Online Meeting Tools That Facilitate Collaboration

 A Sliver of the On-line Collaboration Ecosystem

With travel budgets slashed, fuel prices on the rise again, airport horror stories, summer storms,... who wants to travel for a meeting?

Along with Joe Sterling, we at Alphachimp have been developing Remote Graphic Capture to enable graphic recording via on-line collaborative tools. This article compares 17 best-in-class tools for virtual meetings.

Online conferencing tools are used for many reasons – sales presentations, webinars and training, to name a few. Plus, if you work from home, like many freelancers and small business owners do, you face the unique challenge of needing live meeting time with clients who may be located around the world.

There are many online meeting tools out there that offer a variety of features at varying costs. Here are a few tools you may want to consider, some of their notable features and the cost for using them.

Let us know what you have found useful in dodging the airport blues while experiencing quality collaboration with peers. Or (shameless plug) schedule a demo of RGC today!

Update on 2009-05-20 15:28 by Alphachimp

Face time is crucial to morale and productivity

by Susan Pinker from Globe and Mail on why physical distance still matters in the age of the internet. 
(via Twitter @valdiskrebs  @barrywellman)| May 20, 2009

Chimps & Humans & DNA - What makes us human?

JAMES BALOG GETTY IMAGES

From the May 2009 Scientific American Magazine:

Comparisons of the genomes of humans and chimpanzees are revealing those rare stretches of DNA that are ours alone

The 1 percent difference: Humans are distinct from chimpanzees in a number of important respects, despite sharing nearly 99 percent of their DNA. New analyses are revealing which parts of the genome set our species apart. continue reading

Also check out:

• Morality: Your Inner Chimp
• Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History
• Rearranging the Human Family Tree

Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas

From Allison Arieff's blog By Design at New York Times on-line (thanks to @lumpysnake!):

Every worker would appreciate Steven M. Johnson's Nod Office (1984), an ingenious desk that can be transformed into a hidden sleeping chamber, perfect for late afternoon naps. Owning such a contraption remains for me a significant yet unrealized career goal.

Johnson is the author of an illustrated 1984 book: “What the World Needs Now: A Resource Book for Daydreamers, Frustrated Inventors, Cranks, Efficiency Experts, Utopians, Gadgeteers, Tinkerers, and Just About Everybody Else.”

Amen, brother!

See more brilliantly perverse inventions posted in Allison's article: Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas

The Font Conference: 2 Good 2 B 4GOTTEN! (Go Wingdings!)

via silverberry.org

Watch Font Conference on CollegeHumor

Preparing for Pandemics: Resources from PopTech & Sterling Insights

From Pop!Tech:

October 25, 2008: Laurie Garrett shares her proposal for a change in global health policy, and accompanying shifts in foreign policy and perception by countries like the US. photography by kris krüg Renowned global health expert Laurie Garrett gave a powerful and frightening talk at PopTech 2008 on how countries deal - both effectively and ineffectively - with pandemics. Examining China's response to SARS, she asked: what if this happened here? How would we respond? Her presentation is essential viewing right now:

http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/popcasts.aspx?lang=&viewcastid=227

Yesterday, just in time for the World Health Organization to raise the threat level from a 3 to a 4 (on a 6-point scale), Laurie gave a wide-ranging press teleconference on Swine Flu. We've summarized some of her high-level questions and answers on our blog:

http://www.poptech.org/blog/index.php/archives/3356

Finally, 2008 PopTech Fellow Erik Hersman (http://twitter.com/whiteafrican) wrote a terrific piece on information patterns that emerge during an emergency on social networking platforms (like Twitter), and how these can be aggregated and turned into real-time maps that shape a strategy for intervention:

http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2009/04/27/information-patterns-and-thoughts-on-swine-flu/

The above represent just the kind of clear thinking we may yet need in this circumstance. Have a look, and if you feel moved to do so, please help us share these insights by forwarding, blogging, and tweeting the above to friends and colleagues.

From Joe & Rita Sterling of Sterling Insights:

It’s been three years since our last pandemic readiness workbook update: Preparing for Pandemic – Family and Neighborhood Readiness Workbook. The Avian Flu has continued to smolder in Asia, Africa and parts of the Middle East only a few new human cases emerged. However, other strains of influenza have continued to mutate, including the new Swine Flu which is in the news today.

You can download a complimentary copy of our updated readiness workbook from our website: http://www.sterlinginsights.com/articles/pandemic_flu_20090501_dnld.pdf

Or you can order a paperback version: http://www.lulu.com/content/263485

Update on 2009-05-01 18:05 by Alphachimp

From Joe Sterling:

http://www.wpxi.com/video/19313969/index.html

Here’s a great flu explanation on video by Henry Niman, Ph.D. founder of Recombinomics, a research firm focused on genetic evolution of infectious diseases. http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html

I’ve been tracking Niman since 2005 and he is always a bit ahead of everyone else and tells it like it is.

Joe

12 Brain-Mind Principles - Geoffrey & Renata Caine

From Diane Durand:

How do we learn? How do we make connections? T

hese are questions I have wondered for many years. I spent the early part of my career trying to understand and enhance how adults learn as individuals and groups. Now I am raising two children ages one and five. The five-year-old has made incredible connections in her brain between colors, science, play, and reading.

Now as I work with a new little one, I am trying to remember: "What did I do with her older sister to help her learn?"

Life and learning is incredible. 

I came across the model above, which I drew several years ago from some material Peter had brought back from a conference. At this particular conference he had the pleasure to meet Geoffrey and Renata Caine authors of 12 Mind/Brain Principles. 

I loved the principles right away.  I then created the image above to help me. (I learn best with a pen in hand.)

I Don't Know You - Lisa Hannigan

I Don't Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

A wonderful music video.

Lisa Hannigan's video for "I Don't Know" from her album "Sea Sew" on ATO Records. 
Producer: Shirley Weir
Director: Frank Reid
Editor: Shirley Weir
Designer: Maeve Clancy

http://vimeo.com/3823991