Online Meeting & Video Conferencing Software

Google hangouts is the coolest of the tools. It's got amazing features and the price is FREE. But I use it rarely. The main reason is that so few people are comfortable with it. Thus, getting people setup to attend the hangout requires training. But if I know people are comfortable with it, I would be happy to use it more. Some neat plug-ins make it really powerful. It allows up to 10 people to chat with video for free. I suspect I'll be using it more as awareness grows.

No matter which software you decide to use, you need to make video conferencing and online meeting a part of your process. Yes, Skype and Google+ both can share screens but they are designed for video conferencing so when you need to present, the online meeting tools are better.

For conference rooms at Geiger, we installed the Logitech BCC950 ($186 on Amazon) and it is amazing how easy it is to observe, hear, and communicate with everyone in the room.

If you want to get started with the simplest and most value, go with join.me for meetings and get the free version of Skype for video calls. These tools can help you as the trend of less face-to-face meetings continues as I wrote about in Face To Face Selling is Dying.

Geiger CIO Dale Denham, MAS+ provides practical insights on how you can benefit from technology in no nonsense terms. Follow him on Twitter: @GeigerCIO.