South Korean supermarket chain Home Plus has developed a trial run of a virtual grocery store that allows commuters to restock their kitchens on their way to work.

WIDE ANGLE: SMART PHONES

Home Plus plastered subway stations with replicas of groceries that are labeled with a unique code for each product. As they pass by on their way to work, commuters can use a mobile-phone app to snap photos of desired products, then check out. Groceries are then delivered to their doorstep by the end of the work day.

Home Plus reported a 130 percent increase in online sales. With more than 10,000 customers, this virtual grocery store has been a huge hit.

Home Plus’s virtual supermarket works like this: Each grocery item image is accompanied by a quick response b code (photo above) that encodes data, the product and its price. Items go into an online shopping cart when each code is scanned and then customers then use their phones to purchase items before catching the train to work.

NEWS: Cell Phone App Offers Eye Prescription

“For sure, your cell phone will be the graphical user interface to the shopping services,” Abel Sanchez, research lead at MIT’s Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory, told TechnologyReview. “Think of the early days of the Web versus today. In the early 1990s, the Web was one way, like a paper book. Today, the Web is full of interaction; it’s how we do our jobs. I think the supermarket will go through a similar transformation.”

Cardone On-Demand Automotive Sales Training is an online sales training hub for ALL of your sales training needs. Whether you need sales meetings, sales training, quick sales motivation or even sales coaching your people are able to access sales expert Grant Cardone when they need it.

Virtual online web based interactive training is taking off because it is affordable, available at all times and doesn’t require your people miss sales opportunities. Before developing this sales training tool we surveyed clients to find out exactly what they wanted for their sales training online solution. What we were told was quick, motivational, high energy, concise, short, relevant and current content that helps the sales team and sales managers solve problems. The request for content included sales training, sales tips, sales strategies, sales seminar, online sales training meetings, sales meetings for management with three specifications – keep them short and keep them exciting.

For sales training of any kind to be effective it must get your people excited first and then be available when your people need it. While sales seminars serve a purpose when it is over sales training virtually supports the sales team with sales training, sales tips, sales reminders, sales motivation and continuing sales improvements. Through the use of short sales training sessions of 3 minutes and then providing immediate interactive testing we are able to gauge that your people are getting the sales training and duplicating the sales training.

For sales training to be most effective it must be:

1) Available 24/7 – Sales training content must be available when sales people need it not just when

2) Sales Motivational – Sales training content that is boring content will be resisted. Sales training must first get the sales team and sales management motivated and excited. Sales people that are not effectively motivated will not achieve sales results regardless of the sales training.

3) Sales Solutions – Sales training must do more than teach a skill must also provide sales people with sales tools to solve problems before, during and after the sale. See our Sales Training Quick Fix Solutions.

4) Sales Training must be All Inclusive – Sales training must included all levels of sales people from the most basic to the most advanced. Most sales training program fail because they focus just on the new sales people and neglect sales training for the other 2/3 of the organization and the management staff.

5) Sales Training Relevant – Sales training must be contain sales training material that is current and relevant to changing times. The sales training material was all created to handle today’s better informed customer, more competitive environment and challenging economy.

However the allure of time out of the office stops people using such technology, a study suggests.

Researchers studied two virtual conferences and found they had considerably smaller costs and carbon output compared with their real-life equivalents.

Cash Savings

One international, three-day online event for 260 delegates, held by a global IT and services company, saved $250,000 and 280 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions compared with such an event in real life.

Another virtual conference, held by a university and involving 62 delegates, saved almost 35 tonnes of CO2 and cost $120,000 less than a real-life equivalent event.

Most savings were made by cutting out air travel.

However, researchers from the University of Edinburgh who carried out the study found that, despite potential savings, businesses are slow to adopt virtual meetings because many people prefer to meet face-to-face.

Job Perk

Researchers studied attitudes towards virtual meetings within two further organisations – a university and an oil and gas company.

Results showed that virtual meeting spaces such as Second Life can be useful in some instances, for example training staff in practical skills.

However, the perception of business travel as a perk of the job remains an important barrier to more widespread use.

The results are published in the journal Carbon Management.

Results of a five-year study on telemedicine showed that patients can be treated virtually by physicians as effectively as if the patients made physical visits to the doctor’s office. In another finding, the remote treatment also improved doctor-patient communication.

The study highlighted the efforts of Hospital Clinic of Barcelona to treat 200 HIV-infected patients remotely through its “Hospital VIHrtual” telemedicine program. The program used virtual consultations through videoconferencing and delivery of medications to a patient’s home. The telemedicine program does not replace the traditional face-to-face visits between doctor and patient but complements and enhances them, the hospital said.

In the U.S., many states are implementing telemedicine as a way to save costs, improve the quality of time physicians spend with patients and cut down on commuting time.

For example, last year two BlueCross BlueShield insurance organizations in upstate New York began offering their members and employers virtual physician visits, making New York the fourth state to provide these types of services. The service allows patients to talk with physicians in real time through a private online chat network or through a voice-over-IP phone call. It also offers video chat and instant messaging.

Other medical facilities throughout the country are offering physician/patient communication through Twitter.

Hospital Clinic of Barcelona’s telemedicine program was coordinated by Dr. Felipe Garcia and Dr. Agathe Leon, from the Hospital Clinic Service of Infectious Diseases, directed by Dr. Josep M. Gatell.

“The study shows that the virtual hospital allows comprehensive control over the patient in medical, pharmaceutical, psychological and quality of life aspects. The results are as satisfactory as those obtained in a visit at the hospital,” a press release by the hospital stated.

Meanwhile, in a separate study published in January in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, showed 85% of 87 patients who were surveyed in the telemedicine program indicated that a virtual hospital improved their access to clinical data and that they felt comfortable with the videoconference system.

Virtual office visits were also found to increase the amount of information patients could receive about their illness, while reducing costs and the time spent traveling back and forth to physicians’ offices and waiting for appointments with physicians.

The Hospital VIHrtual telemedicine program offered patients teleconference consultations that included medical, nursing, psychological, pharmaceutical and social care. The video consultation sessions were set up through email.

The hospital’s telemedicine program also offers two virtual communities: one for healthcare professionals, where they can share clinical cases and treatments; and another for patients offering news, discussion forums and blogs with physicians and other patients.

Because so many HIV-infected patients are medically stable, they must maintain normal social and work lives, which may require travel, business meetings and other important scheduled events. Frequent visits to the hospital are a major investment of time and money for the patients. The virtual system allows a patient to go to a medical center only for a physical examination and reduces the number of visits to the doctor from six or eight in the current system to three or four, the hospital stated.

“This program allows patients to continue their treatment without altering their routine. Medication is sent to their home, or other locations specified by the patient,” the hospital stated. “Telemedicine is emerging as a service appropriate for this treatment, and Hospital VIHrtual as a safe and effective tool. This system, with variations, could become a model for the control of chronic stable patients suffering other diseases.”

To view the video click here.

I spoke with Alan Blume, author of Your Virtual Success: Finding Profitability in an Online World. Alan’s opinion is that virtual work is altering the very nature of cities and urban centers, how we live and aggregate as people. As more business is done from remote locations, cities are rapidly becoming cultural centers where you find more entertainment than business. We just don’t need to be “at our desks” like we used to. Look no further than the commercial office space real estate ordeal in recent years and you’ll get the point. Companies who don’t adjust won’t be able to entice the best employees or thrive economically, and may soon end up like the newspaper industry. Alan brings out more points and subtleties in his video interview here.

SMALL BUSINESSES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD

If you operate a virtual business like I do, or are thinking about one, Your Virtual Success is a resource you should pick up. It offers an easy to read, yet content-filled set of actions for you to take to…

· Transform to a virtual business from your normal job
· Launch a virtual business quickly
· Develop niche branding and image
· Sell and market your business virtually
· Qualify and hire virtual talent– from anywhere!
· Test and increase your business

The author Alan Blume “eats his own dog food” as he told me once, in that all the recipes in this book he uses for his own company. I was most captivated by some of the non-traditional sources to find freelance workers; for example, Craig’s List. I thought Craig’s List was a shelter for rip-off artists, criminals and the occasional killer, and unquestionably those folks are out hunting for the unprepared. There’s a lot of talent on Craig’s List too, which I discovered. I found my graphic designer for this business’s logo and discovered my web designer via carefully detailed advertisements on Craig’s List. Lots of other freelance sites are out there as well such as Odesk and Elance. There are always diamonds in the rough that exists online and the instructions in the staffing chapter of how to separate the good from the bad are by themselves worth reading this book.

There are many tools in this work for small business owners to take into account, whether it’s the use of online video that you can now advertise your business much more affordably than ever before, or ways to test new products and services and adjust to the suggestions you receive on the fly, modifying as you go. So many things exist today for you to take advantage of in order to compete with larger companies and lower-priced rivals, and you may soon be obliged to.

When you read a book like this, you begin thinking about work in a different way. The author tells his Tale of Two Nephews and allows the reader decide which version of success he’d like to have; the overworked, overstressed 9 to 7er or the guy working his pajamas. When I read how the author manages his own business I was envious, because I’m not there yet, but I am on my way. This book has many of the same characteristics as the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, without the concentration on world travel and focused a little more on creating your own virtual venture from a sensible standpoint.

You can get through this book in one sitting, but you should return with a highlighter or ball point pen to some of the key sections and references Alan gives. Bookmark the appendix Rolling Pipeline Report, Prospect Scorecard and Sample Order Confirmations as documents that can form a basis for tracking and managing your virtual business.

Mobile access extends your global reach by enabling any individual with a tablet or mobile phone to access a product launch. By expanding the devices individuals and companies can use to access your product launch you reach a larger audience. The mobile interface also has language localization and therefore is more appealing to international visitors. Unlike traditional launches in which your audience had to be in front of the TV or at the convention to view your product demo, Virtual Product Launches are always “on.” Allowing access at anytime day or night from any number of geographic locations.
Furthermore, the Virtual Product Launch is able to showcase more of what your product offers then traditional methods by providing multiple screens of information and demonstrations. Think about being able to showcase the top key features of your product each with 10 minute video presentations and compare that to using a simple 30 or 60 second commercial on a television network that forces you to combine all of the information into a single instance. Your organization would need to purchase each commercial time spot on multiple networks and across multiple countries to gain a comparable result. The Virtual Product Launch has this feature built in.

The power of social networking has changed the face of business and has been the topic of great importance for the past few years as it will in the years to come. Any individual may share information about your product to a number of social networks via the Virtual Product Launch screens. Imagine your product demo going viral across Facebook or your videos being posted and reposted across YouTube in a matter of hours without your hands ever touching the interface. This cannot be done using traditional product launch methodology and will serve to gain larger reach and improved interactivity with your organization and its products or services.

As with any product launch lead generation is of the utmost importance. Traditional product launches happen at a physical event and attract a few hundred attendees. The virtual product launch can attract thousands during the first day alone far surpassing their physical counterparts. Virtual Product Launches enable real-time reporting of each interaction of every participant. Any time an individual clicks on a video demonstration, views a specification screen or accesses information about your product it is recorded and can be analyzed.

Additionally, each social networking share or post is also recorded allowing you to view what is being shared giving your organization better insight into what potential customers view as exciting, useful or just downright cool. After analyzing your metrics adjustments can be made to the layout, interface and data presentation to capitalize upon user interactivity increasing your ROI and improving the success of your product launch.

ARLINGTON, Va. (Jan. 24, 2012) – An increasing number of K-12 students across the country are taking advantage of online learning options. Thirty states have full-time online learning schools open to students from districts statewide, while 40 states offer state-run virtual schools, according to Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning. Researchers project that by 2014 more than 10 million students will be taking virtual courses. PBS TeacherLine is launching “TECH570: Fundamentals of Virtual K-12 Teaching” to fulfill the need for highly effective virtual educators and to help districts prepare for this revolutionary transition in education.

The six-week course goes beyond simply teaching about the online tools for virtual teachers, but delves deeply into the critical knowledge, strategies, and techniques to support student achievement in an online learning environment while aligning to the standards from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), and the NEA Guide to Online Teaching. Prospective virtual teachers are guided through the course by an exemplary course facilitator who models how to build community, strategies for working with virtual students, and assessment techniques. The course offers project-based online learning experiences, helping educators develop the practical skills, resources and materials required for effective virtual teaching for K-12 students.

“As millions of families opt for the flexibility and convenience of virtual learning, teachers are faced with the challenge of adapting their instruction to the dynamics of online teaching,” said Rob Lippincott, senior vice president of education for PBS. “The ’Fundamentals of Virtual K-12 Teaching’ course gives educators an eLearning Toolbox and allows them to practice the skills needed to support student achievement in the online environment.”

According to education experts, skills required for online teaching are different from the skills used for face-to-face instruction in the classroom. Key differences include curriculum, social dynamics, assessment strategies, and technical challenges. “Fundamentals of Virtual K-12 Teaching” helps teachers bridge the gap from face-to-face instruction to online instruction and sets them on a path for virtual teaching success.

TECH570 takes approximately 45 hours to complete, and costs $525. Teachers can earn PDPs, CEUs, or graduate credit from one of the more than 30 higher education institutions that have partnered with PBS TeacherLine. The course will first be available February 29, 2012.

Encouragingly, whilst the top-tier larger worlds (with over 50m registered users) continue to attract users and leverage their brands, mid-tier worlds (10m to 50m registered users) such as Bin Weevils, Wizard 101, Minecraft, Meez and Fantage also posted positive increases.

We can see how easy it is to host a live session…

Capture it live…

Create a virtual broadcast…

And convert a live exhibit room…

Into a custom interactive environment:

We loved the quote we received from Laura Andreescu, Event Coordinator for ASUG, “With all of the things that I’m worrying about, I have to thank you for your platform.  It’s the only thing that I don’t have to worry about, I know it’s just going to work!”