ProtonMedia Introduces ProtoSphere 2.0: the Immersive, Social, Learning & Collaboration Software for the Enterprise...
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Mediture and CareKinesis Announce Integration for Improving Medication Management - Mediture is the largest provider of IT solutions to the PACE industry...
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Natural Insight Delivers Retailers Rapid Task Management and Store Communication via the Cicso Cius Business Tablet... View Story
Field Workforce Management: US-UK Distribution Agreement Announced by Natural Insight and CACI Ltd... View Story
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Protosphere Proven to Reduce Costs and Drive Strong ROI in Training and Education Research Associates...
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Study Reveals Increased Gas Cost Drives Workers to Over-Report Mileage...
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NAfME Partners with RightsFlow to Offer LimeLight, an Online Mechanical Licensing Utility, to Member...
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Strong Rebound in Retail Worker Activity Indicated by Natural Insight Company Performance...
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PPD and ProtonMedia Win 2011 Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award...
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ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million in Series B Financing Led by Kaplan Ventures...
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Natural Insight Launches New Android App to Help Companies Verify Jobsite Check-In and Timekeeping for Mobile Workers...
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CareKinesis Declared Enterprise Award Winner, Named '2011 Life Sciences Startup Company...
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Originate Ventures and Emerald Stage2 Ventures Invest in CareKinesis...
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ProtonMedia Named Enterprise Connect's "Innovation Showcase" Winner...
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YouTube Taps RightsFlow for Publishing Rights Management...
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RollStream and Natural Insight Partner to Provide New Supply Chain Management and Execution Capabilities...
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Rhapsody Taps RightsFlow for Licensing and Administration Services...
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ProtonMedia Named "Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace" by Leading Analyst Firm...
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Former MEDRAD Executive Joins ThermalTherapeutic Systems Board of Directors...
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Natural Insight Unveils New "GPS Check-In" iPhone App...
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Matt Bieber Promoted to Principal at Originate Ventures...
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ReadWrite Enterprise declares 'ProtonMedia the most advanced collaboration environment we have seen in the market.' ...
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Muzak Celebrates 75th Anniversary.
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DCIU Selects Nayatek's Datosphere for Integrated Content Archiving & Pro-Active E-Discovery...
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ProtonMedia Takes Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to a New Dimension...
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ProtonMedia Introduces New Blog...
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Natural Insight Announces Merchandising Powerhouse RMP as Newest Client...
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RightsFlow Secures Financing to Expand Service Ensuring U.S. Music Copyright Compliance...
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Natural Insight Expands Management Team with SaaS Veteran Steve Brown...
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Natural Insight to Provide Advanced Workforce Management Solution to Ready Set..
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Profitable ProtonMedia To Grow With Series A...
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Matt Bieber Named To Eastern PA Business Journal's
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South49 Solutions Completes Series A Financing...
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Ben Franklin Venture Idol in its Third Year...
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Nayatek Finalizes Asset Acquisition of BrickSimple Further Strengthening its Development & Technology Capabilities...
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Originate Ventures and Compass Point Receive Innovation Investment Funding from Wall Street West to Establish Open Court…
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Mike Gausling, a Managing Partner of ORIGINATE VENTURES, recently wrote a chapter in Aspatore Books' Inside the Minds series…
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ProtoSphere Proven to Reduce Costs and Drive Strong ROI in Clinical Training and Education Research Associates
PPD, a global contract research organization serving clients in the biopharmaceutical industry, wanted to improve the quality of employee training while reducing travel costs and enhancing collaboration across the company. PPD implemented PPD® 3D, a custom-tailored version of
ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 from Microsoft partner ProtonMedia.
ProtoSphere builds on Microsoft Lync Server 2010 with a virtual space in which users collaborate through the use of three-dimensional avatars. PPD has used
ProtoSphere to boost knowledge retention for trainees, thus making them more effective employees. Reduced travel costs have helped the company recoup its software investment in less than six months. Building on the foundation of
ProtoSphere and Microsoft Lync Server 2010, PPD and ProtonMedia are currently expanding the groundbreaking collaborative experiences into other business processes.
“We expect to pay for our initial investment in ProtoSphere and Lync Server 2010 by the end of 2011—an ROI of about six months.”
Mike Wilkinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, PPD
Situation
PPD is a leading global contract research organization providing drug discovery, development, and lifecycle management services to support its clients in developing medical treatments. The company’s clients and partners include pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic, and government organizations. PPD has offices in 44 countries and more than 11,000 employees worldwide. Its 2010 net revenue was U.S.$1.4 billion. “Pharmaceutical research is a highly regulated environment, so it’s extremely important that our quality is high,” says Mike Wilkinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of PPD. “It’s also a highly competitive environment, which means our performance has to be high. To continuously improve quality and performance, we put a lot of effort into training.”
A major component of PPD training is a 10-day course for new clinical research associates who monitor clinical trials. “We hire experienced monitors, so we’re going beyond the basics to teach them how we do monitoring at PPD,” Wilkinson says. Traditionally, the courses were led by instructors using slides and other media to show the types of activities that clinical research associates perform in their jobs. PPD hires people all around the globe so they can be close to customer and research sites. One drawback of this system was that employees had to travel to a regional hub for training. “Over the course of a year, we paid close to $2 million in travel costs for this training,” Wilkinson says. For years, Wilkinson had been on the lookout for ways to improve PPD training, ideally through a combination of increasing knowledge retention and reducing costs. However, PPD also had wider goals. It was seeking to investigate new methods of collaboration that could improve clinical trials. “The ‘e-clinical’ approach is very hot right now,” Wilkinson says. “Everyone in the industry is seeking to use technology to run trials more quickly, at reduced cost, with reduced burden on the patient and on the site—all while maintaining the highest quality.” In short, PPD was looking for a new collaboration solution that could improve the quality and reduce the costs of training, as well as show promise in providing similar benefits across the company.
Solution
PPD investigated numerous approaches to improving training and collaboration. “We assessed several companies over the years and didn’t see much value, didn’t see good return on investment,” Wilkinson says. “So we kept looking.” In December 2010, PPD learned about a solution called ProtoSphere from ProtonMedia, a Microsoft partner with a Silver Unified Communications competency. ProtoSphere is a virtual collaboration environment in which individuals engage in highly social, interactive, and visually appealing three-dimensional virtual spaces.
ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 enhances the functions of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. “We provide a visual layer and additional integration that help companies take full advantage of the always-on, unified communications benefits of Lync Server 2010,” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtoSphere. For example, ProtoSphere provides text chat, voice over IP, application sharing,
blogs, wikis, and user profiles—but it does so in the context of a networked environment in which each user is represented by a three-dimensional avatar. ProtoSphere shows the avatar moving through space and interacting with people and groups, thus providing a context that helps enrich those interactions.
“We saw great potential in the software, and we had great chemistry with the ProtonMedia leadership team,” Wilkinson says. Furthermore, PPD had just embarked on a partnership with Microsoft and was implementing Lync Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, the Active Directory service, and Microsoft Office 2010. So PPD was impressed that ProtoSphere takes advantage of all these Microsoft technologies—technologies that PPD was already familiar with. In March 2011, PPD signed a partnership deal with ProtonMedia that called for PPD to implement a customized version of ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010—named PPD® 3D—and for the two companies to work together to develop e-clinical initiatives. PPD spent three months tailoring the software to its business processes and executed its first PPD 3D training session in June. The primary integration involved reconfiguring the traditional PPD training for a virtual environment. “We didn’t have to do much from the technology perspective,” Wilkinson says. “But you don’t want to take a paper-based training methodology and run it virtually. So we restructured the content and format to take advantage of virtual delivery.” For example, PPD reduced its reliance on slideshows and provided more activities mimicking those that employees perform in their jobs. At PPD, Lync Server 2010 and PPD 3D run on virtualized HP ProLiant DL580 server computers. As of September 2011, three PPD 3D training courses have been completed. In the second phase of the project, PPD and ProtonMedia are exploring e-clinical initiatives that take advantage of the ProtoSphere and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 infrastructure.
Benefits
PPD has used ProtoSphere and Lync Server 2010 to improve trainee engagement, reduce costs, and achieve a six-month ROI. The solution has also given the company a lot of potential to explore new groundbreaking opportunities it can offer its customers using the same infrastructure.
Improved Trainee Engagement
PPD is using the rich virtual environment of ProtoSphere to improve the performance of employees in its training programs. “They’re more engaged because the software is fun,” Wilkinson says. “For example, a huge advantage over standard distance-learning solutions is that in ProtoSphere it’s easy to break people into private conversation circles and then reconvene a larger group. Trainers love to break people into small groups, and we couldn’t do this with any other solution.”
Furthermore, ProtoSphere helps trainees continually pay attention. “In the past, it was easy for a trainee to disengage from the constant barrage of slides and pure classroom time,” Wilkinson says. “But now they spend less time in the classroom and more time with activities. They can do virtual monitoring with virtual instructors looking over their shoulders.” In post-training surveys, participants gave the virtual course higher scores than the face-to-face course for relevance, comprehensiveness, and learning outcomes. The increased engagement means that employees can get more value out of the training, reaching a richer understanding of PPD procedures. Wilkinson says, “In coming years, we expect ProtoSphere to improve our employees’ performance, resulting in a more effective company.”
ROI of Six Months
In the first three months with ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010, PPD drastically reduced travel costs. “There are some cases where we want less-experienced employees to have face-to-face time with their managers,” Wilkinson says. “But in most cases we are able to eliminate our training travel costs.” Furthermore, ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 represents a low cost of entry to a collaboration solution for PPD. It costs less than videoconferencing solutions, which require cameras. And although PPD 3D is a customized version of ProtoSphere, it required little development time or cost. “We used mostly out-of-the-box functionality,” Wilkinson says. The result is an extraordinary return on investment. “We expect to pay for our initial investment in ProtoSphere and Lync Server 2010 by the end of 2011—an ROI of about six months,” Wilkinson says.
Competitive Differentiation Through Expanded Services
PPD is eager to use ProtonMedia and osoft technologies in other areas of the company. “The training piece is extremely important to us, but we also used it to bring this software into the company,” Wilkinson says. “We have all kinds of opportunities throughout our business to have teams meet virtually instead of over the phone or via traditional online conferencing.” One advantage of such virtual meetings is that documents or presentations that were shared in the meeting stay in the virtual room. “If you missed a teleconference, you don’t have to wait for the minutes to come out,” Wilkinson says. “You can go into the room and everything is still there. The event has persistence.” PPD plans to take advantage of these opportunities not only within the company, but also with external partners. Many of the company’s partners in clinical trials use Microsoft technologies. Thus PPD plans to use Lync Server 2010 to federate with these trusted partners. Federation makes it possible for organizations to communicate in real time in an encrypted, authenticated, and managed environment. With federation and ProtoSphere, Wilkinson hopes to achieve the dual benefits of improved performance and lower costs. “Federation could be a game-changer for us,” he says. Wilkinson hopes that these collaborative e-clinical initiatives will result in improved competitive advantage for PPD. “With ProtonMedia and Microsoft, we can differentiate our services for our customers, showing that we can achieve better results more quickly, and at lower cost than our competitors.”
Study Reveals Increased Gas Cost Drives Workers to Over-Report Mileage
Natural Insight Study Demonstrates Correlation Between Gas Costs and Expense Reporting
STERLING, VA, October 04, 2011 - In a recent study, Natural Insight, a retail technology company engaged in workforce management, revealed a startling correlation between the over-reporting of worker mileage in expense reports with the rising cost of gasoline.
Using a statistically-valid sample of data over a six-month period, over-reporting of mileage for expense reports rose to 32% at the peak of gas prices and was still over-reported at 18% during the lowest period. This proportional correlation during periods where gas costs ebb and flow leads one to believe that workers attempt to recoup increasing gasoline costs via over-reporting of mileage in expense reports, since most corporate reimbursement policies are set on a fixed cost per mile.
"While businesses are supportive of proper worker expense compensation, over-reporting on expense reports is more common than we expected to see and certainly presents a large opportunity for cost reduction if properly identified. Accuracy in reporting of mileage is the issue here. As actual fuel costs rise and fall, corporate reimbursement rates can work for and against the worker since guidelines are typically set on an annual basis," said Stefan Midford, President and CEO of Natural Insight. “One of the benefits of our technology is that it can compute accurate mileage data automatically, making it a friend to company and worker alike.”
As businesses are aware, the cost of expense reimbursement for mileage is a significant factor in profitability. Seemingly minor improvements in reporting can generate huge cost recapture. Large retailers represented among Natural Insight’s customer base have expressed the high priority for tools to ensure accurate monitoring of such costs among their workforce.
The study ran from January 1 through mid-July of this year and draws upon a statistically-valid sample of over 2,000 days’ worth of individual worker data. In multiple examples, increases and decreases in fuel costs of up to $0.39 were matched by the incidence of over-reporting percentage in a nearly identical range. On average, over-reporting of mileage ran at 24% throughout the study period.
The company’s technology platform is used by leading retail organizations to manage tens of millions of points of data regarding daily workforce verification, accountability and accuracy.
About Natural Insight
Natural Insight is a retail technology company providing an innovative, cloud-based platform that significantly improves sales, reduces overhead and provides real-time workforce activity feedback. Through an integrated suite of solutions focused on task management, scheduling, data reporting and timekeeping, managers are empowered to coordinate a larger number of workers with significantly less effort. Rapid work verification, improved accountability and increased accuracy are all benefits the Natural Insight platform. Organizations gain a newfound ability to make superior business decisions with the confidence of in-store execution intelligence. Visit naturalinsight.com.
Contacts:
Christina Westover, Manager Marketing & Communications, Natural Insight
800.581.2141 x75
cwestover@naturalinsight.com
NAfME Partners with RightsFlow to Offer LimeLight, an Online Mechanical Licensing Utility, to Member
Initiative to Provide Members with Mechanical Licensing Support, Affiliate Opportunities, and Educational Resources
NEW YORK, NY September 7, 2011 - RightsFlow, a technology-enabled licensing and royalty service provider, announced a partnership today with The National Association for Music Education (NAfME), one of the world’s largest arts education organizations. RightsFlow’s online mechanical licensing utility, Limelight, will now be offered to NAfME educator and student members as a simple method to clear cover songs for their physical, digital, ringtone and interactive streaming usage.
As significant numbers of student performances are being recorded for various uses, educators must be aware of both licensing responsibilities and solutions. NAfME’s membership will be invited to use and share the Limelight utility for their mechanical licensing needs for recordings. Participating members will be able to take advantage of educational resources and affiliate benefits that will be a result of the partnership.
“We continue to embrace partnerships that enhance the process to record and share the music being performed by our students,” commented Mike Blakeslee, Chief Operating Officer of NAfME. “Limelight is a simple tool that ensures copyright compliance for our membership while also delivering royalty revenues to songwriters and publishers globally.”
Added Patrick Sullivan, RightsFlow President/CEO, “We’re excited to be working with NAfME, an esteemed organization with a great track record of success on their mission to build balanced, comprehensive, quality programs for music instruction at all levels of education. We’re proud to support educators and students nationwide with a service that makes it simple for them to record and release their music for keepsakes, fundraisers or any other use.”
Limelight has experienced rapid growth and substantial global adoption by tens of thousands of users in all 50 states and 96 countries. The service allows users to obtain licenses for physical releases, digital downloads, ringtones and interactive streaming use, reducing the complexity of licensing, and offers several key features including licenses that don't expire, competitive fees, and coverage of 100% of the publishing market.
About NAfME
www.nafme.org
National Association for Music Education (formerly MENC), among the world’s largest arts education organizations, is the only association that addresses all aspects of music education. Through membership of more than 75,000 active, retired, and preservice music teachers, and with 60,000 honor students and supporters, NAfME serves millions of students nationwide through activities at all teaching levels, from preschool to graduate school. NAfME’s mission is to advance music education by encouraging the study and making of music by all.
About RightsFlow
www.rightsflow.com
RightsFlow is a leading technology-enabled licensing and royalty service provider for artists, record labels, distributors, and online musiccompanies. Our technology powers rapid song identification and provides an unprecedented level of transparency for both licensees and licensors. RightsFlow specializes in obtaining bulk physical, DPD, and ringtone licenses including streaming, tethered, and limited download rights. Our proprietary “FLOW” licensing technology and 30-million song database allow us to serve over 16,000 clients obtaining licenses from publishers and songwriters all over the world – including major, independent and artist controlled works.
RightsFlow also powers:
Limelight (www.songclearance.com), its online mechanical licensing utility providing the simplest way for musicians, bands, choirs and labels to clear any cover song
MySpark Copyright (www.mysparkcopyright.com), the right way to register and protect your intellectual property; simplifying copyright registration for content owners and creators.
Clients include YouTube, Rhapsody, Clear Channel, Muzak, The Orchard, INgrooves, Wolfgang’s Vault, Thumbplay, Guvera, Dada Entertainment/Play.ME, Scattertunes, [PIAS], Alliance, Kontor New Media, Beatport, Zebralution, E1Canada, CD Baby, Disc Makers, Qello, REBEAT, & X5 Music Group.
RightsFlow is a member of AIM, A2IM, ASCAP, Chorus America, DDEX, DiMA, MEIEA, MENC, NAB, NAMM, and NARM.
RightsFlow is headquartered in NYC and has offices in San Francisco and Atlanta.
Strong Rebound in Retail Worker Activity Indicated by Natural Insight Company Performance
Workforce Management Firm Sees 26% Activity Growth During Q2, Sets New Revenue Record
STERLING, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- As an indicator of retail workforce health, Natural Insight, a private company and a cloud-based platform provider of advanced solutions for real-time task management and workforce optimization, today announced results that indicate a surge in retail workforce activity in North America. This growth drove company performance to record results for its second quarter ending June 30, 2011.
The Natural Insight technology platform manages the activities of distributed retail workforces engaged in supporting in-store operations and thereby serves as an ideal indicator of trends supporting the movement of product to market. Working with a significant sample size, year-to-date the company has managed over 1.6 million work assignments while capturing over 43 million data points on retail execution. Additionally, Natural Insight has captured over 700,000 photos of in-store conditions.
Natural Insight business highlights for the period ending June 30, 2011 include:
● Managed workforce activity up 26% over prior year
● Natural Insight users increased 30% over prior year
● Record revenues driving sequential Q1/Q2 growth of 12%
● Customer renewal rate of 100%
● International expansion, including French and Spanish capabilities
● Launch of NI WorkTrak for SmartPhones, a new Android app for assignment tracking
"Despite pervasive discussion about the weak economy, all Natural Insight customers are citing substantial growth in retail activity, and this is carrying through to our company performance," said Stefan Midford, President and CEO of Natural Insight. “While we can't take all the credit for the growth of our clients, there are specific capabilities of the Natural Insight platform that drive success.”
About Natural Insight / www.naturalinsight.com
Natural Insight, a cloud-based platform that improves an organization’s ability to make superior business decisions, provides real-time task management capabilities with extensive tools for workforce communication and remote data collection. The company’s solution enables Execution Intelligence that can dramatically reduce costs, accelerate speed-to-market and maximize performance. Natural Insight customers experience rapid work verification, improved accountability and increased accuracy that empowers managers to coordinate the activities of a larger number of workers with significantly less effort.
Contacts
Natural Insight
Christina Westover, Manager Marketing & Communications
800-581-2141 x75
cwestover@naturalinsight.com
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PPD and ProtonMedia Win 2011 Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award
June 22, 2011 – Microsoft Corp. has named PPD, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPDI) and ProtonMedia winners of a Microsoft 2011 Life Sciences Innovation Award, recognizing their innovative use of ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere in creating PPD® 3D. The virtual, collaborative environment improves the cost-effectiveness, speed and quality of clinical trial training for life sciences organizations developing new medicines for people in need.
The Microsoft awards, announced at the Drug Information Association’s (DIA) 47th annual meeting in Chicago, honor companies using Microsoft solutions to realize business and information technology benefits. This year’s winners are revolutionizing medicine by bringing therapeutic breakthroughs to the market faster, to fight serious ailments, improve healthcare and enhance people’s quality of life.
“The life sciences industry is uniquely positioned with many new challenges, and pressure is stronger than ever to cut costs and bring new drugs and therapies to market faster,” said Michael Naimoli, worldwide managing director, Life Sciences, Microsoft Corp. “Each year, we are impressed with how the winners demonstrate sustainable impacts through technology, and are proud that Microsoft’s software platforms play an important role in enabling these achievements in life sciences.”
PPD collaborated with ProtonMedia to develop PPD 3D by integrating ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere, a virtual collaboration environment, with PPD® Adaptive Solutions, the innovative suite of data, technology and performance and solutions. PPD 3D empowers PPD clinical research team members to meet remotely with each other and sponsors and to engage in highly social, interactive and visually appealing 3-D virtual spaces. Users can talk, send instant messages, view and interact with presentation and media content, record notes, and access the web – all at the same time, from anywhere.
This marks the second consecutive year Microsoft has recognized ProtonMedia for its innovative solutions in the life sciences industry. Microsoft named Merck and ProtonMedia winners of the company’s Life Sciences Innovation Awards 2010 for Merck’s industry-first scientific poster session held in ProtoSphere.
“Our joint development with PPD is testament to the power of using Microsoft’s technology as the backbone to combine PPD’s data and information platform with a virtual collaboration environment like ProtoSphere to deliver a positive impact to the life sciences industry,” said Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “Our solution shows how life sciences companies can maximize their Microsoft investment, while achieving measurable improvements in their clinical trial training processes and results. We thank Microsoft for recognizing our work with PPD and the value of ProtoSphere in the life sciences industry.”
“PPD 3D improves the way we train clinical research associates to monitor clinical trials, which is vital for enhancing the quality of site management and clinical monitoring for our clients’ research programs,” said Mike Wilkinson, Ph.D., PPD executive vice president and chief information officer. “We are honored that Microsoft, whose technologies are ubiquitous in the life sciences industry, would recognize the results of our collaboration with ProtonMedia, the ideal virtual collaboration technology provider.”
ProtonMedia is a Microsoft Life Sciences partner, and its ProtoSphere technology is the #1 virtual collaboration environment in life sciences today. ProtonMedia is also the first and only virtual immersive environment software provider to achieve Microsoft’s Silver Unified Communications competency. ProtoSphere is the only virtual collaboration environment built entirely with Microsoft technology, and integrates with Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint, The Microsoft Office Suite, and Microsoft Active Directory.
Microsoft award participants consisted of worldwide life sciences corporations in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies that are innovatively applying technology to create therapeutic innovations. Winners were selected by an esteemed panel of industry experts and will be highlighted on the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/lifesciences and on the Microsoft in Health blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_in_health/.
ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million in Series B Financing Led by Kaplan Ventures
Kaplan EduNeering concurrently forms strategic reseller partnership with ProtonMedia
LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)—June 20, 2011, ProtonMedia today announced the successful completion of a $4.5 million Series B venture financing led by Kaplan Ventures. ProtonMedia will use the funds to extend its leadership position within life sciences by further integrating its ProtoSphere virtual collaboration environment with ComplianceWire®, Kaplan EduNeering’s validated cloud-based learning management system.
Life sciences and other highly regulated companies use ProtoSphere to create engaging environments that measurably improve the productivity and organizational effectiveness of globally dispersed teams. Kaplan EduNeering is one of the leading providers of technology-enabled compliance training in the market today. “ProtoSphere is powerful online business software that improves learning and retention of business-critical information, all at a lower cost,” said Jason Palmer, Senior Vice President of Kaplan Ventures. “We believe it is poised to be a game-changing technology for delivering solutions that help companies make better decisions and improve business performance through enhanced corporate collaboration.”
ProtonMedia will use the additional capital to expand its marketing and sales programs and launch ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2.0, the company’s second-generation virtual collaboration environment that uses Microsoft’s Lync unified communications and collaboration technology.
As part of the financing, Kaplan EduNeering will become a strategic reseller of ProtonMedia products to its customers and vertical markets. ProtonMedia and Kaplan EduNeering have had a partnership for the past 18 months. During this time, the companies completed first-level product integration between ProtoSphere and ComplianceWire.
Lisa Clune, Kaplan EduNeering’s President, will join ProtonMedia’s board of directors. “ComplianceWire and ProtoSphere are a natural fit to create an engaging learning environment for life sciences companies and other organizations in highly regulated industries,” said Clune.
Additional venture investors participating in the Series B financing include Originate Ventures, Bethlehem, Pa.; and Osage Venture Partners, Bala Cynwyd, Pa., both of whom also participated in ProtonMedia’s $2.5 million Series A financing. This brings the total investment in the company to $7 million.
“With the economy still reeling from the financial crisis, we see large enterprise customers closing physical facilities and dedicating more effort to creating a virtual work environment,” said Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “ProtoSphere’s unique ability to provide an engaging, cost-effective virtual workspace, where collaboration and learning come together, positions ProtonMedia for rapid growth in the years ahead. We’re pleased to complete this second round of funding as we continue to work with our advisors and partners to build out this exciting, new market.”
ABOUT PROTONMEDIA
ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative PLM in life sciences. ProtoSphere’s virtual environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.
ABOUT KAPLAN
Kaplan, Inc. (www.kaplan.com) is a leading international provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Kaplan serves students of all ages through a wide array of offerings including higher education, test preparation, professional training and programs for kids and schools with operations in more than 30 countries. Kaplan is the largest division of The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO).
Kaplan Ventures (www.kaplanventures.com) is a division of Kaplan, Inc., that invests in, develops, and grows innovative companies at the intersection of education, technology and compliance. Kaplan EduNeering (www.kaplaneduneering.com), a Kaplan Ventures business, develops technology-enabled knowledge solutions for assuring regulatory compliance and improving business performance.
Contacts
Natural Insight Launches New Android App to Help Companies Verify Jobsite Check-In and Timekeeping for Mobile Workers
NI WorkTrak Provides GPS-Verified Confirmation of Assignment Location Check-In, Travel Time and Onsite Timekeeping
May 10, 2011 - STERLING, Va – Natural Insight, a cloud-based platform provider of advanced solutions for real-time task management and workforce optimization, is today introducing NI WorkTrak, an Android-based Smartphone app for field worker reporting. With simple intuitive prompts, workers can now quickly and accurately record travel time as well as jobsite check-in, assignment verification, and timekeeping.
The new mobile reporting is tightly linked to the Natural Insight platform and provides supervisors with alerts when a worker fails to arrive on time or attempts to check-in when not at the correct job location. Workers are able to review task assignment summary information to ensure completion of the correct work in addition to providing GPS verified check-in, automated travel time reporting and jobsite timekeeping. NI WorkTrak increases reporting accuracy and reduces the opportunity for worker fraud.
“Natural Insight clients expect us to help them improve the bottom line while they focus on growing their business,” said Stefan Midford, President and CEO of Natural Insight. “This is another example of a true partnership where everyone wins.”
With hundreds of thousands of worker assignments tracked every month, Natural Insight has seen an increased demand for simple solutions that assist workers while also providing a level of validation for employers. With NI WorkTrak, field workers can simply download the app from the Android Market and in minutes are able to take advantage of the new Smartphone reporting features. With the continued improvement in the economy, companies are looking to improve service while also controlling expenses. The GPS validation included in NI WorkTrak reduces worker fraud while improving the accuracy of timekeeping, providing potential payroll savings of millions of dollars for large companies while simultaneously improving service quality.
“The ability to easily access and download an app like NI WorkTrak is changing the game for companies with a field workforce,” said Eric Pfleckl, VP of Technical Services at Natural Insight. “With full integration to the Natural Insight cloud-based platform, companies now have complete confidence in the reported information and workers can improve accuracy while saving time.”
About Natural Insight
Natural Insight, a cloud-based platform that improves an organization’s ability to make superior business decisions, provides real-time task management capabilities with extensive tools for workforce communication and remote data collection. The company’s solution enables Execution Intelligence that can dramatically reduce costs, accelerate speed-to-market and maximize performance. Natural Insight customers experience rapid work verification, improved accountability and increased accuracy that empowers managers to coordinate the activities of a larger number of workers with significantly less effort.
Contact
Christina Westover, Manager Marketing & Communications
800-581-2141 x75
cwestover@naturalinsight.com
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CareKinesis Declared Enterprise Awared Winner, Named '2011 Life Sciences Startup Company'
MOORESTOWN, NJ, May 5, 2011 – CareKinesis, Inc. moved from finalist to winner of the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) Enterprise Awards at a gala celebration held May 4, 2011 at the Philadelphia Hilton Hotel City Line. Named the 2011 Life Sciences Startup Company, CareKinesis won recognition for its product and service innovation, including market need and potential for significant growth; its management team ability and record of achieving success; its demonstration of success, such as significant milestones and raising capital, and its R&D investment strategy. Companies in the Start-up category must have operating results of three years or less.
CareKinesis is a new breed medication management company that aims to personalize the medication selection process and customize adherence packaging of medication for high risk populations, such as seniors and behavioral health patients. "We optimize pharmacotherapy outcomes for individuals with complex medication needs", said Calvin H. Knowlton, BSPharm, MDiv, PhD, CareKinesis Chairman and CEO, in a video prepared for the program. "We partner with organizations that are clinically and economically responsible for persons taking many medications by applying novel medication therapy management strategies such as pharmacogenomics."
Knowlton thanked the company's trusted advisor and lawyer, Stephen M. Goodman, who received the 2011 Legend Award for Lifetime Achievement, two investors who were present for the Award announcement, Glen Bressner of Originate Ventures and Bruce Luehrs, Emerald Stage2 Ventures, and the extraordinary CareKinesis Team.
CareKinesis recently announced it had closed a second round of financing from Originate Ventures and Emerald Stage2 Ventures bringing the total investment by these firms to $3 million. Additional substantial funding also has been provided by the founders and angel investors to fund the growth of this medication management and adherence packaging pacesetter. Proceeds from the investments will expand development, equipment purchasing, sales and marketing.
CareKinesis offerings include a Medication Care Plan Support Center, a Medication Adherence Packaging Center which delivers individually customized medicine via the only such robotic technology currently in the U.S., and a proprietary electronic medication therapy management/ reporting cloud-computing platform, EireneRx™, that is agile and scalable.
About CareKinesis
CareKinesis partners with healthcare organizations to provide personalized medication therapy management and pharmacy services for high-risk populations. The results are enhanced medication-related outcomes and greater operational efficiency.
Originate Ventures and Emerald Stage2 Ventures Invest in CareKinesis:
The Medication Management and Personalized Medicine Pacesetter
Rapidly-growing personalized medication selection and customized adherence packaging provider closes growth equity financing
MOORESTOWN, NJ, April 2011 – CareKinesis, Inc. announced it has closed a second round of financing from Originate Ventures and Emerald Stage2 Ventures bringing the total investment by these firms to $3 million. Additional substantial funding also has been provided by the founders and angel investors to fund the growth of the medication management and adherence packaging leader. Proceeds will expand development, equipment purchasing, sales and marketing.
CareKinesis is a new breed medication management company that aims to personalize the medication selection process and customize adherence packaging of medication for high risk populations, such as seniors and behavioral health patients. “We optimize pharmacotherapy outcomes for individuals with complex medication needs,” says Calvin H. Knowlton, BSPharm, MDiv, PhD, CareKinesis Chairman and CEO. “We partner with organizations that are clinically and economically responsible for persons taking many medications.”
CareKinesis offerings include a Medication Care Plan Support Center, a Medication Adherence Packaging Center which delivers individually customized medicine via the only such robotic technology currently in the U.S., and a proprietary electronic medication therapy management/reporting cloud-computing platform, EireneRx™, which is agile and scalable.
“CareKinesis decreases medication-related risk, enhances quality of care and provides greater operational efficiency for healthcare provider clients. That is what caught our interest,” explained Originate Ventures Managing Partner, Glen R. Bressner. Originate is a venture capital firm targeting early stage companies in the Philadelphia and Mid-Atlantic region.
“We were impressed with the expertise and track record of the innovative, dedicated founders of CareKinesis,” said Bruce Luehrs, Partner, Emerald Stage2 Ventures, a Philadelphia-based early stage venture fund focused on capital efficient technology companies that are at the forefront of innovation. One of the primary focuses of the Fund is pharmaceutical information technology. “CareKinesis leadership, management and software development team members have been working together in healthcare companies for over 25 years. Clients praise CareKinesis’ for enhancing its participants’ medication service with unique quality and sophistication leading to enhanced efficiency and cost savings,” added Bressner.
“Emerald Stage2 and Originate bring a reputation for accelerating growth through strategic guidance and experience in the healthcare information technology market. Their value-added services will be instrumental to our success,” stated CareKinesis CEO, Calvin Knowlton.
About CareKinesis - CareKinesis partners with healthcare organizations to provide personalized medication therapy management and pharmacy services for high-risk populations. The results are enhanced medication-related outcomes and greater operational efficiency.
About Emerald Stage2 Ventures - Emerald Stage2 is a Philadelphia-area venture fund that invests in small financing rounds of early stage information technology companies that utilize emerging technologies to create compelling business opportunities. The Fund invests across the information technology spectrum and has a primary focus on the Technology-Enabled Services area. The Fund's verticals of interest include healthcare and pharmaceutical information technology, financial services information technology and outsourced business services.
Contact:
CareKinesis, Inc.
Dianne L. Semingson Orsula V. Knowlton, PharmD, President
semingsond@erols.com oknowlton@carekinesis.com
T: 215-870-0829 T: 856-273-7534
ProtonMedia and PPD to Introduce New Virtual Clinical Trial Training Solution
PPD will showcase ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere at the 20th Annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials Conference on March 30-April 1
L
ANSDALE, Pa., and WILMINGTON, N.C.—March 30, 2011—ProtonMedia and PPD, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPDI) today announced they have entered into an agreement to jointly develop a new virtual clinical trial training solution that will improve the cost effectiveness, speed and quality of clinical trial training for life sciences organizations.
The solution will integrate ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere virtual collaboration environment with PPD® Adaptive Solutions, PPD’s innovative suite of data and information technology solutions. The combination will be a virtual collaborative environment built around PPD’s customizable, flexible and integrated technology solutions to advance clinical research programs. PPD will showcase ProtoSphere to its client base at the 20th Annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials conference being held March 30 to April 1 in Phoenix, Ariz.
“A crucial step to enhancing the quality of site management and clinical monitoring is to improve the way we train clinical research associates to monitor clinical trials,” said Mike Wilkinson, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief information officer for PPD. “ProtonMedia is the ideal virtual collaboration technology provider because of ProtoSphere’s strong ability to integrate rapidly with our solutions, and ProtonMedia’s commitment to Microsoft Corp. technologies, which are pervasive across life sciences companies today.”
ProtoSphere is the only virtual collaboration environment built with Microsoft technology and is one of the leading virtual collaboration environments in the area of life sciences.
“Nearly every life sciences organization is re-evaluating their clinical trial training processes, looking for better ways to reduce costs and meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements,” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia. “Working with PPD, we will be able to help address some of these tremendous pain points facing the life sciences industry.”
“This partnership between ProtonMedia and PPD is an example of two organizations coming together in a way that has great synergy for Microsoft’s Life Sciences customers,” says
Les Jordan, chief technology strategist, Microsoft Life Sciences. “The integration of ProtoSphere and PPD Adaptive Solutions will help to deliver a positive impact to life sciences organizations seeking to create a more
collaborative and cost-effective R&D framework.”
Conference participants can visit PPD at Booth No. 601 for a demonstration of ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere clinical trial training solution.
ABOUT PROTONMEDIA - ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative PLM in life sciences. ProtoSphere’s virtual environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.
ABOUT PPD - PPD is a leading global contract research organization providing drug discovery, development and lifecycle management services. Our clients and partners include pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic and government organizations. With offices in 44 countries and more than 11,000 professionals worldwide, PPD applies innovative technologies, therapeutic expertise and a commitment to quality to help clients and partners accelerate the delivery of safe and effective therapeutics and maximize the returns on their R&D investments. For more information, visit www.ppdi.com.
PROTONMEDIA NAMED ENTERPRISE CONNECT'S 'INNOVATION SHOWCASE' WINNER
Enterprise Connect: Innovation Showcase Winner ProtonMedia Impresses with Virtual Collaboration (click below for InsideCTI story)
May 2, 2011 -
This year the folks at Enterprise Connect decided to pilot a new program called the Innovation Showcase, hosted by Pin Drop Soup‘s Dave Michels, to feature young companies with actual customers in the enterprise communication space. ProtonMedia was one of the winners and got to exhibit at the show, along with three other peers. Unfortunately, these four innovative companies got stuck in booths toward the back corner of the exhibit floor.Ahem, that’s no way to treat these entrepreneurs, especially when the goal of the new program is to attract more young companies to the show. Hopefully next year’s winners (if the Showcase is to become a regular part of future shows) will be treated with much better booth locales. But thanks to the debut of Innovative Showcase, I got to learn about and see in action the ProtonMedia ProtoSphere. CEO Ron Burns had fascinating insights into virtual environments and their impact on productivity. His take on the market place trend is unique because of years of experience after ProtonMedia started out as an e-learning software firm. Yes, e-learning. Not very exciting considering most other Enterprise Connect exhibitors started out straight into the red hot tech/telecom sector.
Burns shared that because of the company’s e-learning roots, he and his team of engineers understood very well the use of computer-generated environments on human knowledge transfer and productivity. He’s not a believer in the “video is the new voice” gospel. Even if over 50% of Internet traffic is video, how much is actually in the work setting? (Personally, I would Skype with my parents more often than Skype with my colleagues.) In fact, it took several years to develop ProtoSphere and through real-life use cases the company discovered that lots of people aren’t comfortable with workplace video for a variety of reasons.
Yes, read that last sentence again. Avaya, Cisco, Polycom, Skype, etc. are almost fanatical in hammering into our heads the idea that video is going to take over enterprise communications. Just look at their demos and brochures. But if you’re a teleworker, how many times do you wake up and go to work in your homey (ahem, pajamas) clothes? With messy hair, unshaven face? No makeup? You can still be a productive employee, but you’re not a productive employee that looks pretty. And getting on a video conference would certainly ruin your day. Or if you have a video conference with a supervisor or executive. You get all dressed up ready for the video, but when the session starts you find yourself a bit intimidated. It’s human nature. It happens all the time in face-to-face interactions.
That’s why ProtonMedia has already signed up high-profile customers such as AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bristol-Squibb, American Express, BP, Chevron, Duke University, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. These companies use ProtoSphere a lot in R&D and life sciences collaboration. Users have said that avatars give a much more personable interaction and unsurprisingly, the virtual environment made collaboration a lot of fun. It’s like Sims for the workplace.
Previously I only knew of Avaya web.alive in this niche. Avaya, of course, is trying to sell you their gear. ProtoSphere, on the other hand, is all software based on Microsoft technology and seamlessly extends the typical Active Directory, SharePoint, OCS, and Office into the virtual realm. With the debut of the Innovation Showcase, the spotlight over Avaya web.alive just dimmed a little bit. It will be very interesting to see where Avaya takes web.alive (bullish on video or avatars?), but for ProtonMedia it’s clear video will take a back seat.
YOUTUBE TAPS RIGHTSFLOW FOR PUBLISHING RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
New York, NY (February 10, 2011) – RightsFlow today announced an agreement with YouTube to assist with music rights management. The de