Archive for April, 2010
Davinci Virtual’s Bill Grodnik and Martin Senn were featured in a podcast interview produced by the Office Business Center Association International (OBCAI). You can listen to the podcast on the OBCAI or visit our Facebook connections page to hear it there and let us know what you think!
Here’s a sneak peak:
Richard Meyers, executive director of OBCAI, interviewed Grodnik, president and CEO of Davinci Virtual and Senn, COO of Davinci Virtual, to learn more about how the virtual office company operates and the revenue flow to the company and its central partners.
“The idea was to create a national platform from which to offer virtual services, both communications and virtual office locations,” Grodnik explained. “Martin and I got together five years ago…and figured out a way to create an online platform that we could offer these services on a national scale. The way we do that is through partner centers or other business centers in the industry.”
Grodnik goes on to explain how the business model works. Senn picked up where Grodnik left off to discuss the future growth of the virtual office industry, explaining the opportunities to grow the ratio of traditional business center clients to virtual office clients. Many centers, he said, aren’t fully catering to the virtual client base to the highest level. Senn also pointed to the expanded market of virtual office customers.
“The recession has shown Davinci Virtual something very significant. In the very beginning, prior to the recession, we saw a lot of small- to mid-sized businesses and start-up companies embracing the virtual office concept. During the recession… less of those companies were being created. We noticed, though, very quickly that larger companies were looking at reducing their overhead. A lot of them at that point started considering virtual offices solutions…as part of their business model.”
Meyers also posed questions about whether virtual offices are cannibalizing serviced office leases, how Davinci Virtual promotes business center partners, what markets are the most popular for virtual offices, how Davinci Virtual finds and compensates its virtual receptionists and much more. Be sure to listen to the entire podcast!
Did you hear about Apple’s latest acquisition?
The iPad-maker just snapped up Siri. I know…I had never heard of the company either. But it’s actually pretty interesting. Siri makes an iPhone app known as the Siri Assistant, which is in essence a personal virtual assistant.
Siri understands what you say, can accomplish tasks for you and adapts to your preferences. For example, you can ask Siri to find an exotic vacation venue, a local rock concert, or tickets to the movie for the weekend. Check out a quick video on Siri so you can get the full picture:
Of course, Siri can’t replace your flesh and bones virtual assistant. But for consumers who are savvy to virtual office technologies that help them be more productive, Siri is a fun app. It goes hand in hand with the virtual office lifestyle. With some verbal commands, you can book a taxi, find out the weather, locate the nearest gas station and so on.
I like to think Siri can compliment the virtual office user’s cadre of technologies, tools and gadgets. Let’s say you work from a virtual office and you are used to being always connected to the Internet. You drive to another city for a business meeting and you don’t know where anything is. Siri can help you find what you are looking for with verbal commands instead of having to do a mobile Internet search.
Again, Siri won’t replace your virtual assistant. But it can be more convenient than dialing up your virtual assistant while you are traveling. And it can add another weapon in your virtual office arsenal that makes you more productive at work and at play.
By the way, if you don’t have an iPad yet, you can register to win a free iPad from Davinci Virtual. The drawing will be held on June 1. With your free iPad, you can install your Siri application and try it for yourself!
I just read a Reuters report about a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Washington that was rerouted on Wednesday to a Greensboro airport after U.S. authorities discovered a “threatening message” in the bathroom.
What’s more disturbing is that it wasn’t the first time. According to U.S. authorities, the threats were discovered two days in a row. On Tuesday, Delta Airlines ran into the same problem with a flight from Atlanta to Paris. That flight was rerouted to Maine after a passenger made threats about a bomb.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the flight is being diverted to Bangor International Airport. TSA and law enforcement will meet the flight upon arrival,” the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement.
I’m not trying to breed fear, but these are the types of incidents that we’re seeing more of in today’s world. Between terrorist threats and natural disaster issues like the Icelandic volcano ash that caused flight delays to Europe for days on end, it’s time for companies to look into virtual office technologies to avoid business disruption.
Virtual offices give you access to web conferencing technologies that help you avoid travel, which prevents missed meetings in the face of rerouted flights or other flight delays. You can also save big on hotel expenses, and you can meet with clients more regularly because setting up a web conference is quick and easy.
Davinci Virtual offers low-cost monthly access to Cisco’s WebEx to its virtual office customers, making it easy and affordable to tap into the service, and allowing companies to save thousand of dollars on airline travel and hotel expenses. So if you are weary of the long walk through security and a little nervous about the threats involved with flying, or if you just want to save a lot of time and money, check out these services today.
While Research in Motion is readying its OS 6.0 for BlackBerry and Apple is preparing to roll out iPhone 4.0 software, Davinci Virtual is making some news of its own on the software front.
Davinci Virtual just released version 3.0 of its online reservation platform. The company has enhanced the technology that powers DavinciMeetingRooms.com so that its virtual office clients—and anyone else in the world who needs a meeting room, conference room or temporary office space—can quickly and easily book it online in minutes.
“We are proud to release the new version of our online reservation platform for professional conference rooms and meeting spaces,” said Bill Grodnik, President and CEO of Davinci Virtual. “The new site has been designed with ease of use and optimal search criteria in mind. We looked at the past 18 months of experience and implemented what our clients and partners have asked for.”
If you have an Internet connection, you can book a meeting room in Atlanta, New York, Houston or just about anywhere else on DavinciMeetingRooms.com much faster than you could even dial the phone, speak with a representative and confirm your reservation. That said, if you need to speak with a reservation specialist, the new platform gives you two options: You can call in or you can chat with Live Chat services.
When you visit the new DavinciMeetingRooms.com, you won’t see much different on the outside. The sleek design is the same as it was last week. What’s changed is what you can’t see: the underpinnings of the Web 2.0 technology that offers advanced applications like live conference room inventory, critical add-on services such as LCD projectors, catering and business support.
Davinci Meeting Rooms offers more than 750 locations across the globe. Grodnick likes to say it levels the playing field for small business by allowing companies to create an image on a small business budget. Meeting rooms work hand in hand with virtual office space. And Davinci has you covered from top to bottom with turnkey virtual communications, virtual office solutions and on-demand physical office space.
If you are a road warrior who loves virtual office technologies, you’ll love the new BlackBerry smartphones. Even if you use an iPhone, you have to appreciate the BlackBerry as the pioneer in business e-mail and other mobile productivity applications.
On Monday, Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of the BlackBerry smartphones, announced two new models worth checking out: the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and BlackBerry Pearl 3G. These devices can serve as compliments to your virtual office space.
The BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone offers a full-QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad and built-in Wi-Fi, which makes it possible to talk on the phone while browsing the web or sending and receiving e-mail. The Pearl 3G is less than two inches wide and weighs 3.3 ounces, but still offers support for high-speed 3G networks, Wi-Fi and GPS. It offers features including e-mail, messaging and social networking.
“The new BlackBerry Bold 9650 is an extraordinary smartphone that we think customers will love,” said Mike Lazaridis RIM president and co-CEO. “Whether at work or at play, the new BlackBerry Bold 9650 offers a truly impressive communications, multimedia and connectivity experience.”
Isn’t that what a virtual office is all about? Truly impressive communications, multimedia and connectivity experience? Road warriors or home-based entrepreneurs who use virtual offices can have their calls answered, screened or forwarded in a professional, personalized way. Your clients won’t know if you are sitting in a office or answering from your new BlackBerry 9650 smartphone—unless you tell them.
A virtual receptionist can do even more. Your clients can listen to hold music while they wait, the remote receptionists can schedule appointments and make live outbound sales calls. You can also avoid missing calls from customers who might not leave a message on your answering machine by having the live receptionist take your calls on a multiple line phone system.
Thinking of buying a new smartphone? Check out this quick video on the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and consider how this fits into your virtual office plan.
Entrepreneurs and dreaming go hand in hand—but what happens when you throw a virtual office into the mix? The combination might help you work smarter, if Harvard Research bears true.
According to the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Sleep and Cognition in Boston, dreams play a part in learning by processing what people recently experienced. For example, people who dreamed about a maze video game they played before they took a nap performed better on that video game the next time they played it. People who didn’t dream about the video game did not perform better in side-by-side testing.
This fascinating research makes me want to take a nap—and working from a virtual office makes it more possible to do just that. Working from a virtual office lets business go on as unusual while you take a 30-minute post-lunch nap. Your virtual receptionist can hold all calls, take messages, answer client questions and otherwise fill in the gaps while you dream your way to better performance.
Virtual office technologies like Live Web Chat also keep the e-commerce and online lead generation wheels turning while you take your nap. When you wake up, you are refreshed and ready to conquer your business dreams again. And, if the Harvard study holds water, there is a possibility of performing at higher levels, especially if you dreamed about a particular business issue.
There are countless studies on the benefits of napping. So many, in fact, that it’s hard to deny the value of naps. But let’s face it. It’s tough to squeeze in a nap in a traditional office environment. Even if you can close your office door and turn off your phones, it’s likely that you will meet with distractions that will interrupt your nap time. With a virtual office, you can work from home without missing any business opportunities—and you can nap with fewer distractions.
Check out this video on power naps in a “napping spot” in New York City:
Today is ‘Take Your Child to Work Day.’ Did you take your child to work? What I discovered is that my daughter’s school won’t allow me to take my child to work because I work from a virtual office space. The Fort Lauderdale schools apparently require a traditional office environment.
That mindset illustrates the importance of companies like Davinci Virtual continuing to educate the market on virtual office space and its benefits. With telecommuting, a mobile workforce, and home-based entrepreneurs on the rise in this economy, kids could learn a valuable lesson about the future of the workforce if schools allowed students to go to work with their parents who work at home and use a virtual office.
If the purpose is “teaching moments” that expose students to the world of work, what better way than to let them see how they can launch their dreams from a home office using virtual office technologies? If my daughter’s school had allowed me to “take her to work,” I could have chosen to take her to my local Davinci Virtual partner and held a meeting in one of their meeting rooms. She could have met the receptionist that greets clients that would come to meet me there.
Virtual office space is part of the 21st century workforce paradigm. Kaplan University offers online degrees, but also has campuses in cities like Fort Lauderdale, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Des Moines, Iowa.
At Kaplan, the workplace does include virtual and at-home workers. The university extended Take Your Child to Work Day into a week-long program in which its 2,800 South Florida employees take their kids with them to work at home, in coffee shops or other non-traditional environments. I thought that was a novel idea.
As for my daughter, she’s probably in math class right about now.
Have you seen the brand new $100 bill? The U.S. Department of the Treasury just unveiled the new design, complete with advanced technology to combat counterfeiting. It still looks a lot like the $100 bill you are used to, but it’s hardened to fight fraud.
That got me to thinking: What can you buy with $100?
For some people, $100 will buy groceries for the week. For others, you can pick up a cool new iPod. Still others might spend $100 on some new clothes.
What you can’t buy with $100 is office space. Even the least expensive office space rentals are more than $100. But there is a cost-effective alternative that will help you stretch those newly-minted $100 bills: virtual office space.
For example, you can get a virtual office space in the Wall Street Business Center in New York for just $79. You can get a virtual office space in Cupertino for $95. You can also get a virtual office space in Chicago for $95. Are you beginning to get the picture?
Your $100 bill will take you a long way in the virtual office world. You can get a prestigious business address in some of the most respected buildings in major cities and smaller cities across the U.S. and around the world for $100 – or less.
What’s more, you can also get access to conference rooms or meeting rooms for a small hourly fee if you need a bricks-and-mortar space to meet clients. Even if you had to meet clients for 10 hours a month at a Davinci Virtual location, it would still only cost you about $250. That’s $350 in total, and you have no additional officing costs, no electricity, no long-term lease, no phone equipment or furniture to purchase and so on. And next month when you don’t need to meet so many clients face-to-face, you are only spending $100—or less.
Davinci Virtual has virtual office space in all 50 U.S. states and in strategic locations around the world. Although some locations are more than $100, many are significantly less than $100. So while you are thinking about how you are going to spend those crisp, clean new $100 bills the U.S. Treasury just announced, consider how far it will take you toward your business goals when you consider a virtual office space.
Check out this video that shows you all the features of the new $100 bill.
Davinci Virtual is in the news again. The Salt Lake Tribune is featuring the virtual office company in an article entitled, “Even in a virtual business, you may need physical space.”
Tom Harvey reports on Davinci Virtual and how the business caters to home office entrepreneurs, and he begins with the pros and cons of virtual offices. The pros, he writes, is that entrepreneurs can work mostly from home over the Internet. The cons, he continues, is that you may have to meet a potential client in your living room.
That, Harvey writes, is where Davinci comes in. He discussed the issue with Bill Grodnick, president and CEO of Davinci Virtual.
“Our business has really gone from nothing to we’ll be doing $10 million in business this year,” Grodnick told The Salt Lake Tribune. Of course, there’s also Davinci Meeting Rooms. “You can basically book a meeting room from New York to L.A. tomorrow at 9 o’clock in the morning,” Grodnick says.
Davinci Virtual gives entrepreneurs the best of both worlds. For example, you don’t have to commute to the office every day. That saves you time. You don’t have to hire and train employees to answer the phones. That saves you money. You don’t have to be concerned about meeting clients in your living room or even in a restaurant because you can tap into a day office or a meeting room. That enhances your reputation. Remote receptionists tackle calls so you can keep focused on the task at hand, but you don’t have to employ a full-time receptionist. That saves you across the board.
From real estate professionals in Denver to accountants in Cleveland and beyond, service firms are finding value in virtual offices because it offers a professional image, productivity technologies and lower overhead than traditional office space.
Check out this short video about Davinci Virtual.
If you’ve been inconvenienced by the volcanic ash cloud that continues to delay air travel across Europe, it may be time to look at new ways to keep business meetings moving along as scheduled. The Icelandic volcano is reportedly costing airlines $200 million a day.
The good news is, the volcanic ash doesn’t have to slow down your business—if you tap into Davinci Virtual’s virtual office technologies. Davinci Virtual’s business model was built on delivering convenience to road warriors, international businessmen, and entrepreneurs who need cost-effective solutions for communicating across the city or across the Atlantic.
Let’s say you were scheduled to travel to Europe for a meeting with a potentially large client. The volcano in Iceland could potentially cause you to lose the deal to a competitor in European who could drive to the prospect’s to give his presentation while you are stuck in your home town waiting for the airlines to signal safe travel.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Davinci Virtual’s virtual office technologies include virtual offices, live receptionists, and perhaps most importantly in the context of the volcano, web conferencing. With Davinci Virtual’s low-cost monthly access to Cisco’s WebEx, virtual office customers can avoid losing potential business deals due to travel restrictions.
Of course, that’s not where the value of Davinci Virtual’s virtual office technologies end. Even when there’s not a volcano or a terrorist issue, or a hurricane or some other obstacle, web conferencing comes in handy. As part of a virtual office suite, web conferencing can significantly reduce and even eliminate the need for air travel—and it’s affordable.
Check out coverage of the volcano in this quick video:
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