Adobe Connect Blog

Over the past year, recognition continued to roll in for Adobe Connect.  Another great review that came in at the end of 2012 was from Network World.

Network World conducted side-by-side comparisons of eight of the leading Web conferencing vendors and ranked Adobe Connect in a tie for first. The Network World web conferencing vendor test ranked the services according to four scenarios ranging from meetings of two to five people to large scale webinars.

We were excited to see the areas where the review praised Adobe Connect, including the ability to host large-scale webinars calling it a “post-conferencing reporting powerhouse.” Network World also noted “Connect also has the strongest features when it came to measuring audience engagement and supporting archival meeting content.” Other areas where Network World positioned Adobe Connect above other offerings were the recording options available, including the ability to record the chats and participants names, and its mobile client, noting its “consistent user interfaces and clean look.”

In addition, the review discussed persistent URLs for Adobe Connect meeting rooms, calling them “handy when a team is working over a period of time on a set of documents.” As our customers know, this feature is also useful for setting up last-minute, ad hoc meetings.

Another area the review considered was the audio options each service provides. Our own Alistair Lee recently blogged about our Universal Voice feature, which lets users leverage VoIP or their audio provider of choice.

We’re interested in what you have to say, though, after you give the roundup review a read. Let us know what stands out, good and bad, and what you’d like to see more of from us moving forward.

In October, we announced a major update to our DCO Connect Mobile app for Android devices, enabling anywhere, anytime mobile collaboration leveraging Adobe Connect web conferencing  across over 700,000 users at the U.S. Department of Defense.  Today, we’re very excited to announce that the DCO Connect Mobile app is now available for iOS, delivering complete hosting, presenting, and sharing controls to fully drive collaboration and fulfill the many different use cases DoD personnel have for collaboration while operating in a mobile environment.

The capabilities map to those of the standard Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 app, and include:

• Start and end meetings (B)
• Start, stop, and manage meeting audio and teleconferencing bridge
• Invite others to the meeting
• Manage participants (B)
• Start and stop recordings
• Enable web camera rights for all participants at once
• Control all active pods (B)
• Switch between layouts in the meeting room
• Present content (e.g. advancing slides and animations) (B)
• Share content from share history
• Share content from Adobe Connect content library
• Share content from local device photo library
• Video conferencing with front and back-facing camera support (B)
• 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

(Some features apply to tablets only; “B” indicates both smartphone and tablet)

DCO Connect Mobile (version 2.0) is now available for free download on iTunes Preview here.

(Note that this app pertains to those with a DCO account only; users who will not use this app in relation to DCO can download our Adobe Connect Mobile app here).

The app supports the following devices and operating systems on iOS:

- Devices: iPad, iPad2, iPad3; iPhone 4 and 4 S, iPod touch (3rd generation minimum recommended)
- Supported OS versions: iOS 4.3.x, 5.x, or 6.x (5.x or higher recommended)

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)

By Matt Murdoch and Treion Muller, FranklinCovey

Have you ever seen, or better still, been part of a group that decides to jump off a cliff at the local swimming hole? There are at least two interesting things to watch. One is approach and the other is execution. Experience and skill affects how each prospective diver approaches the edge. Some are confident, some are cautious and some are hell bent on just lettin’ ‘er rip.

While each individual has their own experience and perceptions about both approach and execution, there is one thing that all share in common – the platform. Whether you’re new at it or it’s old hat for you, you’re jumping off the same cliff – the same platform.

Adobe Connect is just that – a platform. It offers the same launching pad for the inexperienced and the expert. It provides a place to try something new (and a little bit scary) or something you’ve done a thousand times before. The platform itself is not what shapes either approach or execution. That is the province of the person on the platform and what they will do with their launch pad.

Don’t default and abandon control and creativity to the platform. Don’t let your approach, your plan or your execution be controlled solely by the platform. It’s a jumping off point, nothing more. Your job is to shape Adobe Connect to your ends. It’s the place you start from. It’s the jumping off point. Adobe Connect has far more potential than is usually tapped if you understand how to shape it to your ends rather than being contained by it.

There are four steps you can take to ensure you don’t default:

1. Awareness: Read the Manual
We know, almost nobody starts with the manual, but a detailed awareness of what the platform offers is THE starting point. Once you know what it CAN do you can start worrying about getting that platform to do what you WANT it to do.

2. Attempt: Try the Manual
After you’ve got a reasonable familiarity with the basics of what the platform can do, put it through its paces. Design a webinar but stick to the fundamentals – don’t get fancy yet.

What you’re looking for at this phase is a clean presentation – designed to deliver a message and stimulate an engaging conversation. And, create a presentation that is simple to deliver – not too complex or too technically convoluted. Just get off the cliff and into the water – and do the same jump a dozen or so times to get comfortable with it.

3. Assimilate: Apply the Manual
This is where we begin to break away from the simple default options of the platform. This is where we start to get fancy and, more importantly, where we start to make the platform our own. We make it our own when we get the platform to work WITH us and FOR our audience. It’s where you separate and prioritize what you’ve learned in the first steps into tools and techniques that you’ll keep and use and those that you’ll ignore or discard.

4. Author: Write Your Own Manual
Now, throw away the manual and never (or at least, hardly ever) look at it again. It’s time to experiment with new jumps and tricks and to author you own handbook. This is the most important method to avoid defaulting back to the same old way of doing things.

One final thought. Conducting a webinar is as different from live in-person training or a face-to-face meeting as jumping off a cliff is to jumping off your bed. You mustn’t default to traditional approaches because good-quality online events must be designed and delivered much differently to be truly effective.

You can learn more about this and other key principles in our book, The Webinar Manifesto: Never Design, Deliver or Sell Lousy Webinars Again.

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.

We’re pleased to report that on Dec. 10th, Gartner, Inc. positioned Adobe in the Leaders Quadrant of its 2012 “Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing” research report. Adobe was one of 12 Web conferencing vendors evaluated.

This is the 6th consecutive year that Adobe is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant. In addition, Adobe maintains the leading position amongst all vendors for “Completeness of Vision” for the 2nd year in a row.

Of the companies positioned in the Leaders Quadrant, David Mario Smith (@DaveMario) of Gartner wrote:

“Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have achieved significant market share, while demonstrating an ability to respond to customers’ needs. Leaders have robust, scalable products with a wide range of features, a large installed base, acceptable financial performance and good distribution. Leaders are doing well today and are prepared for the future.”

This is very exciting for us, as we have focused heavily on delivering a best-of-breed web conferencing platform to support the mission critical business processes within our customers’ organizations. We believe our Leaders placement in the report further affirms that our efforts are aligning well with the needs of our customers, and is extremely encouraging as we continue to innovate around end-to-end solutions for collaboration, eLearning and webinars, accessible across any device.

The report is available on our site here and from Gartner here. We encourage you to learn more about all that Adobe Connect has to offer here.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

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.

Welcome ConnectNow customers to the Adobe Connect family! On November 14th, Adobe announced that ConnectNow customers with a paid account will be transitioned to Adobe Connect. ConnectNow will be decommissioned at that time. This transition means you now have all the power of Adobe Connect for free for one year. You will receive your new Adobe Connect account information in early December. During your one year trial we are confident that you will become addicted to Adobe Connect.

With Adobe Connect you can expect:

• Engaging and interactive meetings for up to 25 people
• Mobile collaboration with Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0
• Unlimited number of meeting rooms
• Persistent content and content storage
• Video and rich media streaming
• Meeting recordings with editing capabilities
• A ‘backstage’ area for hosts and presenters
• Enhanced security
• Universal VoIP

Discover more about these new features you will enjoy as well as other advanced functionality available with an expanded version of Adobe Connect by viewing the Adobe Connect vs ConnectNow Matrix.

When you receive you account in December we’d like to invite you to take advantage of resources we’ve made available to get you up and running quickly:

• Attend a Live Transition Webinar
• Participate in User Free Live Daily Training
• Download a Quick Start Guide:
       Participant Quick Start Guide
       Host Quick Start Guide

To view all of these resources and to join our user community, please visit the getting started learning center on ConnectUsers.com.

As you enjoy the power of the Adobe Connect Meeting Module, we’d like to invite you to consider using Adobe Connect for more advanced uses like marketing webinars, virtual classrooms, mobile learning and more.

Marketing Webinars: Adobe Connect for Webinars helps you deliver compelling, immersive events; maximize attendance; and measure results to optimize
outcomes. Adobe Connect allows you to:

• Create custom registration microsites with built-in Adobe CQ technology
• Measure event effectiveness with analytics powered by Adobe SiteCatalyst
• Deliver exceptional event experiences that inspire action
• Increase attendance by providing access from virtually any device and lowering barriers to entry

eLearning: Adobe Connect for eLearning provides a complete solution for rapid training and mobile learning, enabling rapid deployment of training accessible from anywhere, anytime, on virtually any device. Adobe Connect allows you to:

• Enable mobile learning on virtually any device
• Rapidly create and deploy engaging content
• Deliver immersive experiences in live and on-demand classes
• Efficiently manage and track training

To check out these options just download a 30-day trial of Adobe Connect fully loaded with the Event and Training Modules or learn more on our website.

Welcome and enjoy your free 1-year subscription!

Sales Contact:
North America: info@clarix.com or (800) 457-6613
Outside North America: connectsales@adobe.com
Government: 800-685-3644

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.

Adobe is currently investigating reports of a compromise of a Connectusers.com forum database. These reports first started circulating late during the day on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. At this point of our investigation, it appears that the Connectusers.com forum site was compromised by an unauthorized third party. It does not appear that any other Adobe services, including the Adobe Connect conferencing service itself, were impacted.

To protect Connectusers forum users, we have taken the following actions:

• The Connectusers.com forum site was taken offline in the evening of Tuesday, November 13, 2012. We are working diligently to restore forum services as soon as possible.
• We are in the process of resetting the passwords of impacted Connectusers.com forum members and will reach out to those members with instructions on how to set up new passwords once the forum services are restored.

As a reminder, one of the best ways to protect yourself online is to follow password best practices and use different login credentials across different websites and services.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause to our forum members. Your security is of critical importance to us, and we appreciate your patience as we work towards restoring Connectusers.com forum services.

With the launch of Adobe Connect 9, I have talked with many customers and prospects over the last few month.  They gave me unique insights into their Unified Communications deployments.  One key observation they all made was that the “one stack from one vendor” approach to unified communication does not work.  They gave me three fundamental reasons to explain this.

#1: Single stacks are not so seamless

For the last ten years, the Ciscos and Microsofts of the world went on convincing customers to buy a single stack unified communcations solution from one single vendor. Audio, Video, Web from one single vendor.  The promise was to provide greater ROI and faster deployments from one single unified stack.  But the only thing that is truly unified in their UC offering is the price list.  For the rest deloyments are incredibly complex and difficult to scale.  The different pieces, directory, IM, voice, web conferencing are not at all seamless neither on the server side or client side, creating very poor user experience which slows user adoption.

#2: UC was built for PC era

UC was built on the premise that voice would integrate with web application on the PC. But in the meantime, web application have integrated with voice on mobile devices which are procured in a completely new paradigm that does not fit the traditional UC stack:  Bring Your Own Device.  UC vendors are struggling releasing UC mobile apps across devices that will work the same across all the highly custom UC deployments of their multiple customers.  In the mean time, users are resorting to Skype …

#3: Communication is about culture, not technology

Communication is fundamentally NOT about technology, it is about culture.  Within a same organization, you can expect each group, business unit, department, to have their own collaboration and communication culture influenced by cultural differences of course, but also their different needs: do they collaborate in small group, large group, do they use the tools for training, for webinars, do they prefer to collaborate live or a-synchronously.   The one size fits all of single UC stack solution does not work in these environments, as it struggles to meet all the requirements of these different group.  And in an era of consumerization of IT, no business group is going to wait on IT to deploy a solution that fits their need.  They will go an buy it themselves.  So as a result a lot of UC deployment are actually not used by many group of users.