Paul Humphreys rambles on....

Paul Humphreys rambles on....
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Thursday March 03, 2005

A conference call with a Twist

Last night we had a call with my manager and his staff. We normally all dial into a preset conference call number which is setup for the call. I use the same facility for my phone call with my European staff every week.

This time it was different; we used meeting technology from the SunLabs folks . It is really cool. You launch a java program, make sure your number is in the tool and join the meeting that you have created or been told about ( you can search for meetings or people) A popup window lists the folks in the call and when you speak an audio wave appears by your name. This helps you know who is talking. Muted folks show up with a red bar around them. A short while after you press join your phone rings and you then press '1' to join the call. The name of the meeting appears on your phone's display. No long numbers and PIN numbers to remember and forget

With the tool you can do 'text chat' with individuals or the group and also share documents on the fly between the folks on the call. So you can have private conversations before speaking in public. "Should I tell them about..." There are loads of other features I have yet to find.

I am sure other similar solutions are out there but its nice to be using something written by Sun that replaces the old technology conference call. It also seems a more personal experience for me. I intend to migrate my own use of a conference call to use this exciting new technology.

( Mar 03 2005, 05:00:00 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]

Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/paulhu/entry/a_conference_call_with_a

Comments:

Another great tool of the Meeting Central technology is the shared desktop. It's a Java based VNC client that is very well integrated with the tool and is excellent for "VNC challenged" people. -- Fred

Posted by Frederic Jean on March 03, 2005 at 07:35 AM PST #