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You are here: Home / State of the Arts Tech Talk / State of the Arts for September/October 2014: Getting Started with Online Meetings

State of the Arts for September/October 2014: Getting Started with Online Meetings

September 1, 2014 by Mark Ratledge

(One of my Montana Arts Council State of the Arts Newspaper Tech Talk Columns)

In July, I was invited to be a presenter on a webinar arranged by a software company in California. It’s funny to think about it now, but I had to learn how to use a web service called GoToMeeting for the webinar. All this just goes to show us that there’s always something new to learn in the tech world.

For those new to the buzzword “webinar,” it means what it sounds like: it’s a seminar on the web. Webinars can be a videoconference with colleagues, or a class or educational seminar. MAC often lists webinars for the arts community in their email newsletter.

I found GoToMeeting easy to setup and learn how to use. GoToMeeting requires a small software installation on your PC or Mac, but it seems bug free. And GoToMeeting worked very well for the organizers in Silicon Valley, me and the three other presenters and the 100-odd listeners around the world.

Thanks to GoToMeeting, the webinar was a good combination of technology and simplicity. There was no need for I and the other presenters to be “talking heads” on everyone’s screen, though GoToMeeting supports video conferencing. The webinar was really a telephone conference call and computer screen share of the company’s PowerPoint presentation. That meant that listeners could check their screens for the PowerPoint slides when needed, or leave for a little for a while to deal with other things in their office or home.

For the webinar presenters, like me, there was a GoToMeeting window on my screen that listed the organizers, who was speaking and who was on standby, the time elapsed, and more. Before the webinar, invitations went out via email, with a simple link to click in order to register; and another email went out with a link to a reminder to join the webinar at the given day and time.

GoToMeeting is a great service and might be useful for you as an artist or an organization in order to present a webinar, or simply share screens with one or two others for a meeting or help session. I can see using GoToMeeting myself at some point to work with clients.

GoToMeeting has a 30-day free trial for their full version which supports video and other features, like tools for the organizers, unlimited subscribers, and more. But there is now a free version called GoToMeeting Free. It offers free video conferencing with up to three people using Chrome, Google’s web browser. No software download is needed. And the free version support PDF’s, Word documents and PowerPoints.

You need to use Google Chrome for their free service, because all the networking technology takes place right in the browser. But you may already be using Chrome; or, if needed, Chrome is a free download itself.

In any event, the price is right to try GoToMeeting, and it may turn out to be a valuable networking tool for you. Check Easy Online Meetings With HD Video Conferencing | GoToMeeting™.


Related Posts:
  • State of the Arts for September/October, 2010: Exploring the Basics of Online Privacy
  • State of the Arts for September/October 2008: Back up your Data
  • State of the Arts for September/October 2013: WordPress and Ecommerce
  • State of the Arts for September/October, 2011: Care and Feeding of Your Mac
  • State of the Arts for September/October 2009: Build your Own Social Network with Ning

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