This week I did Connect Pro table-top events for CDW’s Technical Showcase. I talked to over 200 sales reps about technology benefits and ease of use.

I started the discussions explaining that Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro is our web conferencing software that utilizes only the free Flash Player, that is installed on 98% of computers worldwide, and a browser. Nothing more is needed and there is nothing to download. This is a popular point and a competitive advantage. I further explained how it could be used to conduct meetings, do webinars, provide tech support, create persistent rooms (Adobe has their CS4 assets available 24/7 in a persistent room), record events, do training and education and use Presenter (a PowerPoint plug-in) to create content. I also explained that I’ve done hundreds of seminars (Adobe’s term for webinars) using most of the competitive products and even if I wasn’t representing Adobe, I preferred Connect Pro both for the ease of setting it up and how easy it is for attendees to log-in with a simple link. There are never any problems for attendees getting connected. I explained how customers could start with Connect Now, built into Acrobat 9 and move up from there. Further it was an opportunity for the reps to have something new to talk to customers about and then extend the conversation into attaching other Adobe products they owned into a single contract with a co-terminus, making it very easy to IT to manage.

To further reinforce my points and attract interest, I used a self running PDF slide show (full screen mode, auto-flip, loop) (I edited this slide deck and made it a PDF from PowerPoint, I didn’t create it). I really do like Connect Pro and highly recommend it for web conferencing. If you have Acrobat 9 you can get a taste by checking out Acrobat Connect Now (File> Collaborate) which is used in conjunction with Acrobat.com.

For more information check out the attached PDF slide show and Adobe.com (of course).