Thanks to AlwaysOn for naming us to their top 100 list

I would like to send a very big "Thank You" to AlwaysOn for including ProtonMedia in their Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic 100 Top Private Companies listing. We are certainly proud to win this award!


The awards were given to organizations that are challenging established players and creating new solutions that will help change the way we do business.


ProtonMedia has been working to change the way organizations meet, collaborate and learn. A good percentage of the knowledge workers in our economy, who benefit from this kind of environment, are located here in the Mid-Atlantic region. It's great to see the venture community, and the number of start ups from this area, move the market and achieve this kind of recognition.

To view the entire list of the AlwaysOn Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic 100 Top Private Companies here.

Why learning departments should 'collaborate like crazy'

Writer Rama Ramaswami recently penned an article for Campus Technology about four ways to make the most out of virtual environments. Her points are worth a look, and one in particular deserves some more exploration. She recommended to "collaborate like crazy."

You're probably all too familiar with the budget cuts that have sliced through learning and training departments at life sciences companies in recent years. But as I've talked about before, learning is not a black hole that you throw money down. It's a crucial vehicle for transferring knowledge among organizational teams to drive innovation and execution.

Life sciences PLM needs to start earlier, go longer, and be more collaborative

PharmaVOICE's October cover story is worth a read for anyone in life sciences, especially if you're involved in product life cycle management (PLM). The story, "A Changing Market Environment Requires New PLM Strategies," drills into some of the latest thinking and analysis about PLM strategy and coping with the ongoing challenges of pipeline maintenance.

Writer Robin Robinson featured insight from five industry sources, including Rob Bazemore, President of Janssen Biotech; Chris Bogan, CEO of Best Practices; Andrew Hunter, Senior Manager of Kalypso; Mike Rea, CEO of IDEA Pharma; and yours truly.

New benchmark report compares 33 virtual environments

You might be surprised to learn that there are 33 virtual environments out there. The fact that there are shows this is a vibrant and competitive market, with technologies that can have many possible use cases.

But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Well one researcher who's done that is Sami Ahma-aho from the Business, Innovation, Technology (BIT) Research Centre at Aalto University in Finland.

TMCnet says ProtonMedia is 'shaking things up with innovative collaborative tools'

Not long after TMCnet's editors posted the interview between its founder, Rich Tehrani, and myself, TMCnet contributor Mae Kowalke penned an article about ProtonMedia's approach to collaborative learning and training.

She pulled out some of the points from my interview with Rich that struck her, writing that we're "shaking things up with innovative collaborative tools to help make meetings and corporate trainings more productive and more fun."

Texas bound next week for ITEXPO West 2011

The unofficial start of fall means the show and event circuit is kicking into high gear. My September is filling up with conferences and meetings here in PA and around the country.

And a new one I'll be hitting next week is ITEXPO West 2011 in Austin, Texas.

If you're not familiar with ITEXPO West, it's one of the largest and longest-running communications and technology conferences in the U.S.

Thousands of attendees come every year to learn about and discuss the latest trends, issues, and technologies in telecom, wireless, mobile, and unified communications.

6 rules for productive digital collaboration

It's no secret -- workplace etiquette rules have changed over the past 20 years. Digital communications have made it easy to shoot out short messages of mass information without the need for handshakes and hellos.

So how can virtual workers still be courteous without the formalities?

Continuing medical education goes virtual with launch of Virtual Diabetes Institute

Clinic room for exams in the Virtual Diabetes Institute

I promised you details on SciMed's new Virtual Diabetes Institute, and here they are. We've been working for the past several months with medical education provider SciMed to create this innovative learning environment in ProtoSphere. The initiative is supported by an independent educational grant from Merck.

The Virtual Diabetes Institute is one of the first applications of virtual environment technology in continuing medical education. It is used by physicians caring for Type 2 diabetes patients. Physicians can participate in CME-certified activities in a more realistic, engaging, and collaborative way to help them better treat patients.

I see the Virtual Diabetes Institute as significantly raising the bar on CME, and by extension, the treatment of patients with Type 2 diabetes.

I'll let our press release take it from here with the full story. Read on for more details on how we designed and created the Virtual Diabetes Institute, how physicians are now using it for their continued training and learning, and SciMed's future plans and outlook for the Virtual Diabetes Institute in life sciences.

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SciMed Unveils Industry-First Virtual Diabetes Institute in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere

Virtual collaboration environment brings continuing medical education to life

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Virtual collaboration has come to continuing medical education (CME) with the launch of the Virtual Diabetes Institute, an innovative learning environment created in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere and developed with SciMed, a leading provider of continuing medical education for physicians. The Virtual Diabetes Institute gives primary-care physicians a more realistic, engaging, and collaborative way to participate in CME-certified activities designed to improve the management of patients with Type 2 diabetes.

The case for the virtual workplace

One of the most common questions we are asked by prospects, media, and bloggers is, why 3-D? Why use a 3-D virtual collaboration environment over 2-D conferencing tools for meeting, training, and other activities?

Meetings and Conventions' Michael Shapiro recently lobbed the question at me, and the short of my answer was, because that's how we learn.

I told him how the 3-D aspect of ProtoSphere supports how our brains think and visualize data. This capability is ideal for life sciences teams that need to analyze and discuss molecules under development, for example.

eCliniqua notes how ProtoSphere is humanizing collaboration in life sciences for clinical teams

One of the interesting people I met at DIA 2011 was Ann Neuer, a writer in the clinical trials industry. We chatted about collaboration and learning in the clinical space.

I filled her in on some new things we're seeing in life sciences, and why organizations have been using ProtoSphere to achieve that human-to-human interaction when holding conferences, meetings, and other events virtually.

Introducing the virtual office for the virtual office

You surely heard Microsoft launched Office 365, the company's new Office suite in the cloud. It includes Office Web Apps (online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote), Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.

The experience of using Office 365 is as rich as if you were running the apps on your native desktop, but without the associated costs and support challenges. Microsoft has done a great job of bringing the desktop to the Web.

As you probably are aware, ProtoSphere Lync Edition utilizes Microsoft's Unified Communications infrastructure, and integrates with Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint, The Microsoft Office Suite, and Microsoft Active Directory. In fact, it's the only virtual environment built on the Microsoft stack.

One of the things that our customers appreciate is that we've worked to keep ProtoSphere current with Microsoft's latest innovations. This goes back to our embrace of technologies such as SharePoint and Lync. Our integration initiatives have also extended to important partners that we find in our customers' ecosystem, such as Kaplan EduNeering.

And so in keeping with that tradition, we have added Office 365 support to ProtoSphere Lync Edition. But we're not adding this support just for technology's sake. As a cloud technology, Office 365 is an ideal match for ProtoSphere customers.

The combination will create something that is almost like an M.C. Escher print: what I call the virtual office for the virtual office. It's not just a clever headline. It speaks to exactly what we'll be delivering -- a place where you can work virtually not only with local content, but now with online content as well. We issued a press release with the news, which I thought I'd share here if you'd like some more details on our forthcoming Office 365 support. Any questions? My door is always open.

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ProtonMedia to Support Microsoft Office 365

ProtoSphere Lync Edition to support Office 365 and associated online functionality

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ProtonMedia, a Silver Unified Communications Microsoft partner, today announced its ProtoSphere Lync Edition application will support Microsoft Office 365. This will provide users the benefits of Microsoft’s Lync high-quality VoIP and Office 365 platform through ProtoSphere’s engaging virtual collaboration environment. Office 365 is Microsoft’s next generation in cloud productivity that joins Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service.

Five qualities of successful virtual teams

When I started working with ProtonMedia back in 2003, we were a completely virtual company focused on building e-learning solutions. Our fledgling start-up had about five employees, all of whom worked from our homes until we moved three years later into the office building we're in now.

The communication and collaboration tools we used created the fabric that held us together. E-mail and phone were big. So was instant messaging. It was probably the main way we communicated with one another on a daily basis. We even used an open source VoIP tool that became popular with our developers.

We faced many of the common challenges that most virtual teams grapple with. We had to learn to communicate well virtually, and trust one another without being in our physical presences. We needed the self-discipline to avoid getting distracted by the kids or Xbox consoles.

I think it took a mental shift among those of us who hadn't worked virtually before. But once we were settled into our routine, it was like second nature.

I was brought back to this after reading a new study by Brandman University researchers Charles Bullock, JD, LLM and Jennifer Tucker Klein, Ph.D., "Virtual Work Environments in the Post-Recession Era." It looked at trends in virtual teaming among large and Fortune 500 companies.

It's no surprise that 40 percent of respondents said that at least 40 percent of their employees work on virtual teams. But what I found most interesting was how these companies measured a successful virtual team.

Many of the qualities they deem important reflect our early ProtonMedia team. And through the years of working virtually, I have learned just how essential these qualities are. So I thought it useful to share some lessons I've learned about building and running a successful virtual team.

Hire the guy from Vermont. Hire the guy from Vermont, Montana, Canada, wherever. Geographical location is a moot point when it comes to building a virtual team. The Brandman study found that 50 percent of the companies surveyed thought the most important aspect of working in virtual teams was that it allowed them to hire the best talent. We learned that early on with one of the most skilled Flash developers ProtonMedia has had. He lived in Vermont and had no intentions of moving to Pennsylvania, where CEO Ron Burns was located. But since we had the ability to support virtual teaming, we hired him full time.

TMCnet covers the benefits of virtual collaboration

I'm not the only one talking about the benefits of working in a virtual collaboration environment. Beecher Tuttle recently posted an article on TMCnet discussing how companies are using collaborative software to lower operation costs, improve productivity, and increase employee engagement.

One thing I pointed out in the comment I left on his article was that using software to collaborate doesn’t have to be through a "a myriad of mediums," as he wrote. Some technologies -- cough, cough, ProtoSphere. Ahem -- can combine these tools into one immersive collaboration environment.

Today we announced our partnership with Sify Software Limited

A few weeks ago I gave you a sneak peek into our new partnership with Sify Software Limited, one of the largest managed enterprise and consumer Internet services companies in India. Today we formally announced our agreement on the wire.

We'll be working together to meld ProtoSphere with Sify’s learning and instructional design and systems integration services. The result will be a virtual environment that life sciences companies can use to improve knowledge sharing, increase knowledge retention, and boost employee performance.

Here's our press release with more details on how we'll be working together and what it means for life sciences companies.

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ProtonMedia and Sify Sign Technology and Services Agreement

Partnership to deliver next-gen virtual learning and training solutions to global life sciences companies

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESSWIRE)--ProtonMedia and Sify Software Limited today announced a new technology and services agreement that will bring collaborative learning and training solutions to global life sciences companies and other such global organizations worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement, e-Learning Customers will now be able to meld ProtonMedia's virtual collaboration environment called ProtoSphere, with Sify's learning and instructional design and systems integration services to create a secure and virtual environment that will that help improve knowledge sharing, increase knowledge retention, and boost employee performance.

First details on the ProtonMedia and Sify Software Limited partnership

This year, our efforts to build out the ProtonMedia partner network have been substantial. You probably already read about our new agreement with Enabling Technologies, and how we augmented our relationship with Microsoft to become a Silver Unified Communications partner. That brings our total number of industry partnerships to seven.

These partnerships are important because companies are increasingly looking for virtual collaboration. And ProtoSphere is built for integration. It plays nicely with Microsoft technologies, and integrates easily and seamlessly with other companies' technologies that are built on the Microsoft product line.

So with that said, I'm proud to announce the latest company to join the ProtonMedia partner network: Sify Software Limited. It's one of the largest managed enterprise and consumer Internet services companies in India.

Now I could tell you how ProtoSphere fits into Sify's technologies, but I'll let Mukund Parthasarathy, Sify's Business Development Manager for Learning Services, tell you himself in our video. Sify is doing some interesting things in its practice area to bring learning and collaboration together. Mukund dishes the deets below.

We'll also be following this up with a press release. (Hey, we are in the new, social media world after all!)

Web conferencing is a piece, not the whole pie

It's increasingly apparent that basic Web conferencing (from companies such as WebEx and GoToMeeting) is becoming a free commodity that isn't highly valued anymore as a standalone product.

I recently read about a new AMI-Partners report on eWeek that found more than 25 percent of small businesses in the U.S. would deploy unified communications integrated with SaaS offerings as paid services, if they were available from a single provider.

These companies are looking for not just a communications tool, but rather a communications and collaboration technology solution set. While this study looked at small businesses, we're seeing a similar trend happening among large companies and institutions as well.

In ProtonMedia's experience with life sciences companies, for instance, we're finding employees and physicians increasingly want to be able to choose how they communicate and collaborate. As I touched upon in the comment I left on the eWeek article, Web conferencing is just one of many ways they're looking to do this.

They also want to be able to share and collaboratively edit documents, voice chat, text chat, etc. -- all from one user interface. Providing this context to communications is the driver of the features and functionality we continue to bake into ProtoSphere.

The end game is a way to communicate and collaborate around a unified learning experience. For instance, KOL activities, knowledge transfer, scientific data exchange, e-Learning, compliancy, and onboarding, as well as R&D collaboration. In these situations, we let users capitalize on multiple data feeds and content in a visual environment that fosters social engagement around the topics of interest.

But more than that, we help them separate the signal from the noise. It's one thing to provide people with access to lots of data. It's another thing to provide an environment where they're able to focus on the data that matters to them and make informed decisions as a result.

Writer Nathan Eddy cites some other examples of this trend in his article, and provides some analysis of what it means for companies. Click over to eWeek to read more. Thanks for the coverage, Nathan.

insideCTI says ProtonMedia 'impresses' at Enterprise Connect Innovation Showcase

This week we had the honor of exhibiting at the Innovation Showcase at Enterprise Connect 2011. I had a great chat with Eugene Liu, a telecom independent contractor and editor of insideCTI. After I showed him ProtoSphere, Eugene spouted off a tweet with his reaction.

Back at home base after the show, Eugene shared his thoughts on ProtoSphere on his blog, writing that "ProtonMedia impresses with virtual collaboration." Swing over to Eugene's post to find out why. Thanks for the kudos, dude.

White paper: Compliant Collaboration and Learning in Virtual Immersive Environments

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

Dr. Maria Valdez had been to live clinical trial training before. She often found it boring and unimaginative. She complained to herself,“if I see one more slide with tiny fonts and dozens of bullet points, I think I’ll scream.” Still, she did like the opportunity to meet the experts running the trials and she did always seem to have a dozen or so specific questions that were best answered in a live, face-to-face environment. Email never seemed to be a good vehicle for the types of questions she always seemed to ask.

To prepare to be involved in the trial, Dr. Valdez had logged onto her organization’s Learning Management System (LMS) and took the two GCP online modules. The online courses gave her an excellent understanding of what she needed to do but she was hoping for a few “live” meetings with some of the experts running the trial. She wondered if that would even be possible, they were thousands of miles away and travel was restricted due to budget concerns. Still, she’d like to have answers to her questions.

This is an excerpt from the latest white paper by Karl Kapp, Ed.D., CFPIM, CIRM, Professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University. If you're in life sciences, you can probably relate to the situation Karl describes.

Title 21 CFR Part 11 compliant LMSs have revolutionized life sciences training. But as the industry continues to face intensified pressure to cut costs and maintain strict regulatory compliance, some companies are looking for new and complementary technology choices to cost-effectively improve learning outcomes.

Karl details this new technology solution in his white paper, Compliant Collaboration & Learning in Virtual Immersive Environments. He explains how virtual immersive environments can provide life sciences companies the opportunity to hold targeted training programs and meetings with global teams in an interactive, compliant environment.

He breaks down specific areas where life sciences companies can benefit from using secure virtual immersive environments with compliant LMSs. Some of these include medical science liason and key opinion leader (KOL) relationship building, KOL meetings, physician communication, training, simulations, and data visualization.

You can download Karl's white paper now. We hope it's useful and informative. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below.

Life sciences compliance training gains a new dimension

Many of our life sciences customers use ProtoSphere for KOL sessions and other learning and training activities. They also often use Kaplan EduNeering's ComplianceWire learning management system for compliance training.

One request they brought to us was to provide a way to track the attendance and progress of physicians who were participating in KOL sessions in ProtoSphere. They wanted to be able to confirm that physicians reviewed certain materials and were certified in particular procedures.

At the same time, they wanted to augment their ComplianceWire courseware with the ability to seamlessly share, discuss, and collaborate on their course materials and learnings in ProtoSphere.

We began working with Kaplan EduNeering to develop a way to integrate our technologies, and marry secure compliance training with live, virtual collaboration. Our goal was to develop a virtual workplace that lets life sciences companies collaborate across every stage of their product life cycle, while meeting compliancy standards.

I'm excited to tell you our solution is now available. We've combined Kaplan EduNeering's ComplianceWire with ProtoSphere to create a new way for life sciences organizations to meet regulatory and compliance regulations.

You can now schedule, launch, and track ProtoSphere virtual meetings, conferences, and other learning sessions using ComplianceWire. In addition, you can access, share, and collaborate on ComplianceWire courseware, SOPs, other materials in ProtoSphere.

Together, the technologies give companies a secure way to add live, virtual collaboration and learning events to their online compliance training curricula, improving colleague interaction and knowledge transfer without the costs and time of travel.

We issued a press release announcing the integration with more details on how you can use ProtoSphere together with ComplianceWire. If you have any questions, would like to learn more, or want to see a demo, feel free to ping us.

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ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere Now Integrated with Kaplan EduNeering’s ComplianceWire

Joint solution helps life sciences companies foster product life cycle collaboration within research, development, production, marketing, and customer engagement

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ProtonMedia and Kaplan EduNeering have integrated their technologies to create a new way for life sciences organizations to meet regulatory and compliance regulations. The companies have combined ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere virtual immersive environment with Kaplan EduNeering’s ComplianceWire learning management system. With this integration, companies can now schedule, launch, and track ProtoSphere virtual meetings, conferences, and other learning sessions from ComplianceWire. In addition, companies can access, share, and collaborate on ComplianceWire courseware, SOPs, other materials in ProtoSphere. The result gives companies a secure way to add live, virtual collaboration and learning events to their online compliance training curricula, improving colleague interaction and knowledge transfer without the costs and time of travel.

Microsoft Life Sciences' 2011 plans to support compliance and collaborative R&D

Today at the DIA EDM 2011 show, I meet up with Les Jordan, CTO of the Life Sciences Industry Unit at Microsoft. I had the opportunity interview Les about Microsoft's plans to create a more collaborative R&D framework for the life sciences industry, as well as its focus on supporting scientific innovation, compliant collaboration, and clinical trials in 2011. I thought you would all enjoy.