How To Select Your Web Conferencing Tool
By Robin Good
New conferencing and collaboration solutions are being announced
at the pace of one or more tools per week. New versions and upgrades
are promoted even more frequently, and in this avalanche of "this
is the best, don't look anywhere else" claims, it is hard to
distinguish the good from the average.
1. How should you select your web conferencing tool?
2. Which companies are more reliable, and how do you find out?
3. How can you be sure you will not be disappointed?
These are tough questions to answer, as there are a million vendors
out there and an army of supposed experts all claiming to have the
best solution while offering different ones.
Below are some tips on how to approach these difficult questions
while saving yourself a great deal of time and money.
Twelve Tips for the Savvy Web Conferencing Buyer
What to ask yourself before doing anything else:
1. What do I need to accomplish with this tool?
This means, what is the end result I need to obtain once I find
the collaboration tool that I need? Focus on results. Forget the
features.
2. What kind of activities do I want to carry out to achieve
those end results? Will you need to run a brainstorming
session, or will you have a presentation lecture with a Q&A
session afterwards? Evaluate the many possible delivery alternatives
available to you and select those most appropriate to drive your
desired end results.
3. How many people do I need to connect with at the same
time? There is quite a big difference between meeting
with a group of five or having to deliver a live presentation
to large crowd. You can expect that tools that are great for one
application may not be that good for another.
4. What types of computers do the other people I want
to meet with have? Are they all PC users? Are some of
them on Macs? Linux boxes? Other operating systems? Can you find
out? You should either decide which types of users you want to
serve yourself, or you go after a technology that supports the
"largest" number of computer types/operating systems.
5. What types of Internet connections will my online participants
have? Again, try to be specific and verify whether you
have both high-speed Internet users and others on dial-up or if
you have only one of these two types.
Many audio and videoconferencing solutions work only on high-speed
Internet connections and will therefore be excluded from your
alternatives if you need to serve a good number of people on dial-up
lines.
6. Do Iwant a solution that I buy and install on my PC
or company server, or do I want to pay for a service on a monthly
basis? You may be wondering what the difference is and
why you should care. Let me explain: If you have a desktop solution,
you need everyone to be able to download and install it appropriately
for it to work. Is this an issue? If the technology is installed
on a server, this is generally a one-time worry after which you
and your users need only access standard web pages. On the other
hand, if the collaboration technology is "hosted" by
a third-party provider, this provides the least intrusion into
your computer, requires little or no technical know-how from you,
and alleviates you and your technical staff from most technology-related
worries.
How to look at vendors and conferencing providers
1. Steer away from price per user/minute formulas.
They are a rip-off. You can get the same level of functionality
with flat-rate tools that cost a fraction of what those "enterprise"
tools cost. Ask for flat rates for a specific number of users,
or seek licensing formulas that allow you to meet online as much
as you want without having to incur time-dependent charges.
2. Demand VoIP (Voice-Over-Internet
Protocol). Text chat is not a substitute for talking, and
all of the stories about the greatness of asynchronous collaboration
apply only to specific applications. Real-time meetings, presentations,
discussions and brainstorming sessions require VoIP, as we expect
to be able to talk to each other in real life in those analogous
situations. Vendors still supporting and recommending telephone-based
conferencing have a limited and cumbersome solution on their hands
and an expensive one to propose too. There is no reason on earth
why you can't have reliable and quality VoIP today with whatever
configuration or connection speed you may have.
3. Integrate IM, presence, file sharing and secure storage.
A formula for certain success in the collaboration space is having
the ability to integrate presence awareness, instant messaging
that hooks into all of the major IM networks and secure rooms/spaces
in which files and documents can be stored. If online collaboration
is at the heart of what you need to do, these features may be
something that you cannot do without.
4. Seek vendors with an international outlook.
It’s important to take into account the interests of those
around the world in countries like India, Brazil or Egypt. Is
the vendor a colossus willing to take care of you out there? Is
the company able to listen and respond to your requests? Does
the vendor offer localized versions of the tool? Does it offer
the opportunity to localize it for those who want to do so?
5. Look for great documentation and customer service with
a name. Make sure that either the tool requires no manuals
at all to be used effectively (an unlikely case for now), or that
it provides easy and complete access to such manuals and references
at no cost and prior to purchasing/subscribing to the service.
Does the vendor have an online forum where people can post and
receive public answers? Does customer support sign e-mails with
a person's name or with a generic signature? Does the vendor help
you install the tool and see if you are OK, or does he just send
you some instructions expecting you to be a computer geek?
6. Don't buy if you can't try it. Buy only technologies
that you can try for a sufficient amount of time, unmonitored
and unrestricted. Do not buy or subscribe to conferencing tools
that you have seen only in a demo. Make sure you get access to
the tool you want for a good number of days, and try out all of
the functions that you will be likely to use with some real attenders
before ever signing anything.
Whenever companies bring up justification for not offering a free
trial, they are just making excuses. You have the right to try
a technology before paying for it. Otherwise, you never know what
you’ll get.
Robin Good is the pen name for Luigi Canali De Rossi, a communication
expert and new media technologies evangelist who specializes in
researching, testing and reporting about the most effective tools,
methods and practices to communicate and learn more effectively.
A long-time advisor to many large international organizations in
the fields of research, education and development, Mr. Canali De
Rossi has led many workshops and seminars to help non-technical
people conquer the techniques and skills needed to fully leverage
the potential of new digital media technologies. Mr. Canali De Rossi
is also CEO of a small group of online publishing ventures all focused
on empowering the individual to communicate, present and collaborate
online with cost-effective technologies. He can be reached at MasterNewMedia.org.
Robin is CEO and Founder of Kolabora.com,
the online collaboration authority where people's needs meet
the industry.
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