Conference Call

With worries over the safety of travel and the escalating price of gasoline, the business world is showing renewed interest in conference calling. Forget the hassle and expense of flying and driving. For companies that want to keep their employees safe and productive, a conference call is the way to go. And for telecommuters, conference calling has become a way of life.

When you schedule a conference call, you get all of your players on one page at one time. And you do so at a fraction of the cost of conventional meetings. But the field is fraught with tough decisions. With a horde of conference calling providers and scores of different types of programs, it can be a daunting task to compare one program against the next.

Some conference calling programs charge per minute, while others offer flat rate plans. You might see per minute plans as low as five cents per minute and flat rate plans starting in the neighborhood of fifty bucks. But like most everything, there's always a catch. You'll need to look closely at each plan to see where in the fine print the gotchas may lie.

The big push these days is to move the conference call beyond the mere telephone and onto the computer. Web conferencing, as the genre is known, allows you to deliver presentations over the Internet as you teleconference. This genre has become one of the hottest areas of Internet development.

Companies like WebEx, Genesys, Oracle, Sonexis, Centra, IBM, Raindance, and yes, even Microsoft, want a piece of your web conferencing budget. (Microsoft was not content with just NetMeeting, and purchased Placeware early in 2003.) Even Macromedia could not resist the Web conferencing market--their Breeze offering uses Flash technology to deliver voice, video, Powerpoint presentations, chat, and polling into an innovative delivery system.

Web conferencing presents some unique challenges for telecommuters--especially those in outlying areas not adequately served by broadband providers. A fast net connection is essential for solid web conferencing. A slow connection cannot be tolerated. (I used to run into problems with my old satellite Internet provider, before I ditched them.)

But most importantly, telecommuters will have to shower, shave, comb their hair, and get out of their pajamas to save face in a video conference. (You'll probably want to straighten up your home office, while you're at it ... lest your associates get the impression that you are an unabashed slob.)

All this sounds great, save for those on a tight budget. But fear not, as I have a nugget for you, too! Last month, I learned about a company that offers free conference calling. This is one heck of a gimmick, and while it's not exactly free, it's a pretty cool idea, indeed ...