PGi Shift

Exploring how our networked society shapes ideas

February 22nd, 2012 by Lea Green Posted in Featured, New Media, New Work Life, Uncategorized

As we approach the #shiftsxsw event in just a few weeks, while preparing for our panels I discovered a powerful video exploring how society influences the potential use and direction of technology. This shift is largely influenced by personal empowerment: the power people are gaining over their environment—media consumption, politics, education and healthcare.

Featuring innovators such as Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, Hans Vestberg, Ericsson President and CEO, and Michael Dell, CEO at Dell Inc., “Networked Society” imagines our world in 2020 and how we are now transitioning from something old from something very new. We are now living within the early stages of an extraordinary revolution with the potential for a new golden age. Connecting not just people but communities, systems and intelligence. Collaboration is virtually instant, global and coupled with the true rise of mobile, and in the future, we will experience even greater involvement with our devices as they integrate intelligent inputs into our daily lives.

“Networked Society” also touches upon vital issues facing our global society, including female empowerment and empathic leadership, and the foundational shift from competitive to collaborative work and a new modality of thinking for institutions where co-creation embraces generational and gender shifts in the workplace. Visionaries also discuss the impact of the climate crisis and increases in travel and transportation demands, and the dire need to collaborate globally over borders and industries to reach our desired new golden age. Don’t miss it.

Video courtesy of ericsson.com

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PGi and iMeet Give Next Gen Flair to Collaboration with #shiftSXSW

February 21st, 2012 by Lea Green Posted in Featured, New Media, New Work Life, Social Enterprise, Uncategorized

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In September of 2011, PGi, iMeet and Social People built a new way to work. Innovation in the evolving archetype of business and communication is fueled by mobility, connectivity and performance. PGi creates tools and products for this new business generation, and acknowledges the transcending culture by presenting #shift: a pop up event series that empowers, studies and celebrates thought leaders across exciting new fields, and disruptive minds in traditional industry alike.

Steve Stoute and James Andrews at #ShiftNYC, SoHo House, September 2011

The name #shift stems from the massing amount of directional change in our professional and societal behavior. PGi and iMeet exist at the forefront of products that help business leaders redefine not only the way we do business, but also the business we do. #shift revolves around conversation, workshops and social events amongst industry leaders on a variety of topics ranging from innovation in green space, to trends in pop music culture. We elevate the conversation by bringing in a roster of guest speakers and experts to talk shop in a casual atmosphere. Attendees get the chance to share with peers and learn from special guests as an impromptu think tank unfolds and evolves on the spot.

For the second installment of #shift, we dive into the country’s best next gen festival, South by Southwest. #shiftSXSW will be an event that is both entertaining and insightful. We offer attendees a social environment that allows them to network and combines with thought-provoking forums addressing timely issues. Most of all, #shiftSXSW will highlight how innovative solutions play a role in improving how we work. Below is our three-day schedule of events:

Saturday, March 10th // 4p-6p

“Revolution”: The SXSWi Edition of Brian Solis’ hit web series, hosted by James Andrews

Industry analyst Brian Solis and Social People founder James Andrews lead a conversation that asks the questions: Has social media reached its peak or is this only the beginning? If only a small percentage of the population engages in social networking, what happens when it moves to the mainstream? What does it mean to be “connected” in the 21^st century? What is the true value of social media to businesses? At what point do we lose “followers” and win business?

Sunday, March 11th // 5p-8p

“Soul Food”: A Classic Sunday Dinner with “How to be Black” author, Baratunde Thurston

Enjoy Sunday dinner with some of your favorite personalities in technology. And join us for a chat with Baratunde Thurston about his best-selling new book, “How to be Black.” Dinner will be provided by Dante Fried Chicken.

Monday, March 12th // 10a-2p

“Up in the Air”: On the Move with the Working Nomad

According to Forrester Research, 66% of information workers in the US and Europe already work remotely. Evernote CEO Phil Libin, PGi Digital Nomad Cora Rodenbusch and corporate green strategist Lewis Perkins discuss the implications of that trend and tools that have emerged as a result of this shift.

Featured panelists will share personal experiences, successes, failures, lessons learned and where they believe the future is heading. Attendees will participate in an open dialogue about working remotely, unconventional workspaces, business travel, and corporate sustainability.

During this decidedly unique experience, we will spark both conversation and creativity. We want to build collaborative relationships amongst peers and create a fun environment where we can share an elevated dialogue about the work we produce. We hope you will join us in Austin.

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Mind Boggling Mobile Numbers

February 17th, 2012 by Blake Gruber Posted in New Media

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Left and right we hear analysts, businesses, and consumers alike coining “mobile” as the current driver of technology. Just recently we wrote about Coldwell Bank declaring 2011 as “the year of mobile.” Mobility is a cornerstone of PGi’s iMeet and GlobalMeet because we understand the importance and power of being able to connect from anywhere simply and using tools that provide truly personal connections.

While mobility is obviously front and center in the tech arena, actually hearing some of the numbers behind mobility can be a little jaw-dropping. Here’s some statistics that not only emphasize the trend in mobile, but may open your eyes up to just how mobile our world is becoming:

#Shift, GlobalMeet, iMeet, mobile, shiftSXSW

The Zen of Social Media: The Balance Between the Warm and Fuzzies & Social Media Addiction

February 15th, 2012 by Blakely Thomas-Aguilar Posted in Featured, New Media, Social Enterprise

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Hello, my name is Blakely and I’m a social media-aholic. And you might be, too.

Have you ever felt that phantom smartphone vibration? Sleep with your phone next to the bed — just in case? Get nervous when your 140-character haiku brilliance doesn’t get retweeted? Or comment on a Facebook post while in the shower? You just might be hooked. But you, too, can embrace the Zen of Social Media.

Over the past two years, several studies have been published describing the psychological and physical effects of social media and Internet usage. And the results are compelling — and slightly frightening.

Social media interactions have been shown to increase the level of the pleasure hormone Oxytocin in users, giving social media-philes that warm and fuzzy love feeling — even spiking the same emotional euphoria as a groom at a wedding. A British biological journal even linked the amount of gray matter in the brain to the test subject’s number of Facebook friends . And when you add a live video element to the social connection using a video meeting tool like iMeet, the power of the digital interaction is very similar to a face-to-face meeting. Unfortunately, the warm and fuzzies can easily turn into the dark and scary when usage becomes obsessive.

#Shift, iMeet, pgi, social media, social media addict, social media addiction, social media news, social video

Facebook’s IPO: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

February 9th, 2012 by Blake Gruber Posted in New Media

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Everyone’s heard the news: Facebook announced its Initial Public Offering. At face value this has been expected for some time, but the ramifications of this act require contemplation. There’s a change in market and consumer demands when any company goes public – and there becomes a responsibility to the investor, who now each own a piece of the company. With regards to Facebook, this carries with it extra implications, simply based off of Facebook’s revenue to valuation proportion and business model, or the fact that their value rests in social data, our personal information.

Let’s discuss some facts about the IPO and Facebook as a company, information which was previously hidden behind the company’s “walled garden,” but in lieu of going public now must be distributed for all to see. According to Mashable (Via Facebook), Facebook has 845 million monthly active users, post 2.7 billion likes and comments per day, in over 100 billion friendships on the site. The company generated $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, yet the stock offering will value the company between $75 and $100 billion, an incredibly high ratio that suggests nearly all of the company’s value rests in its social data. As Sengupta and Rusli of the New York Times suggest, “Facebook’s value will be determined by whether it can leverage this commodity to attract advertisers, and how deftly the company can handle privacy concerns raised by its users and government regulators worldwide.”

facebook, iMeet, pgi, virtual meetings

PGi’s Global Shift in Human Collaboration

February 8th, 2012 by Kim Casey Posted in Featured, New Media

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Welcome to the universe of PGi. This is the story of how one company has forever changed the way the world productively collaborates.

boring meetings, cloud computing, Fortune 100, GlobalMeet, iMeet, Infographic, innovative products, mobile, NASDAQ, NYSE, personal, pgi, simple, web conferencing

Maybe YOU CAN Change the World: The Future of Social Good

January 26th, 2012 by Blake Gruber Posted in Social Enterprise

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If your company disregards social media as a consumer trend or solely personal tool, you’re grossly underestimating its power. Social media is the first true collective voice of our world, making the exchange of information faster than previously imaginable and creating a global social awareness like never before. Just consider the transformation of information exchange in the past twenty years.

Now, in real-time, we digest news in a variety of forms, from a variety of sources: official media outlets, news sources, politicians, philosophers, friends, family, and subject matter experts. But, most importantly, we can contribute our own two cents. This change represents something monumental.

Before television or the Internet, we received our news through newspapers and magazines — a singular source of information without a platform for debate. The rise of the Internet in the 1980′s and 90′s facilitated access to more opinions and sources, but the information still generally spread from the top down to the masses. The creation of the “blogosphere” became an outlet for bottom-up information, where individuals published their personal beliefs and thoughts without affiliation to an organization or media outlet. But it really wasn’t until the birth of social media, particularly Facebook, in the mid-90′s that the transfer of information was turned on its head.

Today’s social media represents true democracy, “in its purest or most ideal form … in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.” We are closer to this ideal than ever before, and its implications are far more than political. This new voice reaches every corner of the globe, and now even the most disenfranchised can be heard. Isn’t that the way it should be?

The United Nations sponsored Social Good Summit brings together some of today’s greatest thinkers to dialogue on social change movements and leveraging the power of social media for the good of our world.