So last month I spoke about Skype for a VOIP telephony solution for your business.  Today I'm going to introduce you to www.freeconference.com.  Now, as the title says, FC is not necessarily free - some of their service offerings will cost you - but the expense really is negligible when compared to functionality and when considered in light of more and more employees working remotely.  As well, what if you're getting advice from board members who live on the other side of the state or who just never have the time to meet?  Or you want to speak with someone in another country about how they manage their supply chain for goods very similiar to you own?  Regardless, I think freeconference.com is worth a look-see.

Essentially what the deal is with the non-free services is that if you want an 800 number so that all the callers don't have to spend their minutes, you pay .10 per minute, per caller.  There are other services that cost, but for the basic functionality of conferencing, the service is free.

So, first and obvious thing you'll want to do is research the site and, if you feel comfortable, create an account.  I appreciated FC's account creation tool because it didn't hit me up for too much bio-demo data and didnt' try and get a credit card number from me, you know, just to have on file - it's really poor form when companies do that.

When you create an account you're automatically assigned an Organizer Access Code.  You'll use this to kick off the conference calls you schedule.

After that, it's pretty simple.  Go to the Schedule icon at the top of the page and start the scheduling process.  First you'll enter how many participants, date, hour, and length of conference.  

Next you choose a list of variable such as Entry Chimes or Conference Starts When Organizer Arrives and others. One really cool free tool here is the Presentation Mode - you can set it up to provide a download of your powerpoint (or whatever you use) so that it displays on all the participants computer screens and it unfolds in real time as you present from wherever you are.

Next you choose if you want to have email alerts sent to the participants.  After that you get your confirmation screen and an confirm email.  

After that, use the number you're provided to call into.  After dialing in you'll need to input your access code.  From there, follow the prompts if you have a presentation you will be giving - otherwise, simple execute your conference call.  

BIG FYI - I dont use up minutes or pay ridiculous fees for long distance calls.  I pay 3 bucks a month for Skype and call the long distance # provided by FC to call into the conference.  Yeah...I watched MacGyver.  Hit me up with questions if you have any

Peace...James