When Cisco Systems moved its huge annual sales conference online for the first time this fall, it needed to do something dramatic to get its highly competitive and overwhelmingly male field force to log on and participate. The solution was an intricate alternate-reality game called The Threshold, a complex corporate-espionage mystery woven into the virtual conference.

Here’s the story of the engagement strategy for Cisco’s Global Sales Experience, plus a video from JUXT Interactive, the Cisco partner that developed the game, on the making of the videos that established the whodunit’s story line and presented clues to participants. In the end, about 70 percent of the virtual conference’s 19,000 global attendees worked to solve the crime.

“What’s a good source to compare the various webconferencing applications before choosing one?” This is a question I have addressed in the past, but it’s worth talking about again. It’s one of the most repeated queries I get. The short answer is that I don’t know of any trusted, all-in-one source for comparing webconferencing applications on an equal basis. The closest you’ll get is …

Read the story.

For those interested in the ways tech innovations can bring interaction and dialogue into the meeting environment, a new blog called Interactive Meeting Technology casts a wide net over the subject, with postings from a European-based blogger with a background in networking technology.

Recent musings have covered the mass collaboration possible through Google Wave, what meeting professionals can learn from “flash mobs,” the return on investment of virtual events, and more …

It’s that crystal ball time of the year again. Even with all the changes seen recently in mobile and social-networking technologies, 2010 may yet be a defining year for how we communicate with one another. Game-changing hardware, operating systems, and other innovations are on the horizon. Here are six to keep an eye on in the coming year.