Posts Tagged ‘conferencing’

5 tools for desktop conferencing

Have weather delays and shifting flight security policies got you yearning for less business travel? Or are you hoping to work from home a little more often? The next time you’re in charge of a meeting, why not give desktop conferencing a try? Desktop conferencing is like video conferencing, but the focus is on a computer screen (as opposed to participants’ smiling mugs). Desktop conferencing is a great tool for doing software demonstrations, giving a presentation with visuals, or collaborating live on a document–all over a distance.

Here are five desktop conferencing packages designed for one-on-one or small meetings–not an exhaustive, but good starting points. Note that it’s pretty much a given that desktop conferencing requires a broadband Internet connection. This will likely leave dialup and satellite folks out for the moment, though compression technology continues to improve.

1. Skype

By now you’re likely aware of Skype, a free and easy-to-use communication tool that lets you make voice, video and text calls to other Skype users around the world. Skype also lets you share your computer screen with a collaborator–just make sure you’ve downloaded the latest version of Skype, then make a Skype call as you normally would. When you’re ready to share your screen, click the Share button in the call window toolbar. Learn more at Skype’s website.

2. iChat

If you need to share with more people (say, up to three) and have the bandwidth to do it, and you and your collaborators have Macs, then screen sharing in iChat is the way to go. This feature was introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) so your older Mac may not be able to do it unless you’ve updated the operating system. iChat is what the Stratepedia team uses for remote collaboration–Amber and I probably share screens at least once a week when one or both of us are working out of our homes. To share your screen, select the people you want to share with in your buddies list and click the screen sharing button at the bottom right of the window. This tutorial shows how it works in OS X 10.5; it works the same way in 10.6.

3. Dimdim Free

In addition to their for-pay desktop conferencing systems, Dimdim also offers a free version that can handle basic events for up to 20 participants. Everything is web-based, so nobody needs to download any extra software to present or participate.

If you have the server space, bandwidth, and a good system administrator, you can also host your own Dimdim conferencing server using their open source edition.

4. Zoho Meeting

The Zoho suite, an online alternative to Microsoft Office or Google Docs, includes Zoho Meeting for desktop conferencing. The free version allows you to conference with one person; for-pay version add capacity. A particularly interesting feature is the ability to embed your meeting inside another website, meaning you can host your conference from the site of your choice as opposed to sending people to an obtuse web address.

5. YuuGuu

Finally, there’s the oddly-named YuuGuu. Its biggest selling point is easy integration with other communication tools such as Skype. YuuGuu’s free option lets you share your screen with up to four other participants (or a theoretically unlimited number of YuuGuu users). Pay plans add features, capacity, and support. YuuGuu works on Macs, Windows, and Linux computers.

Need more?

For larger groups, you’ll probably need to consider a more robust desktop conferencing solution. Options include Adobe Connect Professional (what Stratepedia and CRL use for webcasts), WebEx, DimDim Pro, and GoToMeeting, among others. Although these options come with a price tag, when you consider the savings in travel costs involved with getting a large group of people in a central location you may well come out ahead.

Photo: bmhkim on Flickr

By Aaron | January 8th, 2010 | Comments

Skype 4.0 beta focuses on video conferencing

Skype, the popular conferencing application that lets you conference with others for free, has received an overhaul in version 4.0. A beta version was released yesterday. While in the past the interface has focused on making audio calls as easy as possible, this version shifts that focus to video calls.

Unfortunately, the beta is available for Windows only–Mac versions of Skype tend to lag. I’ll fire up my Windows partition sometime today to give this a try myself, but for now, if you use Windows (2000 or XP listed on the site; not sure about Vista support) download the Skype 4.0 Beta and give it a try.

If you’ve never used Skype before you’ll need to create an account–it’s free and painless. Computer-to-computer calls are free (the person you’re calling must also be a Skype user). You can also call to or from traditional telephone numbers through add-on services.

By Aaron | June 18th, 2008 | Comments

Recap of Friday’s teleconversation with Dan Pink

Last Friday, I sat in on a conference call with Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need, and Free Agent Nation. The call–or “teleconversation,” as it was billed, was hosted by a started called Learn From My Life. (I plugged the event a few weeks ago.)

Participation required no special technology–I registered for the call on Learn From My Life’s website, and called in just as I would with a regular conference call. (Note that the call is not free, so be sure to call from a line with unlimited long distance or be prepared to pay for about a 60-minute call.) Things got up and running quickly, with a representative from Learn From My Life making introductions and then moving on to the conversation.

Participants’ phones are muted through most of the call, as the moderator asks questions that were posed on the web, through e-mail, or on Skype. A few times over the course of the hour, though, the lines were unmuted and individual participants were able to ask questions. I thought this would lead to much confusion, but it was actually quite orderly. This may have been my favorite feature of the service. It helped make the overall experience much more personal (it helps that Mr. Pink was excellent at remembering individuals’ names and addressing their questions almost like it was a one-on-one consultation).

As the hour came to a close, and it was apparent that there were many more questions than there was time to answer them, the moderator and Mr. Pink brainstormed ways to keep the conversation going. (This, in my opinion, is a key part of a live event such as this–use the event as a starting point, but give participants the tools to keep talking after their time together has come to an end.) The result this time is that Learn From My Life is going to collect additional questions and send the aggregation on to Mr. Pink for him to answer on his own blog. I think as everyone gets more comfortable with this method of talking, these tools will be part of the system.

. . .

This morning (the following Monday) I received a thank you e-mail from Learn From My Life, with a link to a feedback survey and the link to the audio archive. I highly recommend giving it a listen, especially if you’re interested in whole-brain thinking or need some career advice from a Japanese fairy.

Learn From My Life is a neat experience. I was talking with Don about it for a few minutes on Friday afternoon, and told him that, to me anyway, it was the next best thing to getting to attend a Ted Conference–it opens up access to “thought leaders” for those of us who can’t shell out the bucks to attend the big conferences. Participants don’t have to learn any new technology to attend–fill out a web form, dial a phone number, and you’re ready to go.

Neat stuff for your Monday morning!

By Aaron | June 9th, 2008 | Comments

Learn from Dan Pink’s life

You’ve all heard me talk up a storm about Dan Pink, author of Free Agent Nation, the must-read A Whole New Mind, and the recently-released The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Need, right? OK, check this out: On Friday, June 6, you can participate in a one-hour teleconference with Mr. Pink. It’s free, save the cost of a long distance call if you’re not using a cell phone or Skype or calling from work.

Here are the details:
Learn from My Life: A Teleconversation with Daniel Pink
Friday, June 6, 2008
11:00 AM-12:00 PM CDT

There’s more to talk about here, though. The “teleconversation” is being presented by a company called Learn from My Life, which ultimately aims to “challenge and engage thought leaders to make a difference.” This conference call is one way to address that mission. One thing of note is that, once you’ve registered, you can vote for the questions you’d like the guest speaker to answer. I’ve been toying with this idea for our own presentations–giving people the opportunity to tell us what they’d like to know more about ahead of time, so we can be better-prepared to answer questions. Interesting idea.

You can also hear the audio from past calls, such as this one from Dale Brown, former LSU basketball coach (he coached Shaq in college, and also graduated more than 80% of his players), and provide some quick feedback.

I hope you’ll join me on this call, but if not I’ll report how it went and what I learned.

By Aaron | May 22nd, 2008 | Comments

Video conferencing coming soon to a flat screen near you?

You know that commercial in which a humanitarian in a developing country visits his proud family back home through a high-definition, big screen video conference? Looks pretty slick, right? Everyone should have such a device in his or her home or place of work, right? Well, here’s what they don’t tell you–it’s not cheap (as in, I did a little research and it looks like each unit starts around $15,000) and uses more bandwidth than you and I combined have coming into our homes. Well, nuts.

Low-resolution video conferencing via computers has been around for some time now, but as anyone who took part in our great Marratech experiment a couple of years can tell you, setup is no cakewalk. Even today, I was trying to connect with someone using iChat AV–arguably the most easy-to-use video conferencing tool out there–but vague connection errors kept me from my call. This is frustrating enough as someone who halfway knows what he’s doing–I can only imagine how it feels for someone who’s trying out video conferencing for the first time.

That might be about to change, though. Two companies have announced plans to develop a high-definition video conferencing device that connects to a flat panel TV and allows people to interact over a standard consumer-level Internet connection. Just plug it into your TV and network connection and start talking. There’s still quite a bit we don’t know about this new product, such as price and compatibility with other conferencing devices, but on the surface this could be the magic video conferencing device we’ve been waiting for.

By Aaron | March 24th, 2008 | Comments

Recording conference calls with TalkShoe

This afternoon a few of us experimented with TalkShoe, an online conference call recording application. It’s not perfect, but it has promise. If you ever wanted to host your own call-in program, here’s your chance.

With TalkShoe, anyone with a browser and a decent Internet connection can listen to your show. You can also download a program and add your own voice to the conversation. This application also allows the host to mute and unmute other speakers, kind of like a switchboard. We had problems with this software but eventually got it up and running. If you’re not by a computer, no problem–you can also participate by phone over a (toll-based) conference line. We had better luck with this.

TalkShoe is currently free–not sure if that’s going to apply forever but for now it gives us a chance to experiment with it and see what we might do with this technology. One possibility I’m thinking of is hosting the StrateReaders conference calls with it, and providing the recorded calls to anyone who’d care to listen later. What other things might CRL do with this?

By Aaron | February 14th, 2008 | Comments