Tag: push
I participate in multiple conference every day. While I can’t change much about the general tediousness associated with 15 different people all joining a call within a five minute window, I can do something about the misery of pressing 18 different numbers on a phone to join the call.
MobileDay solved this problem for smart phones several years ago when it launched. If you want to join a conference call (or any phone call) on your iOS or Android phone, just use MobileDay. Press one button – join whatever call is next on your calendar – automagically.
But it gets even better. MobileDay just released a feature which lets you push the call from your smartphone to any conference room phone. Until now, while I can do one touch dialing into a conference call from my iPhone, I still have to dial 18 (or 19, or was it 20, or does it need a 9 at the beginning, damnit) numbers on the ubiquitous Polycom phones in conference rooms. And, amazingly, sometimes I give up and just use the speaker on my iPhone, which is truly sad and pretty awful compared to the dormant Polycom it is sitting next to.
The new Push feature available for MobileDay Business subscribers can be pre-programmed to connect with any device: Polycom or desk phone. Meetings can still be initiated with MobileDay’s revolutionary one tap and then pushed to another device. Push is keyword sensitive: once I have pre-programmed a device and named it after the meeting room it lives in, whenever I am in a scheduled meeting in that room, MobileDay gives me the option to connect with that device. As with all MobileDay calls there are no numbers to remember – all you have to do is press the green button that pops up on your smartphone and you are in your call.
My favorite products are ones that just work like magic. MobileDay has created several of them, and Push is one of those things that suddenly makes my life a lot better. If you are nostalgic for the days when you had to get up, walk across the room, and manually change the channel on your TV, you probably won’t be into Push. But if you like things that just work and you make a lot of conference calls, go try it and let me know what you think.
I love Scott Kveton, the CEO of Urban Airship. He and his team are building an amazing company in Portland. If you do anything mobile-related and use push notifications of any sort, or real-time location targeting, you need to be talking to them. But even more impressive is how Scott leads his company.
The other day, I got an email from my partner Jason with a photo of the Urban Airship Meeting Rules posted on the wall. They are so logical as to be rules that should apply to every meeting at every startup from now until forever.
0. Do we really need to meet?
1. Schedule a start, not an end to your meeting – its over when its over, even if that’s just 5 minutes.
2. Be on time!
3. No multi-tasking … no device usage unless necessary for meeting
4. If you’re not getting anything out of the meeting, leave
5. Meetings are not for information sharing – that should be done before the meeting via email and/or agenda
6. Who really needs to be at this meeting?
7. Agree to action items, if any, at the conclusion of the meeting
8. Don’t feel bad about calling people out on any of the above; it’s the right thing to do.
I particularly love 0, 1, and 4. I rarely walk out of a meeting when I’m not getting anything out of it. I’m going to start paying more attention to this one.