Desktop video conferencing for remote presentations and file collaboration.
Now that bonuses are off the cards, many employers are wondering how to improve staff retention without adding to the payroll burden. One fantastic way to help staff loyalty is to offer the opportunity for staff to work at home. But if you’re relying on email and a phone line, communication can very quickly break down. It’s not surprising that home-working has taken longer to take off than anticipated: many colleagues view their home-working colleageus with suspicion, and bosses are often reluctant to free thier employees from office-bound desks. Live Meeting provides an excellent solution, since it allows people to interact with office-based employees much more easily. Some of the ways Live Meeting can be specifically useful to home-workers include:
Much better than relying on phone contact, Live Meeting provides a more robust means of communication. Use your webcam (supplied) and microphone to see the other person while you explain something, or while you present material.
One of the problems traditionally associated with working in different locations has been the inability to collaborate effectively on documents. Live Meeting lets you share a programme or document easily, and make changes together in real time. At the end of your meeting, the document is saved in a central location, and when you re-open the virtual meeting room, your file is there waiting for you.
Because Live Meeting ties into Microsoft Office so well, you can easily schedule meetings by using Outlook. If you’re using Outlook’s shared calendars features, it’s easy to set up Live Meetings when you know your colleagues will be free. As soon as you request a meeting, the invitation is sent via email and automatically put in the calendar if accepted. See this post for more about the Outlook integration.
Now that bonuses are off the cards, many employers are wondering how to improve staff retention without adding to the payroll burden. One fantastic way to help staff loyalty is to offer the opportunity for staff to work at home.
But if you’re relying on email and a phone line, communication can very quickly break down. It’s not surprising that home-working has taken longer to take off than anticipated: many colleagues view their home-working colleageus with suspicion, and bosses are often reluctant to free thier employees from office-bound desks.
Live Meeting provides an excellent solution, since it allows people to interact with office-based employees much more easily. Some of the ways Live Meeting can be specifically useful to home-workers include:
- Set up face-to-face meetings with a webcam
Much better than relying on phone contact, Live Meeting provides a more robust means of communication. Use your webcam (supplied) and microphone to see the other person while you explain something, or while you present material. - Share and collaborate on documents easily
One of the problems traditionally associated with working in different locations has been the inability to collaborate effectively on documents. Live Meeting lets you share a programme or document easily, and make changes together in real time. At the end of your meeting, the document is saved in a central location, and when you re-open the virtual meeting room, your file is there waiting for you.
- Allow home workers to link-in to office meetings Live Meeting also provides the ability to link real-life meetings with off-site colleauges. Using Roundtable, a meeting can be set up which will provide a live video link of all participants. Anyone with a Live Meeting license can then join the meeting and participate. For more about Roundtable, please see this post.
- Outlook calendars integration
Because Live Meeting ties into Microsoft Office so well, you can easily schedule meetings by using Outlook. If you’re using Outlook’s shared calendars features, it’s easy to set up Live Meetings when you know your colleagues will be free. As soon as you request a meeting, the invitation is sent via email and automatically put in the calendar if accepted. See this post for more about the Outlook integration.
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Live Meeting is availble in both standard and professional editions. The features are shown in the table below:
15 1250
Standard
Professional
Outlook Integration
Launch from Instant Messaging
Online Attendee Registration
Public Events Page
Custom Branding
Training & Meeting Assistance
Powerpoint Sharing
Distribute Handouts
Desktop & Software Sharing
Remote Application Control / Support
Interactive Whiteboard
Share Notes During Meeting
Q & A
Virtual Breakout Room
Polls & Surveys
Handout Distribution
Webcam / Mic Integration
Roundtable Compatible
Audio Streaming via PC
Secure, Encrypted Connection
Maximum Attendees
Full Technical Support
Attendee Reports
Record & Archive Meetings
One of the great things about Live Meeting is how easy it is to use; especially if you’re already using other Office products such as Outlook. Live Meeting comes with a free Outlook plugin, which will enable you to start a meeting straight from your Outlook client. You can also use the plugin to create invitation emails, and send to whomever you want to attend your meeting. The email generated automatically includes all access details for the meeting. The attendees you’ve invited have two options if they want to join your meeting. Either they can download the Live Meeting client and install it on their Windows machine. Otherwise, they can use the web client, which can be used by anyone with an Internet browser and a broadband connection. Although this route does not allow certain features, it’s particularly useful for a webinar situation when a larger group of people may be attending without wishing to use every function of Live Meeting. Click above image to enlarge : The plugin for Outlook adds three buttons to your Outlook client which can be used to launch the Live Meeting client, or schedule future meetings. Click above image to enlarge: Once you’ve scheduled a meeting, a calendar event is automatically posted. Especially useful if you’re using Outlook’s shared calendars feature. Click above image to enlarge: Instantly create invitation emails using the Live Meeting toolbar in Outlook. This gives the exact details for your meeting to anyone you send the email to. Schedule a Live Meeting just as you would set up an ordinary meeting in Outlook. Easy!
If you’re running a conference or any kind of scenario where you’ll be scheduling a number of Live Meetings, the public events page may be very useful. In short, the public events page can be set up within the Live Meeting conference centre, and allows you to publish details of your Live Meeting (or series of Live Meetings) online. You can create the agenda, and then email all possible participants the web address of your events page, where they can go to sign up for your Event. This page is also where your guests can download a recording of the meeting, and any associated files such as handouts, shared notes and powerpoint slides. Click to enlarge Wondering what Events are all about? Read this post to find out more about Live Meeting Events.
The Question and Answer feature of Live Meeting lets your attendees ask text-based questions during a meeting. These appear in the Live Meeting window and can be answered at any time by the organizer. Live Meeting can also launch a text-chat window if you do not want to use your microphone to conduct a meeting.
Before you start a meeting, you may want to provide a PDF or other document related to the meeting. Popular handouts include meeting agendas, and lecture overviews. This file can be uploaded to the virtual meeting room, and downloaded by any participants.
One great way to share ideas and gather thoughts during a meeting is to use the interactive whiteboard feature. Each participant can use the whiteboard to post suggestions; assign a different colour to each participant to see who comes up with what. The meeting host or organiser has ultimate control of the whiteboard and has the power to edit any content.
Video Conferencing used to be the preserve of senior executives and politicians. The internet has changed that – now, video conferencing can be conducted via any computer with a broadband internet connection. Live Meeting is video conferencing software from Microsoft that lets you hold virtual meetings with colleagues, clients and suppliers. Better than just a phone call, Live Meeting lets you add streaming video to your conversation, and share/collaborate on documents and spreadsheets. Core Features: Share your screen, presentation or document. Have you ever tried to work on a document with one of your colleagues who was in another office? Usually, it’s a constant stream of back-and-forth emailing, which gets very confusing very quickly. Live Meeting at its heart is a collaboration tool. It lets you share files and programs with others so that you can edit simultaneously. It’ll even save your work in a central site called the Conference Centre. Even better; you can quickly open the relevant virtual meeting room which has the file still open ready for you to work on again. Add Video and Sound Communicate more easily with a webcam and microphone – Live Meeting lets the other party see and hear you in real time. Automatically switch between speakers. If there’s more than two people in the meeting, Live Meeting will automatically show the person who’s presenting or speaking. We can provide a webcam for you! Try Live Meeting Pro for one month for £9.99 and we’ll throw in a free webcam. Think Big : Interact with up to 1250 participants Host a web-based video conference with Live Meeting and you can invite up to 1250 participants. Host product demonstrations, question and answer sessions or a weekly sales meeting with your field sales reps. The sky’s the limit with webinars! There’s lots more you can do with a webinar, please see this post for more information. Record and Store If you’ve invited people to your meeting who couldn’t make it, why not make the meeting available for them to download and watch later? Live Meeting makes this very easy: with Live Meeting pro you can save the recording to the online conference centre automatically – no need to host the recording yourself. The recording will be saved along with any accompanying files such as shared notes, powerpoint slides or whiteboard drawings. Choose how much information should be recorded – opt not to include the webcam for a smaller file. You can also record in ‘interactive mode’ which gives anyone viewing the recording extra features. Tie-in Live Meeting to your real-life conferencing event If you’re running a conference and you’d like to open the debating hall up to a wider public, or give access to colleagues who couldn’t make it, you can use Live Meeting to show your conference online. On a smaller scale, combine Live Meeting with your office meeting, and allow homeworkers to collaborate with you. For more about the benefits for home-workers, please see this post.
You can use the Handouts feature in Live Meeting to give meeting participants useful information that relates to the meeting. It can also be saved in your conferencing centre. It’s easy to upload a file and distribute it to all attendees in a meeting.
The Whiteboard function in Live Meeting works just like a conventional whiteboard – use it to illustrate ideas, and get others to contribute, too.