For those of you who are involved in explaining over the phone, doing presentations and demonstrations or collaborating with others on projects, you should definitely consider GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. The software not only allows business executives, consultants and clients to meet up together and conduct meetings effectively, it is intuitive and conveniently easy to use.

Citrix have produced three online meetings solutions:

• GoToMeeting – A single organiser can host a meeting with a maximum of 15 attendees.
• GoToWebinar – A single organiser can host a meeting/webinar with a maximum of 1000 attendees.
• GoToMeeting Corporate – Multiple organisers can host meetings & includes GoToWebinar.

GoToMeeting will allow attendees to view and utilise applications from each other’s PCs in real-time. Essentially, attendees can watch on their computer screen the meeting host, as he/she edits a particular document from his/her screen. GoToMeeting is an ideal software for in house training, for presentations, product demonstrations, team collaborations and overall synchronising.

Getting Connected

All three Citrix products are entirely web based, so you would not have to install anything and can host meetings on any computer from anywhere; the same applies for the attendees and audience, they don’t need to install anything either and can attend meetings from anywhere. I haven’t had any problem connecting to meetings and haven’t come across anyone with connection problems either.

Starting or attending meetings is very straightforward go to www.GoToMeeting.com, and click ‘host a meeting’ or ‘join a meeting’ and then click ‘yes’.

Inviting someone to join in the meeting and to connect is very straightforward too, just before a meeting starts, a pop-up will appear instructing you of the different ways to tell them how to join in; email, instant message or by phone.

Presentations, Demonstrations, Collaborations and Training

I have found the software to be truly amazing; I was able to meet with other members of my team and demonstrate how to use other business tools like CRM software or accounting software. In one session I was able to train and have everybody in the know how; following demonstrating I allow others control over the mouse and keyboard, giving them the opportunity to show that they follow and understand. Everybody enjoyed the interactivity during the session and gave positive reviews about GoToMeeting.

GoToMeeting software is an absolute must for any business or corporation involved in dealing with people and computers. Rather than sending them a presentation to look over or travelling to their site to provide a client one-on-one assistance, you can do both by explaining things live through the internet.

Usability of Software

Without any doubt GoToMeeting is one of the easiest software to install and have setup on your computer. Although there are a few things which can make using it a bit hard, such as the user interface which pops up frequently or knowing where the control panels can be found as they are invisible except to the host, these are relatively minor as they just require familiarisation and can be overcome.

Following my experience with GoToMeeting I have realised how integrated it has become into my daily business setup, inviting others to join in a meeting or simply talking clients through any doubts they have without putting in too much effort still amazes me.

Features

There are many features of GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar that make the user interactivity and usefulness of this software even better:

• The software has drawing tools which allows you to draw on others screen to aid with the presentation, users can also highlight. The tools are off by default but can be activated at any time through the presentation; if you do turn the tools on you will have to use the keyboard to go through the presentations rather than clicking through.

• Voice Conferencing is included with both GoToMeeting & GoToWebinar as a free service. This feature is very convenient when having spontaneous meetings, when someone joins the meeting, you are provided with their conferencing number immediately. The number and access codes are generated every meeting and can be set to be your own number if required; the software can also use a built in VOIP feature if you prefer a microphone.

• GoToMeeting has an inbuilt recording feature. This feature will allow you to record, pause & continue to record the meeting for a future use or reference. GoToWebinar will allow you to upload the recorded meeting straight away and give others access to stream.

• Security of the software is very robust and reassuring for users. GoToMeeting is firewall friendly and the security features ensures the meetings are kept strictly confidential and private, preventing any sensitive information leaking out.

• During a presentation or meeting you can freeze your screen using the pause tool, and attend to other urgent matters such as an instant chat message or check your email if required, without interrupting the continuity of the meeting.

• GoToMeeting contains a simple and convenient feature; Screen Clean that will hide all the icons, toolbars and your background prior to sharing the desktop ensuring the presentation looks clean and is effective.

• There are many other features inbuilt into this software that enhances the user experience and provides feedback to the host, most notably attendance reporting, multiple monitor support and specific application sharing rather than sharing the full desktop.

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