either the PC or your tablet.  But as soon as whiteboarding is required, use your tablet to whiteboard over the slides you uploaded from your PC.  You no longer need specialized equipment like a Wacom tablet to really be able to write complex math equations or draw complex objects faster: your finger (or a stylus) and a tablet will do the trick.

This opens a lot of brand new possibilities to take whiteboarding to a brand new level and make it much more useful to present information instead of relying to slides.

Happy whiteboarding everyone !

by Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe Connect

Two months ago, I made a post to this blog introducing the next major release of Adobe Connect and Adobe Connect Mobile. Today, I couldn’t be happier to announce that we’ve reached a major milestone – Adobe Connect 9 is now generally available.

Adobe Connect 9 brings with it some incredible new features to help our customers create exceptional events.

We’ve worked with the Adobe CQ team to make it incredibly easy to create gorgeous micro-sites to promote and register participants for your events. We’ve worked with the Adobe SiteCatalyst team to make sure you can measure virtually every aspect of your webinar and optimize future events and marketing campaigns.

You’ll see enhancements in every part of the product. A new Engagement Dashboard to help customers measure engagement in real-time, a new feature to highlight active speakers, new editing capabilities that enable you to anonymize and enhance recordings, as well as the ability to incorporate SCORM content in your training curriculums.

There’s too much to list in this blog post, but you can find out more here: http://www.connectusers.com/community/monthly_topic/archive/2012/06/adobe_connect_9/

Now that we’ve gone live, we’ll be upgrading customers with hosted deployments in a phased manner around the globe, starting today and continuing through the end of 2012.  If you have a hosted deployment and want to check your upgrade date, you may do so here by entering your account url into the widget in the upper-right of the page.

Current customers with on-premise deployments who are eligible for upgrades will receive an email from us in the coming seven to 10 days with details on how to access the upgrade.

If you aren’t already an Adobe Connect customer, we encourage you to learn more on our website and take a test drive by signing up for a free, 30-day trial, which will be updated to Adobe Connect 9 later today.

In addition, stay tuned for our release of Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0, coming very soon.  Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 gives meeting hosts even more capabilities; enabling them to manage virtually every aspect of their Adobe Connect room from their mobile device.  It allows for device-to-device collaboration, eliminating the need for a PC altogether.

We are exceptionally proud of the quality of this release and we know you’ll feel the same way as you begin using it. Today truly marks a major milestone for Adobe Connect, but there’s no time to slow down now. We’ve already begun innovating on the *next* version.

We’re thrilled to announce that Arkadin, one of the world’s largest collaboration service providers, has joined the Adobe Connect partner community as a global reseller.  Arkadin delivers a wide range of collaboration solutions, including remote audio, web, video conferencing and Unified Communications solutions in a SaaS based model for fast, scalable deployment and greater ROI.

Earlier this year, Arkadin announced Arkadin Oneplace, an all-in-one collaboration offering that integrates Arkadin’s comprehensive audio services with the Adobe Connect technology platform to deliver a unified audio, video and web conferencing solution.  The new global reseller agreement expands our relationship with Arkadin, enabling them to sell the complete Adobe Connect product line.

With Arkadin’s global footprint, including 50 operating centers and local-language teams in 29 countries, and unique expertise in delivering integrated audio, video and web conferencing services, we are excited to better enable customers to deploy global collaboration, e-learning and webinar solutions based on Adobe Connect through this new relationship.  To read more on this announcement, check out Arkadin’s press release here.

- Guillaume Privat | Director, Adobe Connect

by Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe Connect

The Adobe Captivate team announced last week the release of Adobe Captivate 6.  It is a great release.  One of the main feature of the release is the ability to publish elearning content in HTML5 that works cross devices.   This is a critical first step towards mobile learning.

The Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect team worked closely together to ensure that HTML5 content created with Captivate 6 could be uploaded to the Adobe Connect content library and embedded into a course or a curriculum.  Adobe Connect Training will then track completion of these HTML5 courses providing an end to end workflow from content authoring with Captivate to distribution of the content and score tracking.

Adobe Connect 9 and Adobe Captivate 6 thus provide an end to end workflow for mobile learning that will help organization deploy their e-learning courses across all devices efficiently.