How do you take your Zoom?

 

How do you take your Zoom? 

I have been using and promoting all things Zoom long before Zoom became a verb. Because I have been running the Distance Learning Association since 2008, it makes sense that we would have a deep relationship with Zoom. (And I've been running MTP - MyTeachingPartners.com since 1983!)  But that is true for GoTo and Google and Cisco Webex and Adobe and Microsoft Teams and the rest of the players in the space. We work with all the TBLS vendors (Technology Based Learning Systems). 

When I started doing my video podcast, it was PoweredByZoom.us from the first VIP interview. When FortierPR.com has a new book to launch, we do the virtual book launches via Zoom. And those 'Zoom Talks' become multimedia, transmedia, omnimedia experiences reaching people all around the world. Sometimes the person that I am interviewing is super famous, with millions of followers. 

Earlier this month, we attended the Zoom Education Summit in Utah. Teachers, trainers, coaches, mentors from all around the world attended both LIVE and virtually via Zoom to learn best practices on how to do all things Zoom.  

Our vendor Wander.com is a luxury vacation rental platform that blends the comfort of private homes with the consistency and amenities of high-end hotels. Founded in 2021 by entrepreneur John Andrew Entwistle, Wander aims to "hotelify" vacation rentals by offering a standardized, tech-enabled experience across its curated portfolio of properties. 

What Makes Wander Unique

Top 1% of Vacation Homes: Wander selects only the top 1% of vacation rentals, ensuring guests have access to exceptional properties with inspiring views and luxurious features.

Hotel-Grade Amenities: Each property includes hotel-quality cleaning, dreamy beds, modern workstations with fast Wi-Fi, and 24/7 concierge service.

Smart Home Technology: Wander integrates smart-home tech and automation through its proprietary WanderOS platform, delivering consistent quality and operational efficiency.

End-to-End Travel Platform: Beyond accommodations, Wander offers a comprehensive travel experience, including trip planning, concierge services, and curated experiences.

Wander.com operates properties across the United States, including destinations like California, Texas, Hawaii, and the Hudson Valley in New York. Each location is chosen for its stunning natural beauty and potential for memorable stays.

Recently we started shipping Meeting Owls to Wander locations. The folks at Owl Labs in Boston make a very unique video camera that puts you 'in the room' from anywhere in the world. So, you can place a Meeting Owl in the center of the table in the living room (or the home office) at a Wander location, and have the best meeting (or teaching, training, coaching, mentoring) sessions of your life. All Wander locations have super fast WIFI and HDTV displays. 

One cool trend is for companies to reward staff with 'Wander Weeks' where they can work from a Wander.com location for the week, on the company tab. Ah yes, Zoom meetings from a Wander. I had the idea to record VIP CoffeeInTheClouds.us interviews with the special guest, and 10 to 20 people joining us LIVE for Q&A. And of course, since it is PoweredByZoom.us you can have 20 people LIVE in the room, 200,000 LIVE via Zoom and 2M+ watching the archives of the meeting via Workvivo by Zoom. I love all the vendors and sponsors of the (now) GlobalDLA.org but I must say the Zoom + Wander + Meeting Owl 'bundle' is pretty impressive. 

Convene in NYC (and now London) is another NYDLA.org vendor sponsor. They have the most amazing venues for hybrid meetings and events, all with super fast WIFI and big screens. You can invite people to take the train down from Boston or up from Philly, and host your meeting or event at Convene. I live 30 miles to the West of 11 Times Square in North New Jersey. I can be in NYC in less than an hour, just in time for an amazing breakfast at one of many Convene locations. I really think this is the future of work - the future of education - the future of entertainment. You can have the best company offsite events, for the company holiday party or to celebrate a big team win. Everything, especially new product launches can be PoweredByZoom.us 

I have also noticed that many new cars come with "Zoom on board" so that you can attend Zoom meetings and events from the road. I assume that you can host calls and meetings from the car with GoTo and Webex and Teams but Zoom makes it simple, easy and elegant. Ah yes, the new AI features of Zoom and Zoom Workplace from your (self-driving?) car. Impressive. 

Zoom Workplace is an AI-powered collaboration platform developed by Zoom Communications, designed to streamline communication, enhance productivity, and support flexible work environments. It integrates various tools such as meetings, team chat, phone, scheduler, whiteboard, and more, all within a unified platform enhanced by Zoom AI Companion. 

AI-Enhanced Collaboration: Zoom AI Companion assists users by summarizing meetings, drafting emails, generating chat responses, and more, aiming to reduce mundane tasks and improve efficiency. 

Unified Communication Tools: Combines video conferencing, team chat, VoIP phone services, email, and calendar functionalities to facilitate seamless communication.

Productivity Enhancements: Features like Zoom Whiteboard for brainstorming, Zoom Clips for recording and sharing video messages, and Zoom Docs for collaborative document creation are integrated to boost team productivity.

Employee Engagement: Incorporates Workvivo, an employee experience platform acquired by Zoom, to foster a sense of community and engagement within organizations.  

Zoom Workplace is available FOR FREE (first seat) to all (now) GlobalDLA.org members on various platforms, including desktop and mobile devices, and is designed to cater to businesses and schools of all sizes seeking an integrated solution for modern collaboration needs.

AND SO....... the world is indeed......... PoweredByZoom.us - join us and THRIVE in the GLOBAL Cloud Community. Yours. 

www.GetZoom.us

www.CoffeeInTheClouds.us interviews

are PoweredByZoom.us

Just me and my Robots

I believe that within the next 10 years, there shall be a Billionaire Solopreneur. 

I have been in business since 1983. So I have seen much. I was in the room when Priceline went live. I was there for the birth of AOL. I was the 3rd person in the USA to sell NYNEX Mobile Car Phones. I was one of the first to have a LinkedIn account. When LinkedIn hit 100,000 members, we all got a letter (in the mail!) from the founder, thanking us for our support of their little startup. Maybe I should retitle this blog "Damn, I'm old". 

It was out of tragedy that we found our niche: Education. Lifelong Learning. Teaching, training, coaching, mentoring in the GLOBAL Cloud COMMUNITY. My journey into the 'TBLS' world (Technology Based Learning Systems) world was due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 

When the Statue of Liberty was CLOSED due to 9/11, the idea was to allow the kids to do 'virtual field trips' to via videoconferencing. MTP - MyTeachingPartners.com was born to deliver DSL (Digital subscriber line) and videoconferencing hardware and service to all the K-12 schools in the NY/NJ/CT region. I was in the right place at the right time. Over the years this is why we became a Zoom Partner (GetZoom.us)

I am reflecting to how we went from selling 'car phones' to selling everything in the world of telecom and technology. Next month is the amazing InfoComm show in Orlando. We go to InfoComm every year. This year we already have 38K+ people registered to attend InfoComm, all from our (now) NADLA.org community. I know how hard it is to promote and run even small events. So, I get to tell the world to simply meet us: NYDLAatInfoComm.com. And we do just that. We get to tell everyone from our 174K+ K-20 schools, our 16K+ municipalities, and our 6K+ hospitals (and their employees / students / alumni) to simply meet us in Orlando every year. Thanks, InfoComm! You made it easy. 

Our 'store' is a BigCommerce.com store. We have the entire line cards of TD SYNNEX, D&H, Jenne, IngramMicro, TeleDynamics, Midwich and many (many) more 'loaded' into our E-commerce solution. So, we not only USE BigCommerce but we are also a BigCommerce Partner (GetBigCommerce.com). We offer 'shelf space' in our TAC-USA store for all of the vendors attending InfoComm. This same offer goes for all of the vendors attending ISE, or CES, or Enterprise Connect or (I could keep going). Simple. Easy. Thanks, BigCommerce! I was in the right place at the right time when I met the folks at BigCommerce. 

We became a Kajabi partner, and MightyNetworks, and Shopify, and Adobe, and (I could keep going). The 'technology of the day' allows us to teach, train, coach, mentor from ANYWHERE in the world. Tools like Kajabi allow an author to convert their paper books into not only audio books (ala Audible.com) but into multimedia, transmedia, omnimedia COURSES. Their subject matter expertise becomes part of TheCloudUniversity.com  So, via technology anyone from anywhere can teach, train, coach, mentor as we all live, learn, work, play in the GLOBAL Cloud COMMUNITY.  I was in the right place at the right time when I met the folks at Kajabi. And the folks at Shopify. And Adobe. (I could keep going). Once again: right place, right time. 

I wrote this blog myself, there was no AI involved. Yet. I am sure that it is only a matter of months before writing a blog WITHOUT AI will become rare. I do ask humans (my wife, my staff) to always 'proof my blog' because I don't like to look, well.... bad. Hmmm... maybe I can also ask AI to proof my blog for me? 

2025: and now we have AI - everywhere.  

Zoom + AI. Shopify + AI. Kajabi + AI. Dotdigital + AI. Over the next 10 years, the TBLS (Technology Based Learning Systems) and the E-commerce systems of the world will have more AI, and less people. A company that would normally need 100 people in their back office will become 10 key people who have Mastered AI. And at some point 10 key support people will become 5. And then, at some point, it will be one single solopreneur and their AI robots. It will happen soon, I predict before 2035. 

Think Luke Skywalker PLUS R2-D2. A human and lots of droids who work 24x7x365. 

A $1B company of one. 

www.CoffeeInTheClouds.us

www.PoweredByKajabi.com

Car Wash University

 

So, they are the new kid in town. It started with an email to me ( and my wife, and my kids ). If my dog Konta had a working email I am sure that he would have received one too. 

OK, so we all got the email. And then we all got the follow up emails. And the follow ups to the follow ups. And so, yesterday was the big day. Yesterday was the visit to the new Speeders Car Wash in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. 

I live in Boonton Township, New Jersey. We're the next town over from Mountain Lakes. There is a Boonton, New Jersey, and we share a Zip Code. So you have Boonton and Boonton Township. The kids living in Boonton go to Boonton High School, but the kids that live in Boonton Township go to Mountain Lakes High School. But ALL OF US live in Morris County, New Jersey. 

THERE IS ONLY ONE BOONTON USA. Boonton became a separate municipality, and was incorporated as a Town under a charter granted by the State Legislature in March, 1867. The area within the limits of the new Town was formerly part of the old Townships of Pequannock and Hanover. Under the charter, the new Town was governed by a seven-man Board of Trustees, but, by an amendment to the charter in 1872, authority was vested in the Mayor and Common Council, which later became the Mayor & Board of Aldermen and is now known as the Mayor and Town Council.  

Boonton's charter of 1867 was a milestone in the long history of the Town. More than a century earlier the village of Boonetown (Booneton, Boonton Falls) was established on the Rockaway River, about a mile and a half downstream from the center of the present Town. As early as 1747, Obadiah Baldwin operated an iron refining forge at that place, where water power was in ample supply, and raw materials, such as iron ore and wood for charcoal, were not too far away. Under David Ogden, the owner of the site and a large tract of surrounding land, and, later, under his son, Samuel, the ironworks was enlarged, and a village of workmen and their families emerged. This village was named by the Ogdens "Boone-Towne" in honor of the Colonial Governor, Thomas Boone, in the year 1761.

AND SO.... yesterday was the day to get the car washed. The new Speeders Car Wash on Rt. 46 in Mountain Lakes New Jersey had me in their tractor beam. Their emails have 'locked on' and I was being pulled out of my driveway and right down the boulevard to their new location. 

I was impressed. There are several Car Wash locations within a mile or two of home. In fact, there is one right in BOONTON USA. But again, immediately, this place was DIFFERENT. It felt like a mash up of Walt Disney World and Chuck E. Cheese for cars. And a little bit like the drive through at Chick-fil-A. The efficiency was palatable. You can just feel in your bones that someone engineered this to be different. Different by design. I counted around a dozen staff, and they all had uniforms like an Indy Car pit crew. Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy. 

In the most professional way, they took my electronic coupon off my phone for the FREE car wash. And then, as the seconds clicked by, I was braced for the sales pitch. In three.....two....one..... and we're off! It's all about the subscription. It's all about the monthly Car Wash Club. Netflix, for cars.

I knew it was coming. The kid giving me sales pitch however, did not. I told him "THIS IS FANTASTIC! This is great! I am impressed! Ah, but this is my wife's car and she has to decide. Can you sign up online?" < sigh >  

I could watch his eyes blinking, as his brain was processing the answers from his training. What do you say when they say this, what do you say when they say THAT.... I told him: Congratulations! You made a sale! I am sure that she will be back to sign up one day soon. 

Now he had a choice: keep working me, or pass me through, as there was a line forming behind my car. I quickly said "Good job! Keep up the good work, I'm sure you will have a fantastic day selling..." 

So here's the deal. The Car Wash was the best of my 64 years. When I got home, I told my wife. I posted on Social Media. And then I got an email and a text from RussellSpeeders.com reminding me that if I 'tell a friend' to get a free car wash, I would also earn points. From their website:

Russell Speeder’s started over 50 years ago in Norwalk, Connecticut, and currently operates 32 car washes in Connecticut, New York, Nebraska and Kansas City. In that time we have washed millions of cars and have evolved our process for providing customers with a fast, clean, shiny car. We are obsessed with offering an amazing customer experience delivered by our hundreds of hard working associates.

Over the last several years we have been laser focused on providing over 150,000 monthly members the best unlimited car wash program in the country. Stop by today to experience all we have to offer, and enjoy the ride!

WOW. Free Air! Free Vacuum! So on my ride home (just a few miles) I reflected on what just happened. The email campaign, worked. The first customer experience worked. I told my wife that I just had the best car wash ever. I told my kids. I told my dog Konta. I posted on Social Media that I had the best car wash, ever. And this was BEFORE I got the text and email prompting me to tell my friends to earn friends and family points. 

And now I'm BLOGGING on it.  I'll even email hello@russellspeeders.com to tell them 'read my blog!' 

It made me think about how in BOONTON USA there are probably a dozen Pizzerias. There are many coffee shops. There are many nail salons. MANY to choose from. I love BOONTON MAIN STREET in the one and only BOONTON USA with the shops and the many (many) amazing places to eat. There are many choices for getting a car wash near BOONTON USA. 

Or is there really now just one..... ?

https://russellspeeders.com/locations and now...Welcome to New Jersey! 

https://russellspeeders.com/elevateher-2025  You gotta like these folks already, right? 

Eventful things

Is eventful good or bad? Let's ask The Google.....

Eventful things are exciting, important, or full of incidents. Your eventful life might inspire you to write a fascinating autobiography one day. If your day is eventful, a lot of things happen — it can be good or bad, but it's certainly not boring.

"Eventful" means full of significant or interesting happenings, or having important consequences. It can describe a period of time, a person's life, or a situation, implying it was not ordinary or uneventful. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

Full of events: An eventful day or year is one that is busy, with a lot of activity or changes happening.

Important or memorable: An eventful life or decision is one that had a significant impact or is remembered for its importance.

Not boring: Eventful things are exciting, interesting, or packed with incidents. 

This upcoming Friday we have an EVENT at Yale in Connecticut. We have it listed on Page 1 / Slide 1 of NYDLA.org. I am looking forward to presenting - to a room of around 300 people. Give or take. Use code 'NYDLA' and save $300. And on Day 2 everyone in the room will get a $250 Gift Card from TAC-USA.com powered by Tremendous.com. Cool. 

That is it. It is a LIVE event. There will be no streaming media, no Zoom. The event begins on Yale campus on Friday morning 5/9 and goes to 5/10 midday. Technically it begins at the Cocktail Reception on the evening of 5/8 (ahem.) 

NEXT month, we have InfoComm. As of this blog post, we already have 37,250 members of the NADLA.org registered to attend LIVE. By event time, expect 40,000 NADLA.org members to have registered, with 10X that number of NADLA.org members to attend InfoComm virtually. I tip my hat to the organizers of InfoComm, every year is better than the year before. We have invited the 174K+ *schools, the 16K+ municipalities and the 6K+ hospitals of the NADLA.org to attend InfoComm this year. Many NADLA.org members will attend - virtually. {*and the alumni of the schools}.

In 2024 we attended a Cybersecurity Summit on THE INTREPID Sea Air Space Museum in NYC. Figure 900+ were LIVE at the event, 900K+ LIVE via Zoom and 9M+ (to date) have watched the archives of the event via Workvivo by Zoom. I am sure that number will 10X over time, with tens of millions of views via YouTube. 

Last month, we attended the Microsoft Summit at 11 Times Square NYC. I have been on the 6th floor of that building more times than I can count. Microsoft is an amazing vendor and sponsor, and very generous. I noticed that the large room holds 364 people, according to the Fire Code. The event last month was very (VERY) good, but there was no risk of breaking the law. I figure the were 200+ people in the room, tops. 

Right now, I am enjoying an Audible book from Jefferson Fisher. I will be doing a 'CoffeeInTheClouds.us' interview with him next month. We will gift his book to all who watch our interview. Technically, I will 'reimburse' the cost of the Audible book (we are an Audible partner) by giving 1 month membership credit to the NADLA.org for everyone who buys his book. ($25 credit). Jefferson started out making YouTube videos from his car, on his phone. He had no office, he had no team - he had no money (no sponsors, no backers). 2025: Jefferson has 10M+ followers on Social Media, 500M+ views on Social Media and 1B+ views across all media platforms. That is BILLION with a B. 

Here is where I am going with this: Is my time with Jefferson Fisher in the local dog park an event?

When I am walking in the park with my dog (every day) I am in my personal cloud university. I am listening to a book read by the author (this time Jefferson Fisher). I really love books read by the author - it feels like they are talking directly TO ME. I follow Jefferson on social media, I am one of his tribe. 

It will cost me around $100 in gas, tolls, parking to attend the event at Yale next week. I am getting $500 in travel stipend as a speaker, and a hotel room on campus. Cool! It will cost me $1,000+ next month to attend InfoComm mostly due to travel expenses, food and hotel. I have a free pass to the event. Ah, but no speaker stipend, no travel reimbursement. Boo! It costs me $18.50 in bus fare (round trip) from BOONTON USA to 11 Times Square NYC to BOONTON USA. So, right now, today, as I live in North New Jersey (30 miles West of Times Square) the 'events' that give me MAXIMUM ROI are the events in NYC, especially at 11 Times Square (Microsoft).

Or is my maximum ROI the dog park, courtesy of Audible? I think Konta votes for the dog park. 

I won a Meeting Owl from the Microsoft Summit!  

Hoot!