Tokbox – A great free tool for video conferencing and video email

Whether you are collaborating with team members across distance or want to stay in touch with family and friends there are times when a phone call or an email just isn’t enough.  You long for face time.  Traveling or bringing everyone together isn’t always an option – so why not consider using video?

Recently I was traveling to Boston for a week to meet with some clients.  The hardest part of the trip was being away from my wife and 2 year old son Spencer.  We decided to make things more bearable we would have a video chat at least once a day using Skype. I also decided to send them frequent video emails using a great service called Tokbox.

Tokbox is a free service that allows you to send up to 10 minute video emails and have video conferencing with up to 20 people.  Both of these are very impressive as most other video email programs allow for only a minute or two and most video chat programs only support one-to-one conversations.

To see a sample of Tokbox in action view this short video I recorded using their service:

TokBox – Free Video Chat and Video Messaging

I haven’t tried their video conferencing services much as I currently use Skype for real time video chats but I will be testing it further in the coming weeks –  especially the multi-person video conferencing. I’ll follow up with another blog post to let you know my thoughts and share some of the other video conferencing services I have found. Read more

4 Ways to Make Every Day Earth Day with The Anywhere Office

While we have been preaching the environmental benefits of telecommuting and virtual teams for many, many years -today being Earth Day seemed like a good time to give you a quick rundown of some ways that the tools and strategies of The Anywhere Office® can help you go green and make every day Earth Day.

Here are 4 things you can easily do starting today to make a difference:

Eliminate or reduce the daily commute

Do you or your employees commute daily to a central office?  Consider telecommuting even a few days a week or month.  This can reduce tons of CO2 emissions annually.  Just how much?  Check out the carbon calculator at http://www.thegreenoffice.com/carboncalculator/calculator/.

SunMicrosystems Open Work program saved million in real estate and energy costs and cut carbon emissions by 29,000 tons in 2007.

If you need to access computers or documents in the office you can use a remote access service like GoToMyPC for easy remote access.

Or take a bold leap forward and go completely virtual by allowing your team or organization to work full time from their home offices. Read more

Useful Links – “Let’s light this candle” Edition

On a daily basis I keep my eye on blogs, news, services, and other happenings related to virtual teams, virtual offices, and other topics concerning living a digital lifestyle and working from anywhere. I come across lots of interesting articles and useful websites that would be of interest to readers of this blog – however I don’t always have time or need to write much about them – other than pointing you at them so you can explore them on your own.

So welcome to a new regular feature we’ll be starting – our Useful Links posts.  So let’s light this candle and jump right in . . . enjoy!

Flex Your Force: Building the Virtual Office: Connecting knowledge workers and managers through both technology and social practices is a management imperative of the new millennium. Sun Vice President of Open Work Services Ann Bamesberger shares with Sun Executive Boardroom readers ways in which today’s managers can help their teams work effectively across distance and time.

I do not work in the nude and other issues with working (and learning) online: In this article Janet Clarey looks at some of the similarities between working at home and ‘e-learning’ at the office. She offers solutions to some of the common problems and misconceptions.

How to Send Large Files without Email: We’ve all been faced with the need to send someone a large file (maybe a report or video) that is to big to send via email. Robin Good reviews some of the best services and tools available for sending large files online without needing tech knowledge or using file transfer protocol (FTP).

What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually: This article takes an interesting look at some of the strategies and technology that President Obama used in his campaign. Obama’s use of technology offers some insights and lessons to leading virtually, both in teams and organizations.

Congress gets its own YouTube Channels

I guess you can teach an old Congress new tricks!  In a desire to emulate Barack Obama’s success in using the iternet to raise funds and build an army of volunteers online – Congress is launching official YouTube channels where members of the House and Senate can create and control videos of floor speeches, hearings or ribbon-cuttings. (See the welcome video message below)

Whether you voted for Barack Obama or not – one thing everyone can agree on is his campaign had a very effective strategy for using the Internet to raise awareness and build community.

One of the refreshing things about his strategy for modern politics is the transparency and grass roots approach he believes in.  Using a mix of offline and online media and extensive use of videos on YouTube Obama released a constant flow of information about what he was doing, how he was doing it, and where they were spending the money they raised.  He connected with his supporters and the public was given the ability to respond, share their opinions, and get involved.

According to a recent NY Times article – Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World:

Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy won in part because of the increasingly popular medium of television, has changing technology had such an impact on the political campaigns and the organizations covering them. For many viewers, the 2008 election has become a kind of hybrid in which the dividing line between online and off, broadcast and cable, pop culture and civic culture, has been all but obliterated.

I applaud Congress for taking these bold but necessary steps.  This new direction which involves a using a combination of video sharing and social media, will provide a level of access and transparency never before seen in government. This will make it much easier to follow what is going on in Washington and for people to voice their opinion about it.

Read more

Save time and automate your web searches with Google Alerts

If you’re like me you probably spend a good deal of time on the web searching for information. It might be  industry news, mentions of yourself or business in the press, news stories for your blog or newsletter, or how to get ink stains out of your rug.  Let’s face it the web, for most people, has become the first place we go to look for news and information.

What if I told you that you could have the equivalent of a team of researchers keeping their eye on the web for you and finding all of the latest information on all of the searches you need to do – and they would email this valuable data to you either weekly or daily right to your inbox – all for free? Interested?

Well I’m going to let you in on one of the most useful automation tools I’ve discovered – Google Alerts.  Google has expanded way beyond their normal basic search function.  They offer a staggering array of software, services, and online tools.  One often overlooked gem is Google Alerts – which is a service they offer that notifies you by email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Read more

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