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We were on the phone recently, barely a half-hour into protracted negotiations to close an acquisition. People were spread across the country, Denver, Houston, New York and Scottsdale. Investors, lawyers, management types. Nobody wanted to brave security lines, airport waits and hours in Coach just to meet in person. So we did it by phone.
As talk turned to mind-numbing documents, everybody started fumbling with paper. “What document are we on?” “Which draft?” “Where are we?” The lead investor patiently tried to get everybody literally on the same page. That wasn’t so easy and we were only getting started.
“Why don’t we use ReadyTalk?” I interrupted. “Then everyone can look at the same page at the same time.”
“What’s that?” somebody asked.
I quickly responded: “ReadyTalk is Web conferencing software, like WebEx or Microsoft LiveMeeting, only a lot better (in my opinion). If we all log into a ReadyTalk Web conference, Steven (lead lawyer) can work through the Word documents on his screen while everyone else watches. That way we are all, literally, on the same page.”
“As a side benefit,” I continued, “Steven can make the changes as we go along and send out the document right after the conference. Why don’t we try that.”
Web conferencing has been around for more than five years but there are a lot of legal professionals who have never used it. If you are one of them, regardless of practice area, you are missing out on a great tool and a clear client pleaser. If you know how to use a tool like ReadyTalk, you can use it for all of your client conferences, walking through documents, showing PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets or even give Web demonstrations. The software is Web-based, so anyone can access it or host the conference. What really makes it cool is how cheap these services are and how simple they are to use.
Getting Started
Setting up a ReadyTalk account is pretty simple (and it isn’t much different for most of the competing products). Go to the ReadyTalk Web site, www.readytalk.com, and sign up. They will give you a 30-day trial account for free. Or give the ReadyTalk folks a call to have them set it up.
Once you have an account in place, it gets even easier. When you want to set up a conference, and it is always available, simply go to the ReadyTalk Home page where you will find both Participant and Chairperson Login boxes.
The access code for participants is typically your phone number. As Chair, you use the same access code but are also issued a private passcode.
Conference Controls
This gets you access to the control panel, which is the starting point to launch a conference.
From there, all you need do to start your conference is to click on the “Start Web Conference” button at the top right of your screen. Once you do so, the other participants will now be able to view whatever you want them to see on your computer.
For example, I keep a PowerPoint slide of the CaseShare Web site as a starting screen just for marketing purposes and to give the viewer something to look at until I start the real presentation. It looks something like this:
In this case, there are two Web conference participants. You could, if you chose to do so, disconnect either from the conference.
Showing a Word Document
To show a Word document, click on the drop-down list called Presentation Mode at the top of the screen. It will give you a drop-down list of choices that will look something like this:
When you select Word, for example, the system will minimize and let you switch to, or open, Word. The only difference will be that you will see a small button at the top with an option to share or not share the document (it starts with Shared). For your participants, the screen might look like this:
As you move through the document and make changes, the rest of the conference participants can watch. The system is so fast that they can literally watch as you type or move your mouse.
Showing Other Files
You are not limited to Word documents for your conference. The system will allow you to display anything you can run from your computer. That includes spreadsheets, PowerPoint files and even your Web browser. I use it all the time to demonstrate our software to potential clients. With ReadyTalk, I can show off our software to clients on the other side of the globe and still make it home to dinner and the family. That is way cool.
Training Sessions
It didn’t take long for us to realize how useful ReadyTalk could be for training sessions as well. Our clients are typically spread across offices, which means it can be difficult (and expensive) to provide on-site training. With ReadyTalk, we can easily organize training sessions for participants wherever they may be. Some of our clients even log in from home.
For a small extra fee you can also record your sessions. The file is saved in a Flash format, which every computer in the civilized world can open. That means we can save training files, post them on our Web site and make them available to clients who missed the live sessions. When they open the files, they can see the applications just as if they were attending the session and hear the trainer as well. We can even e-mail smaller training files to people calling for support.
Integrated Phone Conferencing
While this wasn’t as big a draw for me, ReadyTalk offers integrated phone conferencing for what seems like a very reasonable price. This means all of your conference participants can dial into a ReadyTalk phone conference as well as participate via the Web. What I like most is the fact that I can see all of the participants on my control screen and even mute or disconnect someone if I want.
Pricing
ReadyTalk is a bargain based on what I have seen. Look for current pricing on their Web site under Services. While they charge by the minute, I much prefer enterprise pricing, which allows my organization to use it as often as we need. On our plan, everyone at CaseShare has a private conference space and we can use it as much as we like for just a few hundred dollars a month. And, we have the right to connect far more concurrent users without extra charge than we will probably ever need. Because pricing models change from time to time, I will leave it to you to negotiate your own enterprise deal. What I can say is the price I received was far more attractive than that offered by competitors for similar services.
Conclusion
I like ReadyTalk because it is fast, cheap and doesn’t require any special software to be downloaded for participants (or the conference chair for that matter). The other leading providers all require that each participant download either a special Java client application or an Active X control. For many of my security-conscious clients, they couldn’t download and install new software even if they wanted to. Indeed, their computers are locked down so that this would be all but impossible.
ReadyTalk avoids the problem so long as the user has the basic Java package that comes with Microsoft. When the user logs into the conference, the system loads on the fly.
Putting aside product comparisons, the real point lies in how Web conferencing can help you better communicate with clients and colleagues. Much of our business is necessarily conducted by phone. This works fine in some cases. In others, particularly where several people are involved, you can quickly get lost. With a Web conference service, you can quickly bring your audience together and work through the toughest issues. If that helps you avoid one unnecessary trip, the service is well worth the price.
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John C. Tredennick, Jr. (jtredennick@caseshare.com) is a partner at Holland & Hart and CEO of CaseShare Systems, an Internet company building paperless systems for the legal and business communities. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Law Practice Today.
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