The BizCATS Review: FlockDraw Whiteboard
I like to call online Whiteboarding “poor man’s web conferencing.” While it's not a fair description, it does reflect the fact that sometimes you need to interact online with others and you just need something quick, cheap and easy to help get your ideas across.
I’m one of those people who in a meeting says “can I use the flip chart?” I need to diagram my thoughts, write up key points for discussion and in general draw arrows all over the place in different colors. Iit’s not pretty but it’s how a lot of us think and communicate and that's why I need a whiteboard in online meetings as well as face to face ones.
Most web conferencing products contain a whiteboard feature. If you need screen or application sharing for your meeting, they work just fine. But maybe you don’t need all of that (and also don’t want to pay for it).
For example, you have a weekly conference call with your sales team or dealers and you want to put up some discussion topics, layout a sales strategy, or list the sales pipeline. You also want this to be easy for your meeting attendees – you want your meeting private and you don’t want people to have to register, download a program or remember a password. In other words, you want it all to be simple.
There are a number of good, free whiteboarding tools available, but I am really enjoying a new one called FlockDraw.
Flockdraw has all the basics, period. it has nNo frills at all but boasts a wonderful simplicity. You and your team can draw, erase, color, and diagram to your hearts content on demand. Set up a personal screen – for free, of course – and invite your team to it. You can also embed your FlockDraw page into your own website or intranet page, which could make it even easier for your participants.
If you’re new to the whole idea of online whiteboard conferencing you’ll love FlockDraw just because they kept it so simple and user friendly. It’s a pretty much “goof proof” way to experiment with online meetings and personally I find it meets my needs 90% of the time.
If you’re a power user, however, who wants to save or print screens, show pictures, and so forth you’ll probably want upgrade to one of the more technically elegant whiteboard services.
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