The average professional spends approximately 47 hours a month working in groups. Forty hours are spent in meetings and presentations.* Another seven hours are spent in training, whether formal or informal.† That’s almost six days every month that the tools you’ve invested in are inaccessible to your staff. If your information systems were down for six days every month, what would you do?

SMART products help your staff stay productive - wherever they’re working. They provide group access to networks, files and websites. They leverage your existing infrastructure to give you powerful ways to share information when you’re training, presenting and collaborating, whether you’re meeting in-house or conferencing across continents. With SMART products, you can put those six days back to work.
 

Meetings are essential to the business of business. Specialized skills need to be shared. Cross-functional teams need to communicate. Decisions need to be reached. Yet studies have shown that about 50 percent of meeting time is wasted. Simply put, meetings lack focus and direction. People digress, debate and disagree, with nothing getting resolved.

Whether you’re meeting to update, brainstorm or strategize, a structured agenda and clear focus will improve productivity. But the real key is the  shift from discussion to action. In a traditional meeting, you talk about what to do. In a collaborative meeting, you actually do it.

Good collaboration requires access to the latest information, tools that let you work with that information together, in person and over distances,
and quick ways to save what you’re doing, so you can move on.

With SMART products, you can access computer information and work with it in various ways. You can analyze a project draft and mark up the design as a group. You can review a budget, write over it and enter your notes directly into the Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet as text. You can record decisions digitally, so everyone stays on the same page.

By sharing these files in real time with people miles away, you can reduce travel and courier costs. Most importantly, you get results immediately instead of waiting for deliveries. The bottom line is that you get more done in less time, and that’s what a meeting should really be about.
 

Whether you’re introducing a new product or pitching a concept, you’re delivering information for a purpose. Yet reviewing facts and preparing slides are a mere fraction of a solid presentation. In fact, what you say accounts for only seven percent of its impact. Fifty-five percent is how you come across personally, and 38 percent is how you deliver your information.* SMART products help you cover this 93 percent.

With an interactive whiteboard or pen display, you convey confidence and professionalism. Instead of clicking through slides routinely, you write over your slides as you go. Instead of passively repeating your prepared material, you highlight particular areas to provide focus and prioritize concepts.

Now your audience is paying attention. When you ask questions and record your listeners’ feedback, you gauge their agreement and involve them in your ideas. Incorporating your audience’s opinions will make your concepts more memorable and your proposal more persuasive. At the end of the day, your success won’t be measured by the number of slides you prepared but by the number of clients you gain, the bids you win and the buy-in you obtain.
 

The most recent U.S. labor statistics state that the average 50-person company spends US$32,350 on training every six months.* Whether your organization spends more or less than that number, you want a significant return from your training investment. Each hour should be productive and help improve performance in the future.

To make the most of every hour, trainers need efficient ways to deliver and save material during sessions, and they need options for real-time delivery over distance. With SMART products, trainers can access all the information they need from one place, so they don’t have to run between a computer and flip chart. They can use digital ink to highlight key information and reinforce concepts.

The effect on learners is dramatic. SMART products help focus attention, clarify concepts and save time. Dynamic, colorful material engages visual learners, and hands-on interaction increases interest and retention.

The products are so easy to use that trainers can invite learners to try tasks themselves at the front of the room. With SMART products, trainers can maximize the effectiveness of their sessions and share material in real time with those who can’t attend in person. All information can be delivered to learners after the session as a .pdf file, digital video or Web page. This flexible information sharing helps translate theory into practice. People have complete, accurate material, so they can review what they’ve learned and apply it themselves when they get back to work.