Locating the corporate headquarters for Genesys next to the sixth largest shopping center in the country seemed like a good idea on paper, but after Thanksgiving it literally becomes the nightmare before Christmas.  The offices are located on the top floor of the Towers Crescent building in Tyson’s Corner, VA and I have a direct view of the entrance to Nordstrom.  Knowing the shoe department is just behind those doors is a dream for most women, but not so much for me.  In front of that entrance is where the trouble lies. 

As the day progresses the long lines of cars grow and grow, and I know that after a long day of work it will take me about 45 minutes just to get out of the mall area and into my normal commuter traffic, which in the DC area is no picnic either.  Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Hmmm, I wonder how I could avoid the onslaught of holiday shoppers, increase my productivity, communicate with co-workers and ease the stress caused by this time of year.  Oh yeah, I work for a conferencing company. Score!  Instead of sitting in 2-3 hours of traffic and using my finger to wave to fellow commuters, I was able to use it to click a mouse and instantly attend a global marketing meeting, update the corporate website and make major progress on projects I am trying to complete by the end of the year, and I did all of this from the comfort of my living room. 

I know this blog entry sounds like a Geico testimonial commercial, and I feel like I should have Little Richard beside me translating my story, and going WOOOOO every ten seconds, but by using the Genesys Meeting Center I am truly living the dream.  Are you?
 

Erik Crawford – Web Marketing Manager

No, we’re not talking the kind of green featuring presidents, we’re talking the kind of green that makes the earth happy and environmentally conscious people get all warm and fuzzy.  Genesys recently conducted a survey of 15,000 users to see how their companies were addressing green issues over the holidays. 

You can read the results by clicking the survey link above, but let’s focus on the “5 Top Tips for a Greener Workplace”.
 

1.  Turn off lights, computers and office equipment in empty cubes, offices and low-traffic common areas
This seems like common sense, but walk around your office after hours and I bet you’d be surprised how many electronic devices are left on.  I’ve always been one of those people who go around turning things off, but that was mainly because my old man was a miser and to save a few pennies on the electric bill would constantly remind us to turn stuff off.  So was he an environmentalist ahead of his time or just cheap?  Put your money on the latter.

2. Avoid decorations that use electricity and display a live tree that can then be planted outside the building
This is a tough one because people enjoy the pageantry of bright, shiny, colorful things that bring a glow to cold winter nights.  This is where you have to get creative.  I once asked the lead singer of the Flaming Lips, who are famous for outlandish live shows, if it was difficult to bring their brand of craziness to a show during the day.  He replied, “You just have to go about it in a different way.”  So instead of an energetic light show they employed dancing Santa’s, gyrating aliens, a plethora of confetti canons and a large plastic bubble that he would use to navigate the crowd.  All it takes is some good old fashioned imagination from your company’s think-outside-the-box types and you can easily be festive and green at the same time. 

3. Avoid unnecessary travel – the #1 polluter – by providing virtual meeting capabilities for people working from home during their vacation
Almost everyone in the business world has high speed internet access in their house, making the holidays a great time to allow them to work from home.  Using Genesys Meeting Center you can hold productive meetings, collaborate on documents or even conduct training without having to commute into the office.  Plus, there’s something mischievous about discussing the coming year’s corporate strategy in your pajamas.
 

4.  Relax dress codes to save on laundry and dry cleaning energy                      Now this is a policy I can really get behind.  I would even take it one further and allow your employees to wear shorts and t-shirts because this would even further cut back on laundry and dry cleaning.  In this post dot com world the shorts and T-shirts might not fly, but introducing casual dress for the holidays is an easy way to save energy.  Besides, do you really work differently based on your wardrobe?  

5.  Close cafeterias and use money saved for special treats to reward people for brown-bagging it  I have mixed feelings about this suggestion, but it does make sense.  Again, my scrooge-like old man made me brown bag it all through my school years, so once I had my own money I left my brown bagging days behind me.  However, throwing in a monetary incentive, casual dress or additional days off would motivate me to break out the old brown bags again.  It’s peanut butter jelly time!  Peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat!
 

These are just a few suggestions to make your workplace greener for the holidays.  I think our EVP of Marketing, Denise Persson, said it best;

“Creating a Greener workplace for the Holidays can be a communal company effort that instills pride and encourages teamwork. We asked our customers for their favorite Green Holiday workplace tips and are sharing some that any company can easily put in place.”

 Erik Crawford – Web Marketing Manager

First, to our customers, thanks to your continued support and trust.  I’m pleased to inform you, and everybody, about some great things going on at Genesys. 

Genesys continues to gain market share and size, which allows us to continue our significant investment in R&D, infrastructure and most importantly in our service.  

The third quarter of 2007 was one of the strongest quarters in Genesys’ history, which  reflects the strong momentum being achieved by Genesys Meeting Center, our multimedia conferencing and collaboration service.. Our volume growth of 30% is among the highest in the industry. 

We have reported strong year-on-year revenue results, with total revenues in Q3 of $54.4M, an increase of 13.4% from last year. Our net income in Q3 was $6.6M. Our net debt position is $16.5M and our leverage, representing about half a year of operating profitability, is among the lowest in the industry.  

Geographical expansion and innovation
Our financial strength is critical to our growth strategy which continues to be focused on two key elements:  

Firstly, we intend to continue our investment in the distribution and customer support of our services.  We also plan to accelerate our geographical expansion into new countries in order to enhance our support to our global customers. Genesys is currently present in 24 countries in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.  

Secondly, we’re stepping up our R&D efforts to ensure that we meet the existing and future requirements of our users that have come to rely on Genesys to provide them with the most effective and easy-to-use collaboration tools. Our newly established development center in Shanghai is now fully operational and with our existing R&D organizations in North America and Europe, we’re developing new applications literally around the clock and around the globe.  

Next Genesys Meeting Center Upgrade
Ease-of-use, ubiquitous access and integration with business communication tools that you’re already using are critical elements of our product roadmap.  

In our upcoming release of Genesys Meeting Center we’re excited to include a number of new features.
 
Improvements to the user interface include a tool to instantaneously dial out to additional participants from a meeting in progress, as well as the ability to set notification tone control directly from the interface.  

It also includes the ability for any shared presentation or application to be automatically scaled to fit the participant’s screen.  

This release also brings integration support for the Lotus Notes IM client. Users will be able to easily and quickly invite Lotus Notes users via their IM buddy lists.  

For our Asian customers, the new login interface will support Japanese and the two major versions of Chinese.  

And lastly, we will now fully support the new Microsoft Vista OS as well as Office 2007 for any users that have made the upgrade.  

We appreciate all the feedback we have received from you. Our product team responds to all product suggestions within 24 hours if you email us at productsuggestions@genesys.com. 

Our results and achievements during 2007 signify a major milestone in our 21 year corporate history. The driving force behind our growth has always been your continued trust and support. On behalf of Genesys, I would like to thank you again.

A cold, fall Friday morning, sounds like a good time to avoid doing real work and take the Genesys meeting profile test.  Besides, a little psycho-analysis never hurt anybody.  Let’s go.

Ten Minutes later I complete the survey and get my results…