Follow the Leaders
Business Meets Virtual Reality: What’s In Store?
There’s no denying it. Technology, business applications and “reality” are melding together in exciting and fascinating ways.
The virtual and augmented reality technology of today is helping us create better products and enhanced work experiences. It’s making us better designers, trainers and consumers. It’s even being used in the medical sector to treat phobias and prepare patients for surgery.
Virtual Versus Augmented: What’s the Difference?
“Virtual reality offers a digital re-creation of a real-life setting, while augmented reality delivers virtual elements as an overlay to the real world.” (source: augment.com)
During a recent virtual reality (VR) demonstration to VACEOs membership, Rob Newton of River City VR shared some of his experience with the latest technology. “I’ve seen VR applications in the medical industry that use a full 3-D high-resolution representation of the body, inside and out. Doctors can then practice surgery on the virtual patient. This is not just a generic dummy, but a specific virtual body with all its nuances. It’s pretty amazing!”
Companies like Adidas, IKEA and Lowe’s are embracing augmented virtual experiences to create meaningful customer interactions – overlaying product options over customer photos to enhance the buying experience. Law enforcement agencies are using VR to re-create crime scenes and walk police officers through stressful training exercises without risk to their staff or the public, reports Newton.
Imagine, as a business owner, having the ability to train your employees on complex or potentially dangerous procedures with little cost or risk. Or, if you’re like Kevin McNulty, president of LifeStyle Home Builders, imagine avoiding weeks of time delays and labor expenses on home builds while enhancing the customer experience.
McNulty, a VACEOs member, has been rendering traditional 2-D design drawings in a 3-D VR format for about a year.
Member Kevin McNulty with Mike Fitzgerald of LifeStyle Home Builders demonstrate their virtual reality application.
Customers gain a great sense of spatial awareness during the virtual walk-through, which can take them wherever they choose to go – from outside the home to any room within – through bathrooms, the kitchen, closets and even the roof. After the tour, they may sometimes wish to alter a window or wall – which isn’t a big deal in the early stages of the game.
“Reaction to the VR system has been extremely positive,” says McNulty.
Manufacturing Leading the Way, Office Applications Next
Many manufacturing companies, like automotive giant Ford, are embracing virtual experiences to streamline equipment training. The reward can be higher employee retention rates, lower safety risks, fewer accidents and advanced training opportunities.
“According to a recent survey, safety manufacturing is the second most popular application of VR and augmented reality among U.S. manufacturers,” said Rob Newton in his presentation to the membership. “Virtual reality offers a unique and powerful conduit for training and safety education.” (Imagine a new employee expertly guiding your $15 million crane the first time they touch the controls after a few VR sessions!)
Why Use VR for Industrial Safety Training?
- Learning by doing, or experiential learning, leads to higher retention rates
- Employees gain experience without risking equipment or safety
- High-end consumer VR equipment sales are driving simulator costs down
- Video game engines are well equipped to create realistic simulations
- Teaching best practices helps prevent accidents in warehouses and on docks
- Workers can be trained in navigating hazardous environments or intensive maneuvers
What’s Next?
Newton reports that in the very near future, VR headsets, phones, glasses and contacts will evolve to become our personal portals into the expanding virtual world. Many of us will begin to participate in Microsoft’s “mixed reality” vision – one in which holographs are used to pin virtual objects to physical spots in space. “Windows is going to push for that, and it’s going to become a natural thing for us to think about virtual reality and augmented reality during our computing day to day,” he says.
In the very near future, he added, some of us will experience virtual collaborations with virtual employees on virtual products.
Is your company embracing VR technology? We’d love to hear about it!
https://www.facebook.com/vaceos/videos/1614356755243159/
Social Media Expert Corey Perlman Shares Strategies
VACEOs members have a thirst for knowledge. They relish Council events that expose them to best-selling authors and wholeheartedly dive into conversations with national thought leaders. They hunger for ways to streamline their operations, engage their employees and market their businesses.
On May 25, members got a chance to hear from Corey Perlman – consultant, nationally recognized social media expert and author of Social Media Overload! His presentation – “Simple Social Media Strategies for Overwhelmed and Time-Deprived Businesses” – could not have been more relevant for his audience.
Perlman challenged us to prioritize our activity on social media platforms – to “buckle down where buyers are” and not be tempted by platforms that don’t make sense for our business. He advised us to create a team or bring in an agency to help with social media instead of trying to do everything ourselves. He also introduced us to a social media sales funnel to guide us through ALL the reasons to participate in social media (it’s NOT all about generating leads), and encouraged us to think outside the box when it comes to content and to be patient for results.
We won’t share everything we learned, but here are five actionable items every CEO of a small or medium-sized business can use to their advantage.
https://www.facebook.com/vaceos/videos/1595840410428127/
FIVE SOCIAL MEDIA ACTION ITEMS FOR EVERY CEO
1. TAKE INVENTORY
Google your business and yourself. What platforms are you on? Don’t forget to check out reviewer sites and personal/company/employee LinkedIn accounts. How’s your brand looking?
2. PRIORITIZE YOUR PLATFORMS
Do you really need to be on Twitter? Maybe not. Not sure where which platforms you should be on? Google the demographics of each and ask your customers. Double down on a few instead of spreading yourself too thin.
3. UPDATE
When was the last time you updated your website? Was it more than three years ago? If so, it’s time to update to current standards. And while you’re at it, update all of your LinkedIn accounts since the design has changed.
4. POST
Post.
Every day.
To LinkedIn.
Post only content that has value.
5. GO LIVE
Challenge your social media team to get on the Facebook Live bandwagon. “You’ll see more activity and engagement on a Live video than you will on any other post you do on Facebook, so I encourage your watchers here to think about how they can go live,” said Perlman.
6. (BONUS) GET PERLMAN’S NEW BOOK, SOCIAL MEDIA OVERLOAD!
Corey Perlman’s latest book is a quick and easy read, packed with actionable items that will give you a firm grasp of the strategies that will work best for your business.
About Corey Perlman
Corey Perlman is an entrepreneur, author and nationally recognized digital marketing expert. He is also the owner of eBoot Camp, Inc. – a team of highly skilled digital marketing specialists who manage social media accounts for more than 40 companies. His latest book, Social Media Overload!, is an Amazon.com bestseller in every major business category. Learn more about Corey Perlman.
Partnership for the Future Transforms Students into Employees
Imagine the luxury of hiring a recent college graduate who has been preparing for his professional career since the age of 15. Right out of the gate, she seamlessly assimilates into your culture. He knows the language of your business and how to communicate professionally. She navigates easily through your systems and protocols, and already knows specifically how to meet your expectations.
Sound like a dream? It’s reality for businesses participating in the Partnership for the Future (PFF) program.
PFF, founded in 1994, transforms area high school students into professionally prepared individuals equipped to successfully enter local internship programs by the age of 16 and often, later, enter one of the top colleges of their choice.
The program’s success rate is phenomenal. In 2017, 100 percent of PFF graduates will graduate from high school and matriculate into institutions like UVA, VCU, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University, North Carolina A&T State and James Madison University.
Charleita M. Richardson of Partnership for the Future
For students, the program represents a tremendous opportunity to grow professionally and succeed exponentially. For business owners who partner with PFF for the internships, it represents a unique opportunity to cultivate future employees with unlimited potential.
“I like to think of us as a college access and success organization. It’s about getting students to and through college, but I also like to make it broader,” says Charleita M. Richardson, President & CEO, Partnership for the Future. “We really are a workforce development organization because we recognize a transitioning workforce. We want to make sure our students are ready and equipped with strong leadership workforce skills to ensure we don’t have a missing cycle of qualified employees.”
ABOUT PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE (PFF)
In a nutshell, PFF helps students who, without a preparatory program like this one, would more than likely not attend college.
“Amy has performed beyond our expectations and is always eager to do more and learn more. What a fabulous job your team does in selecting the quality of students to join your program.” – Kimberly S. Akers, PHR, Manager of Employee Relations & Recruiting, Richmond Ambulance Authority
The program isn’t easy for the students involved. By the age of 16, they’ve already successfully completed intensive soft skills training – including completion of time management, conflict resolution, and attitude & demeanor classes. Their public speaking, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint skills have been honed before they tackle their summer intern phase. The seven-week internship programs begin their junior year in high school and continue each summer until graduation, and each student has specific goals to meet and projects to complete.
The program currently serves all high schools in the city of Richmond, as well as five others in Henrico County and one in Goochland.
“This program allows you to cultivate relationships with students early on,” explains Richardson. “You may say they’re too young, but I have a perfect example of how it can work. One of our students interned at CarMax while in our program. He graduated from high school and PFF, and later from Virginia Tech. Each college break, he went back to CarMax to continue his internship. As soon as he graduated from Tech, he immediately began working there full time. I asked him, ‘Why not explore other options?’ and he said, ‘Because CarMax is home to me. This is where I started.’ So what started out as a short-term, seven-week internship ended up being a successful placement for the organization.”
GET INVOLVED. IT’S PAINLESS.
Recognize the potential of this opportunity? The staff at PFF are seasoned veterans and have many processes in place to make it as painless as possible for businesses to get involved, find the right candidates and enjoy the fruits of successful internships.
PFF is recruiting business leaders NOW for its 2018 summer intern season, when they expect 50 new candidates to be ready for hire. Contact PFF today to find out how you can partner to power growth for a local student – and your business!
Ready? Set? Learn About Exporting!
There are many reasons to export and there are many programs and grants available to assist you along the way, as Filtroil president (and VACEOs member) Jeremy Leahman recently shared.
“Most businesses have an export opportunity they are not aware or thought about,” says Scot McRoberts, executive director of VACEOs. “Now is a great time to learn more about exporting.”
Here’s a great place to start!
Event: ChamberRVA “Business After Hours Goes International”
Format: 30-minute panel discussion about exporting
Time: February 23, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Space is limited
Sign up here.
VACEOs to Partner with Virginia Chamber of Commerce
(READ Richmond Times-Dispatch Coverage >)
The Virginia Council of CEOs and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce announced a strategic partnership today. The agreement grants active VACEOs members dual membership in the Council and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, strengthening the Council’s value to its membership and facilitating its ability to expand regionally. The partnership is expected to positively impact Virginia business.
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce is the largest business association in Virginia, with more than 25,000 member companies. The Virginia Council of CEOs is a non-profit association founded in 2000 that provides crucial benefits to its members through programs and sponsors –most notably through its CEO-to-CEO Roundtable peer support groups, which help members take their business to the next level.
“The Virginia Council of CEOs gives business leaders in Central Virginia an informal board of directors composed of peers and dedicated to their success,” said Scot McRoberts, Executive Director of the Council. “This partnership with the Virginia Chamber will provide tremendous value for our current members and help us begin to form new CEO Roundtables in other parts of the Commonwealth.”
McRoberts reports the Council is currently setting up CEO Roundtable groups in Charlottesville and plans to do the same in other parts of the state in the near future.
“This partnership is very gratifying, as it constitutes an exciting key milestone in the history of the Council. The result should be a significant economic impact for Virginia.” – Chuck McCabe, Co-Founder VACEOs and CEO of Peoples Tax.
Going forward, the Virginia Council of CEOs and the Virginia Chamber will work closely together on future events and initiatives, including this year’s update to the Chamber’s long-term economic plan, Blueprint Virginia 2025.
“This partnership is very gratifying, as it constitutes an exciting key milestone in the history of the Council. The result should be a significant economic impact for Virginia,” said Chuck McCabe, Co-Founder VACEOs and CEO of Peoples Tax.
“We look forward to working with the Virginia Council of CEOs in this new partnership,” said Barry DuVal, President and CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. “The strategic plan adopted by our board last year called for expanding collaboration efforts with other business associations, and the fine work of the Virginia Council of CEOs in providing a platform for peer-to-peer CEO mentoring will complement the Chamber’s existing services. Our strength as the voice of Virginia business relies on engaging a broad cross-section of Virginia business leaders, and we welcome these CEOs as new members of the Virginia Chamber.”
“Our association with the Virginia Chamber of Commerce brings about a new set of opportunities for the Council,” adds Neal Lappe, current VACEOs Chair and Founder & CEO of WebStrategies, Inc.
“Over the years, our CEO members and Council staff have developed an organization unlike any other in the state of Virginia. Working with the Virginia Chamber strengthens the Council’s ability to bring our unique value to CEOs throughout the state, and further enables us to fulfill our mission of connecting CEOs for learning and growth. We are excited and optimistic about what this partnership will bring.”
About the Virginia Council of CEOs
The Virginia Council of CEOs is a non-profit association that serves the CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses in Virginia. The Council was founded in 2000 to connect CEOs so that they can learn and grow together. With 200 members in Central Virginia at this time, the Council is forming new CEO Roundtables in other parts of the state in 2017. Learn more at http://www.vaceos.org/.
About the Virginia Chamber of Commerce
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce is the largest business advocacy organization in the Commonwealth, with more than 25,000 members. The Chamber is the leading non-partisan business advocacy organization that works in the legislative, regulatory, civic and judicial arenas at the state and federal level to be a force for long-term economic growth in the Commonwealth. Learn more at www.vachamber.com.
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