MaestroMonth 2 now open!

We’re proud to say that MaestroMonth 2 is live and off to a flying start! This time we’ve got over 90 world-class luminaries, a veritable who’s who of conscious change, business, health, spirituality, and more. From Deepak Chopra to Michael Port and Marianne Williamson – we feel blessed by the leaders that stepped forward for this event.

See full calendar of luminaries

This week it dawned on us: this is likely the single largest virtual event for 21st century thought leaders in history! And you can get access to all this first-class talent on Maestro’s interactive platform for $1. It’s crazy.

This may the largest giveaway of transformational wisdom you’ve ever experienced. And perhaps most importantly, you don’t just sit there and listen but you ENGAGE these leaders and each other. You learn AND apply. You listen AND discuss. You receive AND you give. In short, you have way more fun.

You’ve got to see what all the buzz is about! Register now.

First week luminaries include Judith Orloff (NY Times bestseller), Joan Borysenko (mind-body medicine pioneer), Robin Sharma (#2 leadership guru), Andrew Cohen (founder of EnlightenNext), Debbie Ford (Shadow Effect producer), and Gregg Braden (2012 scientist).

And that’s only the first week. And if you do the $1 trial month, you’re going to love our new MaestroPath membership programs, which promise to help you step into true mastery in your life.

Wow! More than 2,000 people read about our contest during the last couple days... and 217 people left really thoughtful comments so they would be considered for the three MaestroConference prizes we're giving away.

If you participated, THANK YOU.

Since the contest ended last night at midnight, we selected the winners first thing this morning. But rather than list the winners here on the site -- which would be kinda boring and anticlimactic -- we decided to make a video that shows us selecting the winners in real time.

Find out by watching this video right away...

Want to know how you can win up to 12 months of MaestroConference -- with Concierge Service -- for FREE?

Then listen up...

We'll be unveiling our launch pricing structure on Tuesday, August 25. But before we do that, we decided to put together a little contest.

And this time we're giving away not one -- but THREE prizes!

Grand Prize (valued at $3,359):
12 months of MaestroConference (200 line limit) -- with One (1) month of Jump Start Concierge Services!

2nd Prize (valued at $1,577):
6 months of free MaestroConference service (100 line limit) -- with One (1) month of Jump Start Concierge Services!

3rd Prize (valued at $1,286):
3 months of free MaestroConference service (100 line limit) -- with One (1) month of Jump Start Concierge Services!

What exactly does the Jump Start Concierge Service include?

• Dedicated Account Manager
• Premium Phone support and Live Chat
• One-on-One Customer Success Clinic
• One Curriculum Facilitation & Call Design Consult - 45 minutes
• One Co-conduct of One Call - up to 60 minutes
• Email, Web Cases via Self-Service Portal and access to Knowledgebase
• No setup fees for Assisted Sales/Order Taking

If you are serious about growing your business with MaestroConference, then we guarantee you will want to enter this contest.

How can we say that with such confidence?

It's because entering the contest is quick and easy. Not to mention 100% free. Simply leave a comment below answering these two questions:

1. WHY do you want to grow your business and your income right now?

2. HOW will the MaestroConference help you achieve this goal?

We're now one version away from our Official Launch! Version 0.9 fixes a lot of pesky bugs, and brings back two features you've been missing: Entryway and Green Room.

Remember back in May, when we released those before? Well, we found some bugs in them, so we've rewritten them to make them rock-solid. What do they do? Let's refresh our memories:

Entryway: An optional breakout that new participants can automatically enter. It allows you to keep an eye on who is coming into the call so you (or an assistant) can quickly orient them. It's especially useful for latecomers.

Green Room: Similar to Entryway, the Green Room is for Presenters and Assistants. If enabled, they will automatically join this special breakout group when they dial in, allowing you to talk strategy before and during the call.

Version 0.9 coincides with our move to new servers, so you'll find our conferences are even more stable than before. We're constantly working on improving our service, and welcome any comments or suggestions. See you on a call!

--Brian

We’re now a little more than one week into MaestroMonth (www.maestromonth.com) our month-long festival of inspirational teaching and personal development. We’ve successfully completed more than 20 live teleseminars on our new platform, so we thought it time to ask people to tell us what they think of the MaestroConference.

We conducted a MonkeySurvey poll — and the results are in. We’re really thrilled to announce that they confirm what we hoped: dynamic group interaction between and among a host and his or her attendees adds a vital and energizing dimension to large-audience conference calls.

When we asked attendees of these first MaestroConference workshops to rate their experience, here’s what they told us:
— 90 percent rated MaestroConference a better experience than a traditional teleseminar;
— 86 percent said the interactive breakout groups with other participants enhanced the call;
— 58 percent indicated they would like to participate in other teleseminars that include breakouts.

Breakout groups are what sets MaestroConference apart from ‘traditional’ conference calls. They let attendees interact in small groups to discuss and practice what they’re learning. The breakout groups during Jack Canfield’s call received particular praise from participants. Here’s what some attendees told us:
— “I thought it was fantastic that we paired up and could talk to each other while being on the call!”
— “Having me apply what I was learning as we went, and with a partner, maximized the learning.”
— “I really enjoyed the time I spent talking with someone from the United Kingdom whose son is living nearby in Boston.”
— “This was almost better than being there face-to-face because we didn't have to spend time opening up to someone we didn't know. On the phone is easier than face-to face.”
— “I really appreciated the interactive quality of the event. It was fun, informative and experiential.”'

Want to try it for yourself? Sign up for a MaestroMonth workshop – still lots to choose from: http://www.maestromonth.com

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, today we're turning the page on boring, passive teleseminars and conference calls. Instead, we want people to experience rewarding, interactive learning events during which hosts and attendees can interact with each other. So you might be wondering: “Where/how/when can I experience this?” Well, now you can!

We wanted to showcase what MaestroConference can do – and at the same time put our new conference call platform through its paces, so we asked a few people who know a thing or two about hosting live teleseminars and workshops if they’d like to take it for a spin. Guess what? Everyone we approached said “Let me try it out!”

And the result of this is something pretty amazing. We’re calling it Maestro Month — a celebration of inspirational teaching and personal development. Throughout July, at http://www.maestromonth.com, you'll have direct access to thought leaders such as Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson, Michael Port, John Gray, Neale Donald Walsch, and 60+ more. These free workshops span health, personal growth, business, spirituality and societal change, and are designed inspire you and help you unleash your full potential.

Tomorrow, July 1, 2009, is when we add a distinct kink to the rather straight-line evolution of conference calling technology. As of tomorrow we will launch an event which will highlight the massive shift from "scalable media" to "scalable interaction".

Until now, conference calls have meant one-to-many — a host (or panel) talks and everyone else listens. Sure, guests and participants can be ‘unmuted’ so they can contribute, but that quickly turns to chaos if you switch to an open mike. It’s a fact: the telephone is a pretty lousy way for more than a handful people to interact in any meaningful way. From my perspective, this puts large conference calls in the same class as podcasts, MP3s, YouTube videos, and even radio & television: these are passive media where the audience consumes the media stream. And it's not the best way to learn, inspire, engage, or market. 

I saw the power of interactive learning first-hand when I taught Calculus in graduate school: students who worked together in groups learned and retained far more of the what was being taught, and did many times better in the finals. But the conference calls I’ve sat through over the years have been the opposite of active learning: hundreds of people, completely disconnected from each other, listening to the same speaker, without any way to interact with each other or to discuss and apply what they were learning. At best, people are sitting and listening ... and more realistically, they are checking email or updating their Facebook page during a typical call. They’re not engaged.