Based in New York with significant operations in three offices in Argentina, MediaInternet, Inc., is a technology company that helps connect media buyers and sellers.
Since January of this year, MediaInternet CEO Charlie Deane has been using a conferencing and collaboration utility called Unyte on a daily basis to collaborate with colleagues at satellite offices and partners/clients around the world.
From Billerica, Mass.-based Web collaboration solutions developer WebDialogs, Unyte is a conferencing application that is compatible with Skype. Once installed as a Skype plug-in, Unyte automatically provides one-button IP conferencing for Skype users. Support for multi-format documents frequently used in teleconferencing is automatic. And perhaps just as important, a session with Unyte over Skype does not require the frequently complex prearrangements and conferee coordination necessary with Web-based hosted conferencing solutions.
Deane had already been a Skype user for several months when he decided to investigate the Unyte service in February 2006. There were no RFPs or sales calls– just a curiosity aroused when Deane noticed some promotional material for Unyte on the Skype Web site.
Deane’s company had already been WebEx users, but there was something about Unyte’s feature set that had him at first click. To hear him say it, this appeal had a lot to do with the nature of MediaInternet’s infrastructure, its core businesses, and the way in which the company communicates both internally and externally.
MediaInternet maintains four offices–three in Argentina and one in New York. Each of the Argentine offices has software development people, data-entry staff, or both.
“We are (assembling) an advertising media directory in the U.S.,” explains Deane. “This entails using relational databases and semi-complex methods of inputting information. As a result, we have a lot of trading going on with the data-entry staff, communications about everything from methods of data entry to new applications to things that have to be done a different way. We even communicate about new projects we have to work on.”
Plus, the corporate culture is one that not only embraces collaborative teleconferencing between hemispheres but also between cubicles.
“In fact, in our New York office, we use Skype to teleconfer-
ence even from one cubicle to another,” Deane says. “That way, people don’t have to get up from their seats.”
As an added feature to text and instant messaging with Skype, Deane says MediaInternet uses Unyte as a replacement for image messaging.
“With Unyte, we can explain anything (graphically). Before, we had to draw a diagram, scan it, and send it via e-mail to the other person for him to understand,” he explains. “Now, we just click on the Unyte dialog within Skype and– on the spot– we are ready to start discussing things.”
By sharing the same image, everything gets much more fluid. As a result, what Deane calls “coming to terms in a teleconfer-ence” has been reduced dramatically. “Conveying an idea used to take us a half an hour, but with Unyte and Skype it takes 10 minutes or less.”
Also, Deane maintains that Unyte is simpler than other products. “You choose a recipient and copy the URL (for the Unyte session) into an e-mail message,” Deane explains. “Because the Unyte interface travels with the message, the recipient doesn’t have to download and install an ActiveX component or separate application for it to run on their desktop or notebook.”
MediaInternet also uses Unyte in conjunction with a program called Adobe Captivate, which can capture conferencing sessions in real time and turn them into modest-size Flash files for later review, forwarding, or presentation purposes.
Deane says he has become an evangelist of sorts for Unyte. He has introduced the service to a key client in Switzerland.
Insofar as return on investment is concerned, Deane estimates that the Unyte utility saves him and his staff about $100-150 a session. Since MediaInternet often conducts several teleconferencing sessions a day, it doesn’t take too long for those numbers to really add up to a substantial ROI.
Obviously a satisfied Unyte user, Deane has his “airplane seat” pitch down.
“The first thing I would say is click on this link to see this application. Then, if he asks, ‘What is this that we are looking at?’ I would tell him that ‘this is this fabulous new feature from Unyte, and that it really works.’” V
Russell Shaw is our Features Editor. He is also author of the book, Wireless Networking Made Easy. You can reach him at rshaw@vonmag.com.
References:
Archives