Whether you’re a freelancer or a corporate employee, teamwork has become increasingly global.
Your team members could be located in another building — or another country. While talent should know no boundaries, collaboration is at its best when team members can interact face-to-face.
Modern collaboration tools bring us together. However, they can bring another set of challenges like individual software and/or platform requirements for each team member, long-term contracts, and ongoing costs.
For a small organization or team with limited resources, this can lead to a patchwork of tools that may or may not be suitable for group collaboration.
Ideal Collaboration Tools for Small Distributed Teams
Collaborating with a virtual team requires several online collaboration tools. The must-haves include:
- Audio conferencing
- Video conferencing
- File sharing
Easy enough, right? After all, you could use your business phone system to initiate a small conference call, use Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive to share files, and use Google Hangouts, Skype, or FaceTime for those meetings where face-to-face collaboration is essential. But wait, we’re getting into that “patchwork of tools” zone.
In order to be effective, tools need to be readily available and easy to use. They need to facilitate your meeting, not interfere with it. It’s not unusual for attendees to arrive to videoconferences late because they had to download, install, and configure a plug-in or client before they could join in.
For face-to-face team meetings, an all-in-one video conferencing solution that runs in a web browser is ideal. Your teammates already have a web browser and are comfortable using it. With such a solution, participating in a team videoconference is a simple matter of clicking a link and interacting. Eliminating the need for special software and plugins means everyone can jump right in, without having to install or learn anything new.
Browser-based video conferencing typically provides multiple ways to exchange information such as via voice and text chatting or file sharing. Video feeds from webcams bring participants face to face while screen sharing tools deliver presentations, YouTube videos, graphics, or step-by-step software demonstrations directly to the desktops of each participant.
Video Pro Conferencing – Your All-in-One
Fortunately, Video Pro Conferencing’s Basic plan is an ideal solution for the face-to-face videoconferencing needs of a small, distributed team — and it won’t break your budget or require a long-term commitment. You can even try it free for a full month with no obligation and no credit card required.
For a team of up to 10, we suggest signing up for the Video Pro Conferencing Basic account, which allows for up to 10 attendees and four cameras per meeting.
It’s loaded with professional video conferencing features (such as screen sharing, pass presenter controls, chats, collaborative notes, recording, free VoIP audio, and more) and is available on a month-to-month basis with no contract.
Best of all, your teammates won’t need to hassle with new software or plugins. Simply send them the link to your next video conference and begin collaborating!
