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.

If you click here http://icollaborate.blogspot.com/2006/12/experiences-with-online-conferencing.html you will find an interested blogpost from my e-collaboration group. We experimented with skype and interwise teleconferences and have some interesting observations like this one on the level of security and comfort: 

 Level of security and comfort. A teleconference (using a new technology or for a person unfamiliar with teleconferences) adds to your level of insecurity and discomfort, that you have in new groups. So if you have a new group, you can hardly get people to feel secure enough to get good work done. After all, these are all things that you have to consider while choosing for a f2f meeting, an online asynchronous discussion, a chat or a teleconference. A participant who was new in the group: ‘If it had not been for the explicit remarks that we were dealing with an experiment, I would have felt disappointed about this meeting. It was emotionally stressing. I compare this with meetings a had in South America, were I just started speaking Spanish. Even though I did not understand everything, it did not feel right to keep questioning: 'what do you mean', or 'would you repeat this?'. Still, people might ask for my opinion and expected you to participate in decision making. The experience with skype may be even worse: In the situation of our conference I could not check your faces, there were no lips to be read, no clues from the context. I felt insecure. I was so busy trying to listen that I had no energy left to check with the notes. I did not make notes myself, because I felt insecure about the content-value of what I could add.’’