On-line Meeting and Collaboration Enhancers

It has been a bit since I have posted, and well with 2 jobs and now planning a long distance wedding, life has been chaotic. However, I was reading one of Jame’s previous blogs and I wanted to include my own opinion on a suite of programs I find fantastic from a marketing and non-traditional work environment level.

Citrix has a group of programs called the “Go To” products. They include Go To Meeting, Go To My PC, Go To Assist and Go To Webinar and all are built on the Citrix products that were traditionally offered to enterprise size organizations. I love Go To Meeting and Go To My PC, they are my favorites, and I am slowly learning to use Go To Webinar. However, I have yet to explore Go To Assist (used mainly for IT and technical support). If you have never used these products you definitely need to go and check them out. Here, pulled directly from Citrix’s site is a breakdown of what the products offer and the links to more information.

	Provides fast, easy and secure remote access to your PC from any Web browser. Learn More Try GoToMyPC for FREE!		Enables remote support of customers and employees via shared screen, mouse and keyboard control. Learn More New! GoToAssist Express Beta

	Is the easiest, most secure and cost-effective solution for conducting online meetings. Learn More Try GoToMeeting for FREE!		Allows you to easily plan, present, record and analyze unlimited Webinars. Learn More Try GoToWebinar for FREE!

I bring these programs up for a few reasons. In a world of e-commerce and virtual store-sites, the possibility of working with customers in other cities, states and countries is not far fetched. So if you can’t afford to travel to them, if you need to have visuals for conference calls or maybe you are trying to take your first vacation in way too many years or simply need to work remote, these products provide you those flexible options.

Most of these services have free trial offers that allow you to see if you can truly benefit from the product at what package will you require. Because they are a related suite of products, they work with each other on a collaborative basis. Go To Webinar works great for presentations to a large audience and for sales tracking purposes, Go To Meeting is great for on-the-fly meetings and more collaborative discussions and Go To My PC allows remote accessibility from anywhere in the world to your computer (No more having to lug around your laptio). So if you are on vacation and an emergency happens at work or a client needs immediate assistance, you can log-in to your computer, find their information and provide an answer or solution without them ever knowing you are out of the office. What a great way to provide you the flexibility to have a life outside work!

The pricing for these products depends on the number of users you want to be able to connect with, the frequency of use and the options you would like outside the basic package. Would you rather pay $30 a month for the ability to connect virtually to all your clients or have to pay hundreds of dollars for travel and gas?? What will give you a higher return on your investment?