Category Archive
for: ‘Aaron Booker’

Heartland Technology Solutions Channel IT Summit 2011

Posted Sep 22 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Arlin Sorenesen, Channel IT Summit 2011, Heartland Technology Solutions, HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

 

Aaron Booker from Varvid joins Arlin Sorenesen of Heartland Technology Solutions in Harlan, Iowa to talk about HTS‘s Channel IT Summit. Arlin explains he’s seeking a way to deepen the relationship with the Vendors he partners with through the Heartland Technology Group by sharing the experience of what it’s like for VARS to be “in the trenches.” Arlin states “what better way than to invite them to come out here to rural Iowa to experience our business at HTS to share some of the things we’ve learned over the last 25 years.”

Arlin plans to talk about HTG, which has over 260 members that are part of his organization worldwide, and his goal for the summit is for Vendors to get a feel for what it’s like to serve SMB customers out in the real world. Arlin thinks that Vendors will be surprised at how complex the business really is for him and HTG, as they aim to serve a vast array of different kinds of clients. HTG services small micro businesses up to some of the mid-market customers, all of whom have very different needs and these different sized organizations expect very different things. As Arlin says himself “it’s not as simple as it seems on paper and we think we’re going to be able to show this to the Vendors who attend this week.”

The main points that Heartland Technology Solutions‘ Channel IT Summit 2011 promises attendees to come away with are:

• Understanding the roles in a typical VAR company
• Understanding how VAR’s grow and the barriers to growth
• Understanding things you should not do when working with VAR’s
• Understanding how to work effectively with SMB communities
• Understanding some of the frustrations VAR’s experience working with your tools and trying to procure your products and services
• Experience rural Iowa and hear from SMB partners and customers first hand

 

To find out more, visit:

Catch Our Webcast of Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour Philadelphia!

Posted Sep 2 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Webcasting, Wizards of the Coast with 0 Comments

The entrance hall at the Philadelphia Convention Center

Our fearless leader Aaron Booker is on the road again, this time stationed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to provide IT and webcasting services for the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour tournament! Magic is a nearly two-decade-old collectible card game played by thousands of people worldwide, sometimes with thousands of dollars of prize money on the line. This Sunday’s tournament is sure to be extra-exciting, because the gurus behind Magic are rolling out a whole new gameplay format that promises to level the playing field.

To watch the webcast, head over to this page on Sunday, September 4th by 11am EST. Here’s a handy way to find out what time you can tune in in your time zone:

  • Los Angeles: 7:45 a.m.
  • Chicago: 9:45 a.m.
  • New York: 10:45 a.m.
  • Rio de Janeiro: 11:45 a.m.
  • London: 3:45 p.m.
  • Paris: 4:45 p.m.
  • Berlin: 4:45 p.m.
  • Rome: 4:45 p.m.
  • Moscow: 6:45 p.m.
  • Tokyo: 11:45 p.m.
  • Sydney: 12:45 a.m. Monday

Why Outstanding Mobile Platform Support is Critical

Posted Aug 9 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Video Delivery, Webcasting with 0 Comments

Everyone knows that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Well, I like to think of any multi-platform software or service as a chain – if one of the links (platforms) in the chain is weak, well… it’s time to get a new chain. I bring it up because I recently read a blog post by Jeremy over at Never Stop Marketing about an experience he had with the AdobeConnect live conferencing software. Jeremy was testing out the software, trying to connect with a colleague, but the colleague only had mobile devices handy. AdobeConnect didn’t support mobile, so they had to use a different service. That’s why, in Jeremy’s words, it’s important to think “mobile first.”***

In today’s connected world, mobile devices are ubiquitous. One third of American adults own a smartphone, according to a recent Pew study. In the tech industry, that fraction seems much closer to 100%. I see tablets everywhere at conferences, with the iPad dominating usage even in our Microsoft-based ecosystem. However, mobile interfaces and support often continue to lag behind their traditional PC/Mac counterparts. As Jeremy and I agree, this is wrong. Mobile is critical and should be your best-optimized system – because it may be your user’s only option.  For video, we prefer our clients’ viewers to watch our work on the best screen possible.  We’re proud of what we do, and we know that bigger screens make high quality video look better. However, nothing is more critical than the viewer watching the video, regardless of screen size or computing type.

At Varvid, we offer video production, editing, hosting, and webcasting services, and all of those follow our “mobile critical” principle. Our workflow is optimized to deliver files ready to upload (H.264) to mobile oriented delivery platforms, and we make sure that all videos hosted with us are available for playback on mobile devices. When we choose partners for video platforms and webcasting, we pick providers who share our idea that mobile support is paramount. With webcasting, which is decidedly not compatible with mobile by default, we make an extra effort to provide mobile support to the market leading devices. A recent webcast that we worked on was streamed online in four different formats – including state-of-the-art HTML for iOS devices.

How are you supporting your mobile device carrying clients? Does your helpdesk support those users?  How well? AdobeConnect can stand to lose a couple users – can you?

*** For what it’s worth, AdobeConnect is now optimized for mobile, but first impressions are what stick with clients and potential clients.

Why Webcast? Why Not??

Posted Jul 18 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Webcasting, WPC with 0 Comments

If you know Varvid, you know that our passion is taking your video and putting it on the Internet. You might know us as the people who interviewed you at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in the past few years. You might know us as the people who are helping you leverage the power of video for your website. What you might not know is that one of Varvid’s oldest and most reliable lines of business is webcasting.

What’s Webcasting?

Webcasting is the Internet-everywhere, always-connected companion to standard event videography. In today’s modern world, you can’t be everywhere at once – but now you can have access to the Internet and a hand-held screen at all times. Varvid is here to make sure that event attendance and visibility isn’t limited by the size or location of the venue – we can show anything to anyone, anywhere. In the past, we’ve provided live webcasting services for such events as Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour, Sea to Ski, Fight Night Rounds XII – XV (in association with 360 Productions and GoFightLive.tv), and, most recently, Worldwide Partner Conference 2011.

Past ‘Casts

Last week, we partnered with the Microsoft Partner Network and Mimecast to provide awesome, informative webcasts, three times a day, from the floor of the Worldwide Partner Conference. Some of the roundtable discussions were even hosted by our very own Aaron Booker! It was a terrific experience all around, and would have been even without the 2,000+ daily views. But what was really exciting for us was integrating Facebook into the entire process. Through Aaron’s digital wizardry, we were able to display the live stream directly on our Facebook Fan Page, enabling viewers to become better acquainted with Varvid while enjoying our live coverage. And did we get likes? Oh yeah, we got likes.

Casting Our Webs into the Future

So what’s next for Varvid and webcasting? Well, our friends at Fight Night Entertainment are up to their old tricks with Fight Night Round XVI at Swinomish Casino, August 13th, and we’ll be there in force with360 Productions and GoFightLive.tv. And the technology for webcasting is evolving all the time: some musicians have started using Facebook to host live concerts, with admittance payable in Facebook Credits.ReelSEO‘s Grant Crowell considers it a revolution. Beyond that, well, make us an offer. Webcasting an event can be a great way to create buzz and get exposure. Whether you’ve already got a video crew, or would like us to find you one (we know some real pros), we’re ready to help you share your event with the world.

Varvid Webcasts Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour in Nagoya, Japan

Posted Jun 10 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Webcasting, Wizards of the Coast with 0 Comments

This weekend, Varvid‘s Aaron Booker will be on-location in Nagoya, Japan, providing top-tier webcasting services for the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour competition. The tournament, put on by tabletop gaming heavyweight Wizards of the Coast, will host hundreds of internationally-ranked Magic players. These pros will duel it out all weekend long for a chance to take home part of a whopping $230,000 prize pool! Tune in to the Top 8 live stream here: http://www.wizards.com/webcast, starting Saturday June 11th at 6:45pm PST (9:45pm EST), and we’ll keep you updated with pictures, screenshots, and highlights from the event.

Varvid Produces Live Webcast from the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011

Posted Jun 1 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Ingram Micro, Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011, Travel, Varvid Team with 1 Comment

On June 1st, Varvid shot, produced, and provided live streaming video through our webcasting service offering for the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011 in Phoenix AZ. “The focus of this summit is the monetizing of the cloud,” stated Ingram Micro’s VP of Managed Services Renée Bergeron, who kicked off the events with her Executive Presentation titled Managed Services and Cloud Computing. Joe Paneterri (the VAR Guy and Talkin Cloud) was the emcee.  Great event with nearly 300 resellers and 200 other guests attending the presentation and almost 1,000 Ingram Micro partners and staff from 11 countries who were able to tune in to the opening session via Varvid provided streaming video.  Ingram announced a website for all their cloud partners and vendor parters – http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com – the webcast was embedded in this site.  Your Ingram Micro Login is all you need to access a tremendous amount of information on the cloud, now and in the future.

Ingram Micro announced 8 new cloud service partners: VMware, BMC Software, N-able, Seimens, SherWeb, Symantec, Cisco, & Trend Micro and revealed their plans to serve as the channel’s leader in all things cloud by providing cloud business services, establishing a cloud community, and offering an immense portfolio of cloud services.

Here are some pictures and screenshots from the live webcast that highlight the event:

Aaron Booker at his Webcasting battlestation

Varvid's Webcasting equipment in operation

Guido Jouret of Enterprise Video & Cisco Systems

Joe Panettieri - The VAR Guy, talkincloud.com, and mspmentor.com

A shot of the Cloud Summit 2011 audience with Guido Jouret in the bottom right

The closing slide for the June 1st Cloud Summit 2011

 

 

HTG Peer Groups Announces Hands That Give

Posted May 4 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Arlin Sorenesen, Hands that Give, HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

As many of our clients know, Varvid began as a Technology Services firm delivering outsourced IT (aka Managed Services) to firms in Bellingham and the Seattle Region under the name Hardlines Company.  Almost five years ago Hardlines was invited to join the HTG Peer Groups organization which involved meeting with a peer group quarterly to work on our business every quarter for 2 days. Three years ago, my peers suggested we start delivering video for VARs and their vendor partners for the “IT Channel.” So we did. At the time we called ourselves VARvid – we were that focused on IT firms. A year ago I sold Hardlines to focus exlusively on Varvid – but HTG has remained near and dear to my heart and we volunteer our services to the organization several times a year.

This morning HTG announced a wonderful new solution called “Hands That Give” which will allow peers that are having disasters to get help from their peers. It’s a little bit like insurance – with everybody paying in, but more importantly everybody participating has to have an updated Lifeplan and an updated Disaster Recovery Plan – so that the HTG members that come to help have a plan to work with. This will help those in times of emotional or physical turmoil in their lives (and therefore their businesses) or even if the principal passes away. It’s a wonderful thing to bring to the HTG Peer Groups – very forward thinking. This video features Arlin Sorensen, founder of HTG, speaking about Hands That Give.

Why Presentation is Everything When it Comes to Web Video for Business

Posted Mar 15 2011 by in Aaron Booker, B2B, Internet Delivered Video with 0 Comments

Internet-delivered video is, at this point in time, an interesting beast – as a result of the user-friendliness of services like YouTube, the public perception is that video and the web go together like Batman and Robin. However, YouTube isn’t an excellent platform for business video unless you like to give up your branding to YouTube – and those services that ARE great for business video can be mystifying (and expensive!) for non-video professionals. Obviously that’s no excuse for a poor-looking video on your website.

Other services, like Vimeo, serve up fantastic-looking video. But look at their Terms of Service – if you use Vimeo for business purposes, you run the risk of losing all of your videos at any time. Vimeo’s uploading guidelines say that Commercial Video (like you’d use for your business) is not allowed. A few years ago, when Varvid was just getting started, Vimeo was one of the few sites that supported HD video. We were thrilled (we were early adopters of HD) and started putting all our video on Vimeo. We even bought a paid account, only to later realize that all of our videos could be taken down at any time. No fun!

Over at the blog ReelSEO (which we read daily, naturally), the prolific Grant Crowell wrote an excellent post about why just having a video on your website isn’t enough – it needs to look its best. For MSPs, VARs, and other businesses in the IT Solution Provider space, the presentation of video on your website is especially important because computing solutions are the core your business. If the video on your webpage doesn’t load correctly, or play on the ever-increasing plethora of smartphones, it could seriously impact confidence in your service offerings.

“But Aaron!” You cry, “I just paid through the nose for a professionally produced video! Shouldn’t it just work on my website???”

The short is answer is yes, it should just work. Unfortunately, the realities of web video mean that there are several parameters that can effect the appearance, playback quality, and marketing effectiveness of your video: quiet or out of synch audio, improper video codecs, HTML5 readiness (or lack thereof), poor thumbnail images, choppy stream quality, and the ever-annoying auto-playback, just to name a few. If you don’t know what any of those words mean, it’s a good thing you’re reading this, because we can help. With VENUE, video just works.

VENUE stands for Video Editing Network and User Education. With VENUE, Varvid gives you the tools, knowledge, and confidence you need to shoot a high-quality, effective marketing message. You send us back your footage (in the cloud, of course), and we’ll take care of all the editing, uploading, and delivery. You get to make sure that visitors to your site see the marketing message you want them to see, and we make sure they stick around to watch it. With tiered pricing plans, we have solutions for entrepreneurs, small- to medium-sized businesses, enterprises, and everything in between. Still not convinced? Watch the video below:

For more information on our VENUE packages, please contact Drew Graham by email at drew@varvid.com, or by phone at (360) 255-7223.

Aaron Booker on Comcast Business Class Internet Service

Posted Mar 9 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Testimonial, Video Delivery with 0 Comments

Varvid.com founder Aaron Booker talks about Comcast Business Class Internet. Comcast Business Class Internet offers Varvid the fastest way to upload and download videos for their clients. Varvid uses Comcast’s 50/10 connection which gives us 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds – fast enough to make sure our videos are where they need to be, when they need to be. Comcast Business Class Internet is the most cost effective way for small businesses to get high speed internet.

http://www.business.comcast.com/
Comcast Blog

 

Aaron Booker on Cloud Password Manager LastPass

Posted Feb 21 2011 by in Aaron Booker, LastPass with 0 Comments

Aaron Booker, founder of Varvid.com, uses LastPass to keep his own data, and data entrusted to him by clients, safe and secure. LastPass is a highly-rated product that integrates seamlessly into Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems, as well as all the major web browsers, and all the major mobile phone/tablet platforms. LastPass was named Pc Mag’s Editor’s Choice for password management and the Varvid staff uses it regularly to keep all employees in the loop, and to ensure that all confidential information remains in a secure environment.

Page 1 of 212»