If you're a part of a large company, you've no doubt taken place in the "conference call". An often one-sided affair, the conference call is often plagued by poor acoustics, whether it be the laptop fan placed too close to the microphone, or the soft-spoken participant who is nowhere near the microphone. Often these meetings devolve into one side simply working away on their laptops until they are asked a question by the other side, at which point the question must be repeated and sometimes even the context of what the hell is going on. Good times.
There is one type of call that can be vastly improved with a simple application of free technology. The presentation call has a formal presentation happening on one side (likely with slides), and the satellite offices calling into a conference call bridge and following along with the slides (either manually or over something like WebEx). The presenter is often already miked through a PA system, which makes the traditional speakerphone a bit dicey. But it's easy to fix.
Get an old Windows laptop. Nearly any one will do, as long as it can run Yahoo! Messenger v8.1 or higher. Hook an audio out from the PA system to the mic input on the laptop. Also either turn down the volume, or plug in headphones. Now dial into the conference call bridge using Yahoo! Messenger. Yes, anyone can do it. You don't need a premium account. Anyone can call a toll-free number using Messenger from anywhere in the world.
You probably want to dial in from a phone and test the system out to make sure the levels are ok. But once that's all set up, you've now got a system that has a direct feed of the presentation's audio for optimal quality, plus any noise from the listeners won't interrupt the presentation. If you want to be able to take questions from the phone, use headphones and have someone monitor it.
Let me know in the comments if you did this and found it useful. I always love to hear feedback.
There is one type of call that can be vastly improved with a simple application of free technology. The presentation call has a formal presentation happening on one side (likely with slides), and the satellite offices calling into a conference call bridge and following along with the slides (either manually or over something like WebEx). The presenter is often already miked through a PA system, which makes the traditional speakerphone a bit dicey. But it's easy to fix.
Get an old Windows laptop. Nearly any one will do, as long as it can run Yahoo! Messenger v8.1 or higher. Hook an audio out from the PA system to the mic input on the laptop. Also either turn down the volume, or plug in headphones. Now dial into the conference call bridge using Yahoo! Messenger. Yes, anyone can do it. You don't need a premium account. Anyone can call a toll-free number using Messenger from anywhere in the world.
You probably want to dial in from a phone and test the system out to make sure the levels are ok. But once that's all set up, you've now got a system that has a direct feed of the presentation's audio for optimal quality, plus any noise from the listeners won't interrupt the presentation. If you want to be able to take questions from the phone, use headphones and have someone monitor it.
Let me know in the comments if you did this and found it useful. I always love to hear feedback.
"...I always love to hear feedback."
For a post about conference calls, that's a strange way to sum up. :-)