Society of Legal Learning Professionals

Adobe ConnectNow: How to Save a Web Meeting

This week we scheduled a web meeting with our colleague on the west coast.  We wanted to review options for pre-hire assessments for secretaries (there’s a good topic for a future post).  So our teammate attempted to start a web conference so that she could share her desktop.

She got an error message saying the conference server was busy, and please try again later.  Strike one.

So I had her try another conferencing site.  But she did not have the client application on her machine, and in our locked-down environment at the firm, couldn’t install it.

Strike two.

We considered postponing the meeting, but I had one last idea.  I logged into my Acrobat.com account and launched Adobe ConnectNow, a Flash-based application.  I sent an invitation to our west coast colleague, who logged in with no issues. I then enabled her to share her desktop, and we proceeded with the meeting.

What are the lessons here?  First, you need to check and double-check your web conference capabilities before the meeting time. This meeting was fairly low key, but there have been plenty of times where the audience was much more important and the schedule less forgiving.

You need to have a backup solution ready. I’m sure there are others, but I really like Adobe ConnectNow. An Acrobat.com account is free, and it allows you to connect to two other computers for a web conference. You can share files, desktop, whiteboard, web cam, pretty much all the basic things you need for a web meeting. You can delagate sharing to participant desktops, or let them remote control yours.  And all you need is a browser and Flash.  Of course it won’t be your main solution, but for basic point-to-point meetings, this is a great one.  And it’s free.  

Did I mention that it’s free?

Your lawyers, especially the ones who do a lot of web meetings, should have their own account.  It may be that last trick in their bag that saves a client conference.