Lucid Meetings Integrates Glance Instant Screen Sharing Into Virtual Meeting Service

Glance emerging as screen-sharing technology of choice for OEMs

 

Arlington, Mass. – January 12, 2012 – Glance Networks (http://www.glance.net), which provides the best instant screen-sharing tool for sales and support professionals, announced today that Lucid Meetings has integrated Glance’s service as part of its offering. Lucid users can now integrate Glance sessions into their own meetings allowing participants access from any device, be it desktop or mobile.

Presenters can start a Glance session by clicking on a “Share” button within the Lucid Meetings interface. No software downloads are required for participants, who are instantly able to view the presenter’s screen.

 

“We sought a partnership where API development was core to the vendor’s strategy – so that we could integrate it tightly and in turn provide our clients with a screen-sharing solution that was quick, easy and just worked,” said Elise McIntosh, co-founder of Lucid Meetings. “Having tried to integrate other solutions, we knew what we did and didn’t want – and our research led us to Glance. We’re very excited to be the first virtual meeting service to provide this fantastic technology to our users; feedback on this new feature from our early customers has been extremely positive.”

 

Glance is emerging as the screen-sharing platform of choice for many OEM software and service vendors due to the flexible APIs, its simple yet secure architecture, excellent support for mobile devices, and the fact that no software is required for meeting participants. Other Glance integrations include Salesforce.com and LivePerson.

 

Tom Scontras, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Glance, said, “Lucid Meetings is making internal meetings infinitely easier and more efficient, and we think the addition of instant screen sharing will bring huge advantages to their customers. We’re proud to now be a part of their innovative service.”

 

The Lucid/Glance integration is available immediately to Lucid Meetings customers. To learn more, visit www.lucidmeetings.com.

 

About Lucid Meetings

Lucid Meetings (www.lucidmeetings.com) is the only virtual meeting service designed to meet the unique requirements of working teams.  Lucid's online meeting service combines state of the art collaboration, communication, and web conferencing software to support professional meeting preparation, a fully collaborative real-time meeting experience, and the creation of rich, actionable meeting records.  Lucid Meetings is based in Portland, Oregon, where its founders have spent more than fifteen years developing and delivering a variety of online collaboration services for working teams and committees.

 

About Glance Networks 

Glance Networks (www.glance.net) provides the only instant screen-sharing technology that’s integrated with popular customer-facing applications to help companies measurably improve sales and service interactions. Glance enables sales and support reps to launch on-the-fly screen-sharing sessions from directly within the customer applications they’re already using – such as Salesforce.com and LivePerson – and provide managers with real-time reports on the impact those sessions have on sales and customer service metrics. Founded by Taylor Kew and former PictureTel CTO Rich Baker, Glance is headquartered in Arlington, MA and has more than 2,600 customers worldwide including Deluxe Corporation, Reed Business, Constant Contact and InfoUSA.

 

For more information or to learn more, email sales@glance.net or call 1-888-945-2623 (toll-free USA) or +1-781-316-2596 (international).

The New B2B: Belief System-2-Belief System

Traditionally within B2B transactions, buyers were dependent on sellers to provide expert advice; ultimately leading towards courtship, evaluation, and acquisition.

 Of course they could pay consultants or purchase analyst research but ultimately all roads lead back to the seller; even in the Google era search results returned vendor controlled content.

 Conversely social networks promote a free and open exchange of information which continues to drastically impact traditional buyer-seller-relations and associated engagement models.

In other words, the rise of social selling and customer service will not jettison marketing, sales or support organizations however it will create significant challenges. This will happen in the early stages of development where competitive separation, trust and credibility would have been previously established directly through these channels, and in many cases, face-to-face.

 Add to this the record breaking rate at which mobile apps have invaded our work and home lives, or as Rick Segal, Worldwide President at Gyro HSR puts it, making both “a state of mind”; and you begin to get a sense of the broader shifting landscape.

 “(Technology) has changed the way we talk to business decision-makers. Being at work is no longer a place; it is a state of mind, a kind of continuing oscillation that people are making between their work life and their personal life.” – Rick Segal

 Managing home-work boundaries is a continuous effort for many of us, a separation which obviously needs to be maintained; at least until “Generation Z” arrives.

 I’m “GenX”, part of a generation born between the 1960’s and late 1970’s.  Unless your Dad worked at NASA you did not have a computer in your upbringing.

 My nephew on-the-other-hand is “GenY”. 

 He and his friends grew up watching extraordinary innovation change the world.  In fact, as part of a 2007 Strauss and Howe study of Y-students, it was revealed that 97% owned a computer and 94% owned a cell phone. They also found that 76% used instant messaging, of which 92% reported multitasking at the same time.

 And then there are my kids, “Gen Z”; born in the early to mid-1990’s through the early turn-of-the-millennium.

 Generation Z is highly connected, with lifelong use of communications and media technologies, earning them the nickname “Digital Natives.”  They carry smart phones in grade school, text more than talk, and prefer technology for communications; communications which are abbreviated, highly transactional, and out in the open. 

 Gen Z’s don’t think of innovation as their predecessors do; a utility to make life more efficient. Instead, and which makes them extraordinary, they see it as basic need, “Maslow-like”; food, clothing, shelter, and technology. 

 Gen Z’s  currently fall into the age range of 11-21; placing the eldest within the workforce as both buyer and seller later this year, where they will not gasp at the thought of conducting critical b2b discussions socially, nor will they wonder if work-life-balance is out of whack.

 Instead, paired with their Gen Y management team, they will move at speed of Z, ignoring those who cannot keep pace; driving permanent change to B2B and the most fundamental of systems – the belief system.

Maybe this is where we are heading, or maybe not. Regardless, today’s customers have options, they are no longer relegated to call or email a business to gather information.  

Instead they engross themselves in real-time conversations, through various business and social networks seeking answers through peer driven conversation, engaging our business’ as part of their process – at any time, from any device – never hesitating to outwit, or simply ignore our master plan for them.

I suppose this evolution has put us all in a position to make some tough decisions, less traditional, even outside of our own personal comfort zones, possibly way outside. 

Yes, in order for our business to remain accessible, available, knowledgeable, hip, and most importantly competitive; I believe that this is exactly what is going to have to happen.

Or I suppose, we could just put it off for a couple of years and let our kids deal with it.

 

-Tom Scontras, VP of Sales & Marketing, Glance Networks

Glance releases version 2.0 for Salesforce and completes award-winning screen-sharing integration for Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Chatter and Mobile.

The only real-time, screen-sharing service for customer-facing demos, presentation and support sessions.

San Francisco, Calif. – Aug. 31, 2011 – From Dreamforce 2011 (Booth #701, with partner Bluewolf), Glance Networks today launched version 2.0 of Glance for Salesforce, its award-winning screen-sharing technology. 

The upgrade extends the company’s sales cloud offering to the service cloud, allowing agents to launch collaborative support sessions simply by clicking on a Glance icon appearing on any salesforce.com object.  

Like its initial release, the service automatically tracks and stores all support activity, enabling real-time, accurate reporting; with 2.0 Glance has added new sales and services dashboards, each including six customizable reports. 

Known for its focus on real time engagement, Glance’s version 2.0 also incorporates a 
“mobile join” feature, allowing guests to connect to sessions via any mobile device, including iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. 

The company has also incorporated Glance for Chatter, a built-in service that automatically updates the status of demos, online presentations or remote support sessions.  Included within the Chat notification is a link to the session in progress; users can simply click and instantly join.

In preparing for the release, the company presented sneak peek opportunities to a select group of industry experts, analysts and clients – as a result, Glance for Salesforce was recently named a “Top 10 App for Salesforce” by DemandGen Report and “A Must-Have Tool for Salesforce.com Users” by Smart Selling Tools. With a user rating score of 4.8 (out of 5), Glance for Salesforce is now one of the most highly rated Apps for sales and service productivity on the AppExchange.

“Salesforce.com customers are looking for means to make their sales and services organizations more efficient and effective,” says Tom Scontras, VP Sales and Marketing at Glance Networks. “It’s simple; our customers want tools that improve real-time communications with prospects and customers. Glance for Salesforce 2.0 completes that picture by consolidating demo, presentation and remote support tools into one simple, integrated service.” 

Reed Construction Data is one of many companies that have already made Glance for Salesforce a key part of their sales and support processes. “We rely heavily on demos as part of our sales process, and are a big Salesforce customer,” explained Lisa Fiondella, Chief Customer Officer at Reed. “Layering Glance on top of our Salesforce implementation has helped Reed significantly boost sales team productivity. To date, with Salesforce.com and Glance we’ve reduced sales cycles by 60 percent and improved lead conversion rates by 40 percent. We’re looking forward to taking advantage of the features in Glance for Salesforce 2.0 in order to expand the benefits beyond our sales group and into the service team.”

Glance will demonstrate Glance for Salesforce 2.0 publicly for the first time at this week’s Dreamforce 2011 conference. The company is co-exhibiting with agile business consulting firm Bluewolf in booth #701. Reed’s Fiondella is a featured speaker in the Bluewolf theater, in a session titled, “Increasing Productivity, Conversion Rates, and Revenue by Integrating Salesforce.com Apps.”

To learn more about Glance for Salesforce, visit www.glance.net or view a demo and more detailed information at the Salesforce AppExchange.

About Glance Networks

Glance Networks (www.glance.net) provides the only instant screen-sharing technology that’s integrated with popular customer-facing applications to help companies measurably improve sales and service interactions. Glance enables sales and support reps to launch on-the-fly screen-sharing sessions from directly within the customer applications they’re already using – such as Salesforce.com and LivePerson – and provides managers with real-time reports on the impact those sessions have on sales and customer service metrics. Founded by former PictureTel CTO Rich Baker, Glance is headquartered in Arlington, MA and has more than 6,000 customers worldwide including Deluxe Corporation, Franklin Templeton, Vehix, Choice Hotels, Ciba Vision and InfoUSA.

 # # #

Glance Networks and Glance are trademarks of Glance Networks Inc.  All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Making Chatter Matter: Glance Launches Integrated Demo and Support Session Tool for salesforce.com’s Chatter

Free add-on to Glance for Salesforce alerts Chatter users about real-time demos and support sessions occurring with the people, prospects and customers that matter most

Boston, Mass. – Cloudforce Boston – June 16, 2011 – At today’s salesforce.com Cloudforce Boston event, Glance Networks (http://www.glance.net) launched Glance for Chatter, a new add-on to its Glance for Salesforce solution that automatically alerts Salesforce users via Chatter whenever impromptu, collaborative selling and support sessions happen with people, prospects or customers they follow.

Glance provides the only instant screen-sharing technology that’s integrated with popular customer-facing applications, such as Salesforce, to help companies measurably improve sales and service interactions.

Glance for Salesforce lets sales and support reps launch sessions simply by clicking a Glance icon that appears on every lead, account, opportunity, contact, case and campaign object.  The deep integration allows Glance’s Cloud Service to automatically track and store session activity, enabling accurate real-time reporting, dashboards and analysis. Now, companies have the option of adding Glance for Chatter.

“Social enterprises that already leverage the Force.com platform and Chatter to facilitate swift communication among team members can really benefit from Glance for Chatter,” said Tom Scontras, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Glance.

The innovative service automatically posts an update each time a demo, online presentation or remote support session begins. The notification includes a link to the session, which Chatter users can click to join from any computer, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, iPad, Playbook or other mobile device. 

“People understand the great potential of Chatter,” said Scontras. “We are extending that value by informing the right people at the right time that an event is taking place.  And now they can join those conversations – instantly.”

Glance will demonstrate Glance for Chatter publicly for the first time at today’s Cloudforce Boston event.  Organizations interested in evaluating the integration can schedule a 14-day trial by contacting Glance Networks directly at +1 617-834-4454. 

About Glance Networks
Glance provides the first on-the-fly-demo tool that enables users to launch impromptu sales and support sessions instantly with one click. Designed to foster relationship building in a Sales 2.0 world, Glance solutions are used by thousands of companies worldwide to enhance productivity, shorten sales cycles, reduce costs and close more business. Learn more and sign up for a free trial at http://www.glance.net.

Join Glance and Other Savvy Sales Pros at AA-ISP's "Inside Sales 2011", Feb. 10, San Francisco

Register today >>

The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals presents Inside Sales 2011 - San Francisco, Feb. 10 -- the only conference dedicated exclusively to the "front lines" of Inside Sales.

This event will bring together Inside Sales Professionals to learn, share, and network. Tom Scontras, VP Sales & Marketing at Glance Networks, is scheduled to speak, along with Steve Richard, Co-Founder and President, Vorsight, Josiane Feigon, Founder & President, TeleSmart Communications, Brett Wallace, Vice-President Sales, Zoominfo, and many others.

As a platinum sponsor, Glance invites you to join us for a day of Sales best practices in San Francisco!

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing, Glance Networks

 

 

Join Glance at Sales 2.0, March 7-8 | THE Event for Savvy Sales, Marketing, and Sales Ops Leaders

Network with and learn from leading authorities and businesses in the Sales 2.0 industry -- join Glance at San Francisco's Four Seasons Hotel, March 7-8 for The Sales 2.0 Conference.

Speakers include Selling Power magazine CEO Gerhard Gschwandtner, "Celebrity CMO" and author, Jeff Hayzlett, and Sales 2.0 author Anneke Seley.

Breakout sessions include topics on next gen sales ops, social selling, new tools to make you more effective, and top trends in compensation and sales performance.

Look for Glance's booth at the conference and stop by and say hi!

REGISTER NOW >>

"Best Thing at This Show!" | Glance Rocks Dreamforce #df10

"Wow!"

"Awesome"!

"This is the best thing at the show!"

"When can I buy it?"

That's what the Glance team heard all through last week's Dreamforce (Salesforce.com's annual celebration of cloud computing).  Booth #1107 was packed; prospects lined up for our Quota Killer tee-shirt and demos of the new Glance for Salesforce (and to get a look at our Loudmouth golf pants attire); and our Killer Cocktail Kickoff Party at B Bar sold out! Whew!

What's all the fuss about? In brief, Glance for Salesforce allows sales and service reps  to launch demos or engage in collaborative support sessions right from Salesforce.com.  Additionally, the session data collected is stored within Salesforce and can be leveraged in real time reports or dashboards to provide critical analysis of each demo or support call and its impact on your business – rep activity, conversion rates, appointments, pipeline, forecast, deals, etc. No one else has this capability – no one.

If you missed the show, click on the video below for a quick demo.

And, if you REALLY want to relive Dreamforce in pictures, take a look at Glance's Flickr account. See if you see yourself in the pics!

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

Glance for Salesforce Now Available on Salesforce.com AppExchange 2, the World's Most Popular Marketplace for Business Apps

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For information, contact:
Michelle G. Faulkner
Big Swing Communications
michelle@bigswingcomm.com
+1-617-510-6998

Enables users to launch impromptu demos instantly from Salesforce

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Dreamforce 2010 (Booth 1107) – Dec. 6, 2010 – Glance Networks (http://www.glance.net), the Sales 2.0 thought leader known best for its on-the-fly-demo tool, announced today that its new Glance for Salesforce solution is now available on AppExchange 2.

Glance for Salesforce enables users to launch impromptu demos instantly from within Salesforce. Built using Force.com, the enterprise cloud computing platform, Glance for Salesforce is immediately available for test drive and deployment on AppExchange 2 at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. The announcement was made today at Dreamforce 2010, the cloud computing event of the year.

A video demonstration of Glance for Salesforce is available at http://glance.at/g39Zzj.

Sign up for a free, 30-day trial at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

Glance solutions are already used by thousands of companies worldwide to enhance productivity, shorten sales cycles, cut costs and close more business. Glance differs from traditional web conferencing and webinar tools in that it’s engineered for impromptu conversations, rather than for pre-scheduled events. Glance sessions can be initiated with just one click. With no software to download, participants are instantly connected.

With Glance for Salesforce, reps can launch demos simply by clicking on a Glance icon that appears within the Salesforce interface. Behind the scenes, Glance’s Cloud Service automatically tracks and stores each rep’s activity enabling real-time reporting. Glance for Salesforce dashboards provide critical insight into how sales demos affect rep productivity and profit.  Glance for Salesforce can also be used for customer support sessions.

Glance is demonstrating Glance for Salesforce publicly for the first time at Dreamforce (Booth #1107). According to Tom Scontras, vice president of sales and marketing at Glance, customer reaction to Glance for Salesforce has been extremely positive. “When we asked customers what more we could do to help improve their sales efficiency, Salesforce integration was at the top of their list,” said Scontras. “We tend to work with companies that are very tech-savvy and early adopters of Sales 2.0 technologies. Glance for Salesforce is a powerful tool for ‘Quota Killer’ sales reps who need to make a big impact during a short phone conversation.”

“In our business, demos have a major impact on our ability to close sales,” said Derek Dean, director of sales strategy at Reed Construction Data, a current Glance user. “Glance already enables our reps to do more demos, and that has had a direct correlation to revenue. Our entire sales process is managed within Salesforce – being able to launch Glance sessions right there will make our team even more productive, and will also improve my ability to measure results and refine our sales processes. This is a great tool for Salesforce users.”

‘Quota Killer’ T-shirts, Other Glance Prizes at Dreamforce
Dreamforce attendees who visit the Glance booth (#1107) during the show can pick up a ‘Quota Killer’ T-shirt, and are eligible for other prizes to be awarded throughout each day of the show including The Killers CDs and iTunes gift cards. For details, follow Glance on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/GlanceNetworks) and on Facebook (http://facebook.com/GlanceNetworks).

Dreamforce is the industry’s leading global cloud computing event focused on inspiring customer, partner and developer success with cloud computing. Attendees will learn how to maximize their current investments and explore new offerings across Salesforce Chatter, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Force.com and more. Over the past 10 years the cloud computing economy has radically changed the way companies operate. Now as we enter the next phase, cloud computing is becoming inherently social, real‐time and mobile. Dreamforce is where this transition is happening with hundreds of salesforce.com partners exhibiting the latest cloud offerings, as well as training sessions, seminars and breakout sessions.

About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange 2
Force.com is the only proven enterprise platform for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM (http://www.salesforce.com/) applications, more than 1,000 ISV partner applications like those from CA Technologies, FinancialForce.com and Fujitsu, and 185,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 87,200 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel. Force.com also enables developers to make any enterprise app social by leveraging the social collaboration components including profiles, status updates, and real-time feeds available with Chatter.

Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire cloud computing community through the salesforce.com AppExchange 2 marketplace (http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/), now featuring the ChatterExchange.

About Glance Networks
Glance provides the first on-the-fly-demo tool that enables users to launch impromptu sales and support sessions instantly with one click. Designed to foster relationship building in a Sales 2.0 world, Glance solutions are used by thousands of companies worldwide to enhance productivity, shorten sales cycles, reduce costs and close more business. Learn more and sign up for a free trial at http://www.glance.net.

Party at Dreamforce with Glance and Friends | Tues. 5:30pm B Bar - B There! #df10

Long day on the Dreamforce floor? Given just one too many demos for the day? Start your Tuesday evening with killer cocktails and conversation at B Restaurant and Bar above Moscone North.

Drinks are on Glance, as we celebrate the launch of Glance for Salesforce, along with our partners CodeScience and GearsCRM. Glance for Salesforce is a version of the service that’s fully integrated with Force.com, Salesforce.com’s enterprise cloud computing platform. Glance for Salesforce will be available in early December; Glance will publicly demonstrate the solution for the first time at Dreamforce (booth #1107).

Glance for Salesforce enables sales representatives to launch demos instantly from within Salesforce, while behind the scenes Glance’s Cloud Service automatically tracks and stores each rep’s activity enabling real-time reporting. Glance for Salesforce dashboards provide critical insight into how sales demos impact rep productivity and the corresponding bottom line.

At the party, we'll be giving away our famous "Quota Killer" tee-shirts, and trying out B Bar's and Glance's signature Quota Killer cocktail (that's right, ask for it by name!)

The event is free and you can bring friends!

Here's more...

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

Vote for Us! Vote for Us! Glance Nominated for Top Sales 2.0 Solution

Glance is a finalist in the Annual Top Sales Awards 2010 in the Sales 2.0 solution category. Between November 24 and December 1, you can show your support for Glance by voting for us (see below)!

Glance is an extremely light weight, fast connecting sales and support tool which differs vastly from traditional web conferencing applications like Webex and Gotomeeting. Our service is engineered for impromptu conversations, rather than large scale, cumbersome, pre-scheduled events.

And, if you're a Salesforce user, you can soon start up a Glance sales demo right from within Salesforce, as we launch Glance for Salesforce on December 6. 

If you've never used Glance, you can try it free for 7 days.

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing