Category: Study

With more than 100 million active users globally eBay is one of the worlds largest online marketplaces, where anyone can buy and sell practically anything. Founded in 1995, eBay connects a diverse and passionate community of individual buyers and sellers, as well as small businesses. Their collective impact on ecommerce is staggering; in 2011, the total value of goods sold on eBay was $68.6 billion more than $2,100 per second. PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online, via mobile devices and in store. The service allows people to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. With more than 117 million active accounts in 190 markets and 25 currencies around the world, PayPal enables global commerce. PayPal is an eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) company. PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and its international headquarters is located in Singapore. More information about the company can be found at www.paypal.com.

Acquired by eBay Inc. in 2011, GSI is a leading provider of ecommerce and interactive marketing services for the worlds premier brands and retailers. GSI offers a broad solutions suite designed to power each aspect of a merchants online business and effectively integrate with their other channels. GSIs advanced technology, fulfillment, customer care and interactive marketing services enable its clients to elevate the consumer experience and cost-effectively sustain it over time.

DIRECTORS DESK SITUATION ANALYSIS
Tracey Cappellazzo Mastropoalo, Board of Directors Coordinator at eBay, manages a global board and hosts multiple meetings per month. After a few years of using an internal board portal for meetings, she found herself growing frustrated over the amount of time it took to execute tasks. Aside from the fact that she was using an outdated system, it required extensive human labor to operate and was costly with thousands being spent on board book assembly expenses. Additionally, constant email exchange of large files would often cause computers to crash which meant downtime while waiting for new computers to arrive and be set up. There was also the need to have IT present at all times since the system was not intuitive and required administrative rights to manage. In an environment where changes are frequent, timing is unpredictable and key stakeholders have little to no bandwidth, labor intensive processes are simply not an option.

Overwhelmed, Mastropoalo knew that there had to be an efficient, centralized, and secure board portal out there.

CHALLENGE
Working in a board of directors environment, one must be prepared to manage multiple tasks in a timely manner, while ensuring ultimate security to all involved. Managing sensitive information such as company financials, product information, and personal details of board members, one must guarantee that whatever platform is used is capable of meeting each need and requirement.

The existing portal being used was secure in that it was internally hosted but what was often overlooked was the fact that printed materials are susceptible to being picked up by anyone which poses a high risk for confidential, internal information to be comprised. Private and sensitive documents were emailed via unsecured hosted channels, causing another high risk for information theft.

In addition to security, cost was another high level concern. With last minute changes being made to documents, board books would need to be reprinted and bound, leaving the existing ones to be properly discarded. Not only was time and cost an issue on eBays part, but it was also an issue for the directors and their assistants as well, as the assistants frequently and regularly printed out and bound the board materials. For those residing in different time zones, timing was a challenge as well since some of the offices would have to work late into the evenings which contributed to additional costs for labor, printing and supplies to ensure their directors received the most current version of the materials for the meetings.

Knowing that her demands were only growing and that time was of essence, Mastropoalo liaised with her IT department to find a new solution.

THE SOLUTION
As part of an extensive due diligence process, Mastropoalo came across NASDAQ OMX Directors Desk online. Knowing that NASDAQ OMX is the worlds largest exchange company, Mastropoalo says she felt safe choosing Directors Desk. From her point of view, competitors did not have the technological capability and high level of security that NASDAQ OMX offered.

Additionally, Directors Desk interface was intuitive and adaptable. It had a similar look and feel to the Windows based applications used on a daily basis and would be easy to introduce to board members. It also had an iPad application that would allow board members to participate in meetings wherever and whenever. The iPad application provided streamlined document flow and real time communications, easily allowing board members to stay updated on time sensitive information as well as being able to make notations to materials while reviewing them on their iPad to be later discussed during the meetings.

WHITE-GLOVE CUSTOMER SERVICE
We view each customer relationship as a partnership. From the start, Mastropoalo was able to form a strong relationship with the product owner, Kevin Asuncion, and customer service representatives. Together they worked on understanding the needs and requirements to facilitate Mastropoalos workload. The implementation process is a tailored and highly customized approach to deploying the Directors Desk solution to the Company and their Board. It can be best summarized in three phases.

PHASE I: Project Planning and System Setup During this phase, a kick-off call is conducted between the companys administrators and our Implementation Manager. On this call we discuss the timing of the implementation and gather information in order to create the account.

PHASE II: Administrative Training, Pre-Launch and Content Creation Once the account has been branded and setup to the companys specifications, we conduct Administrator training and provide them with in-depth working knowledge of the system.

PHASE III: Board Presentation and Director Training Director Training is typically done via group web or phone sessions with both Directors and Key Executives. We also offer a Board Presentation if needed to introduce the Board to their portal.

With our highly skilled support teams, we promise to deliver a high quality of service and support to all of our users. Representatives such as Edna Leach and Matt Kenney, engage with customers needs whenever they arise.

Ultimate customer service is a key element and driving force in our business model. Our engagement with customers goes far beyond the implementation stage. We aim to be with our customers each step of the way, making their journey ours as well. From Implementation to Support to Product Development, all of these teams work seamlessly to deliver best-in-class Service to all of our clients world-wide.

BULK UPLOAD AND DELETE
Unlike other portals that are used solely for board meetings and often lack a high level of security, Directors Desk allows users to use the portal as a content repository. Users are able to take all historical data and save it for future review in a safe environment. No longer does one have to worry that sensitive documents might be viewed or lost because everything is saved in a cloud environment via Directors Desk. Various users have asked Mastropoalo to make their confidential materials available and secure on Directors Desk, making it easy to locate historical data for future use versus saving paper documents in a filing cabinet.

With the bulk and upload functionality, users are able to create an effective and secure content repository by the click of a button.

THE OUTCOME
Mastropoalo and her team are now able to manage board meetings knowing all documents are stored in a secure environment and meetings can take place remotely, saving time, money and resources. Now board members can log into meetings anywhere in the world, via the Directors Desk iPad app and participate seamlessly. Mastropoalo can check her iPad at any point in time and determine exactly where the meeting is according to the agenda while also relieving the amount of time and paperwork usually involved in managing a board. Documents can be signed from wherever in the world via the digital signature feature. Lastly, Mastropoalo and her team can now have secure and streamlined board meetings, wherever and whenever.

Green Rate was appointed by the Nillumbik Mudbrick Association (NMA) earlier this year to conduct a study which will help determine the viability and potential costs involved in building a 6 Star mud brick home.

The study, funded by Sustainability Victoria, involved thermal energy assessments of four typical mud brick house designs using the FirstRate 5 house energy rating software. Caleb Young, Green Rate”s principal energy assessor, looked at simple and cost effective ways to take each design up to 6 Stars while maintaining each building”s unique character.

All four designs successfully achieved the 6 Star target, however, some proved more difficult than others. In most cases, double glazing was required to the living areas of each home as a minimum, and higher levels of insulation was needed in the ceiling/roof. The more difficult cases benefited greatly from an insulated slab-on-ground or “waffle pod” slab, and higher performance double glazing incorporating low-e coating and argon gas filled cavities.

One design was able to score an extra 1.2 stars by reducing the length of the northern eave to allow greater solar access in winter. This house was the only one in the study to achieve the 6 Star target without using any double glazing.

The orientation of the house also proved to have a great effect on the energy rating. One of the designs was assessed multiple times, each time facing in a different direction “” north, south, east and west. It was found that when oriented in an optimal direction, the house was able to achieve the 6 Star target with no double glazing. When this same house was oriented in a less optimal position, double glazing was needed throughout the whole house in order to reach the target.

Findings also proved that with good orientation, generally the additional cost of building a 6 Star mud brick house was not unreasonable. Just as importantly, this goal could be achieved without compromising on the design features which make mud brick homes so unique.

The study was seen to be a success, as it found that a typical mud brick house could in fact achieve a 6 Star energy rating by employing a range of techniques, despite earlier misconceptions. The NMA are intending to publish a hand book which will use the findings of this study to assist mud brick house designers, builders and home owners meet the mandatory 6 Star rating. The NMA hope to make this hand book available to its members later this year.

Social media marketing is not really about wizards, but I do have an interesting story to tell you where wizards, and lots of other people, did benefit from this new way to market a business online.

The vice president of marketing at Universal Orlando Resorts had the responsibility of planning a marketing strategy to introduce the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter Theme Park there in Florida. She could have chosen any media form she desired, any marketing platform, with a potentially huge price tag attached.

What she chose to do was to tell 7 people about it. Thats right. She told the 7 most popular bloggers about it, and she told them on a secret midnight webcast that she ran. She invited those 7 bloggers and introduced them to the new theme park right on the webcast. Can you guess what happened next? No.. she didnt get fired!

What happened was that people talked about it. The 7 bloggers blogged about it right after the webcast. Lots of their followers blogged about it also, and talked about it with family and friends all over the world, and put it on all of their social sites where it would be spread by connections in those places. Main stream media follows those blogs and they wrote about it. Within 24 hours of telling 7 people, 350 million people heard about it. 350 MILLION people.

Initially, the vice president of marketing thought she might be fired given the reaction of her bosses who thought she should be doing television commercials, magazine advertisements, and telling the press. She wanted to tell 7 people and it turned out pretty well. This is a demonstration of earning attention getting people to talk about you, spread your ideas, tell your stories as opposed to buying attention (advertising) or begging (public relations).

Now you may be thinking, I dont have a business the size of Universal Orlando Resorts most of us dont. However, businesses of all sizes are using social media right now because that is where the people are! And if you think about it, people and attention is what we are all looking for when we market a business or service.

The traditional ways of marketing are buying and begging that we mentioned, along with bugging (sales). The new way to market is to earn attention to pull prospects and customers into your world instead of pushing out a message (advertise).

Right now there is a buzz about social media. You may be participating already, or you may be still considering how to plug in. At some point, most businesses national brands and local brands will need to participate. Yellow pages and newspapers are not where the majority of people are looking for business information anymore.

One of the main differences in social media marketing vs. traditional marketing is cost. The low price tag of social media means that any size business can engage in marketing their product using this new platform. Time is the key with social media. A small business can choose to learn how to market with social media and do all the work themselves, or even pay for some consulting work or a social media guide and then go to work.

Larger businesses hire someone in-house to be their social media manager, or outsource the work to a service that specializes in social media marketing. Either way, the key is having an active system in place because just as the example above demonstrates, once you start putting the word out about your business on a social website someone is bound to comment or engage with you. It really isnt social to ignore a response that you will get.

Questions will need answered, comments will need addressed, and simply participating in the conversation will grow the social presence of the business. Social media can become very viral quickly. If you incorporate real and creative marketing ideas and strategies that will educate, enlighten, or entertain your market, the same as you do with offline advertising, people will help you spread the word.

There really isnt magic needed to do social media marketing. The magic is what you will enjoy when you put forth the efforts, really engage with a community online and build an active website presence.

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