North San Diego Business@Large

As many of you know I help solopreneurs utilize the internet to market their business. One of the most useful tools I have in my online arsenal is Skype and a valuable extra to Skype, Mikogo.

I’ve set it up for a non-profit organization so they can hold their physical, or as I like to refer to it, terra firma meeting along side a virtual meeting for the attendees that can’t make the terra firma meeting.

Skype, in my humble opinion, is a fantastic tool.  You do need to let the other person finish speaking, but all in all, it’s a great tool. Mikogo only enhances Skpye and extends it one step further.

So, what can you do with Mikogo???

1. Share each others’ screens.
2. Switch presenter – let a meeting participant share their own screen. (awesome feature)
3. Access remote keyboard and mouse control – the current presenter may grant control of their screen to another user at any time.(great for tech support)
4. Transfer files – the organizer and guests can send files of up to 200MB to each other (whooo hoooo so easy)
5. Select applications - Got an open application which is not required for the meeting? Select to hide it.
6. Pause transmission – take a meeting break and suspend the transfer of screen data.

Now, Mikogo has gone one step further and created a fantastic tutorial to help you install and use Mikogo.

Once you have it installed, skype me at northsandiegobusiness so we can play!!

I’ve been using iClipArt for almost a year now and it’s been a great investment. I’ve been able to find clipart, photos, web art and sound at iClipArt to enhance my blog posts.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a visual person and I love seeing some type of graphic. iClipArt has an easy search feature that provides plenty of choices of quality art for your site or printed project.

But, now it’s even better. I went to sign in for some art for a post and…they are having a sale. A year subscription for only $29.95. I highly recommend a subscription there so you have easy access to visuals that will add a little sizzle or enhance your projects.

One step towards taking your business more into cyberspace is the ability to communicate over the web. I’m a Skype user, which allows me to IM my clients and associates, as well as make Skype to Skype calls. Skype also has what they call, extras. Extras extend the functionality of the software. One extra, Mikogo, which allows you to share your desktop with others. I put it to the test last night and will really thrash it tonight. So far, I’m impressed!

I had a total of four users join the meeting. We were able to easily watch the desktop being shared. We used a PowerPoint presentation and the lapse between clicking the slides and them visually changing was 3 seconds. One of the features I particularly liked was the ability for me, through a mouse click, to point to a part of the page that was being discussed. It’s hard to sit and watch someone else’s cursor on your screen, it’s nice to be able to interact to a degree with your cursor. It’s the ability to say, look at this!

Did I mention, it’s free? All you do is go to Mikogo, sign up for an account and download the Mikogo.exe software. You’ll also want to download the connect.exe found by tapping the "Join Meeting" in the header.

It’s an easy application to use and it will support 10 people in the meeting at one time.

As a blog coach, I find the ability to share my desktop to be essential, especially if I’m training my client on a program or task. If you have any need to share your desktop, and are a Skype user, this is one extra you don’t want to be without.

If you try it, or are working with Mikogo, let me know what you think by commenting.

Microsoft Office Live Small Business is providing some great tools for the solorpreneur. Not only can you manage your projects, you can develop your contact database, email marketing, resource center, and you can host your site over there too.

Now you can set up your first site at Microsoft’s Office Live and when you’re ready, bring a designer/programmer in to enhance your site. The most important aspect though is YOU can easily update your site through the web. I’d really encourage you to go over an take a look at Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business.

Go there now and check it out!!