The most popular web conferencing tools to choose from are WebEx, Adobe Connect, and GoToMeeting. After asking a few colleagues in the Audio/Visual industry that I am a part of I decided to focus my review on Adobe Connect. My research included three parts: 1) The positive information that I could find about Adobe Connect, 2) The negative information that I could find about Adobe Connect, and 3) Trying Adobe Connect for myself.
For those of you that may not know the basic information about Adobe Connect, it is a collaboration tool in which the presenter can conduct meetings using audio, video, chat, whiteboards, and conduct live polling (n.a, Adobe Connect FAQ’s.
A benefit of any web conferencing tools is that information can be communicated without have to leave one’s location to attend meetings. One of the highlights of Adobe Connect that I found is that the virtual meeting can be recorded and archived for future use. Adobe Connect can be utilized from anywhere in the world as long as the user has a computer, internet, and Flash Player Plug-in from Adobe and it is not limited to only PC or Mac users (n.a. Adobe Connect FAQ’s). Additional benefits include security encryption and reuse of presenter materials.
Some of the potential drawbacks to Adobe Connect include its ongoing cost. This may pose a problem for individual use and there are different costs for education or professional users. Additionally, Adobe Connect has some issues with certain downloads and Mac Audio cards (Thomassattrp, 2008). The resizing of the windows within Adobe Connect can create a delay in visual and audio communication for users.
I decided to try Adobe Connect for myself to see if the promotional efforts and my experiences were aligned. I found that Adobe Connect does everything that the marketers wrote on their FAQ page; however, there is a need for practicing the tools for novice users. While there were some delays and hiccups with my initial experience, I do think that Adobe Connect is a tool that I will use professionally. Do I think that it is worth the cost for businesses or education use? Absolutely! With some training, a lot of time and money can be saved!
-Nick Frush
References
Thomassattrp (February, 8, 2008) [Msg 4] Retrieved from
http://www.connectusers.com/forums/cucbb/viewtopic.php?id=806
Educause Adobe Connect FAQ’s (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.educause.edu/AdobeConnectFAQ
Adobe Connect FAQ’s (n.d.). Retrieved from http://meeting.psu.edu/faq#general1
Twitter: 21st Century "Word Of Mouth"
I admit it. I am a Twitter addict. No, it's not hearing where my cohorts are currently or what music they are listening to. It's an addiction to a form of communication that does not hurt one's ear, can be taken anywhere, and unless a battery dies, you know exactly what is going on in the world almost instantly without the filter of corporate media slanting the facts. Finally, a piece of technology that keeps up with the pace that humans have set for themselves.
Imagine standing in the middle of a massive, rockin' party and chatting with a couple of friends. You still hear snippets of completely different conversations occurring all around you while staying focused and replying to what your companions are saying. You hear something interesting, you give a shout-out to the speaker, receive a reply, and more information (commonly known as links in Twitterdom). Twitter has increased collaborative interaction inside the 'sphere because of the ability to carry on many conversations, jump into other threads of thought, and receive links from people you follow and people they follow which is the equivalent of 21st century 'word of mouth'.
According to a 2009, Time Magazine article, "How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live", author Steven Johnson states, " In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it." Twitter opened up a new and faster social communication platform with its 140 character lifebytes, but the big surprise was how the users of Twitter morphed it into a veritable smorgasbord of conversations and information which has become very addictive for many users.
The aspect of the Twitter phenomenon that Steve Johnson is referring to is the fact that most of Twitter's applications are produced by third parties that have no affiliation with Twitter, but wanted to be able to increase the interconnectivity that is Twitter. This is evidenced by being able to embed videos and images in streams, drop links to longer articles and Flickr accounts. The ease of 'retweeting' information is also a major step up from other social platforms. There are numerous plugins being written including those that attach to browsers, so that a user can watch their Twitter home page scroll along from any page that they are currently on. The search feature and hashtags allow a Twitter user to follow a trending topic without adding any new followers if they do not wish to.
Twitter users are taking the medium to a level that the founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone probably did not envision, but this particular social platform will most likely endure because of the many minds molding it on a daily basis to be the best possible tool for speedy access to human communication and information.
Source: Shroeder, S. (2008). 8 Awesome Firefox Plugins For Twitter.
Source: Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live.
Imagine standing in the middle of a massive, rockin' party and chatting with a couple of friends. You still hear snippets of completely different conversations occurring all around you while staying focused and replying to what your companions are saying. You hear something interesting, you give a shout-out to the speaker, receive a reply, and more information (commonly known as links in Twitterdom). Twitter has increased collaborative interaction inside the 'sphere because of the ability to carry on many conversations, jump into other threads of thought, and receive links from people you follow and people they follow which is the equivalent of 21st century 'word of mouth'.
According to a 2009, Time Magazine article, "How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live", author Steven Johnson states, " In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it." Twitter opened up a new and faster social communication platform with its 140 character lifebytes, but the big surprise was how the users of Twitter morphed it into a veritable smorgasbord of conversations and information which has become very addictive for many users.
The aspect of the Twitter phenomenon that Steve Johnson is referring to is the fact that most of Twitter's applications are produced by third parties that have no affiliation with Twitter, but wanted to be able to increase the interconnectivity that is Twitter. This is evidenced by being able to embed videos and images in streams, drop links to longer articles and Flickr accounts. The ease of 'retweeting' information is also a major step up from other social platforms. There are numerous plugins being written including those that attach to browsers, so that a user can watch their Twitter home page scroll along from any page that they are currently on. The search feature and hashtags allow a Twitter user to follow a trending topic without adding any new followers if they do not wish to.
Twitter users are taking the medium to a level that the founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone probably did not envision, but this particular social platform will most likely endure because of the many minds molding it on a daily basis to be the best possible tool for speedy access to human communication and information.
Source: Shroeder, S. (2008). 8 Awesome Firefox Plugins For Twitter.
Source: Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live.
Red Hat…It’s More than Just an Operating System
I knew that Red Hat makes a pretty good operating system. We use several machines that run Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition 5.2 at work. But I had no idea what other products they had. Recently, I came across an article describing how Red Hat has partnered with Cisco to develop a product that helps to build and manage a private network. Cisco, as you probably already know, is the world leading manufacturing of network gear used to connect computers so that can communicate with each other.
The Forbes article I found by Dan Woods describes how the way that technology is used could offer the largest gains to businesses, instead of technology just being new. This new piece of software being offered by Red Hat in partnership with Cisco can provide computing resources based upon business need, not based upon physicality. So when a business need drives the demand for more computing resources in a particular business area, these resources can be easily allocated in a virtual network or “cloud”. The ease and flexibility to re-allocate these resources could very well be the new way to conduct business. As Dan Woods puts it “the immediate business value of all of this flexibility is usually gained through savings in costs and time” (2010).
References:
Woods, D. (2010, June 29). Unlocking the Value of the Cloud. Retrieved July 1, 2010, from http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/29/cisco-intel-ibm-technology-cio-network-cloud-computing.html
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