Skype as you probably know is a great phone and video calling solution that you can use from your computer or even your mobile phone. Recently on a trip to Singapore I was able to call landlines back in Australia for a ridiculous 2 cents a minute from any one of the free wifi spots around town.

With Skype premium you can video call and share screens with up to 10 people and only one person needs to pay for the skype premium account.

I tried it out on the weekend with one family group in Sydney, another in Canberra and two lots in two different suburbs in Darwin. With busy lifestyles, we don't always end up in the same place at the same time, but with this one call and four videos we had 13 people in on the video conversation. It was not only a lot of fun, but all the cousins loved it and it was a great way to catch up.

How much? Now it is AUD $120 per year, which means that for 10 dollars a month you can get the extended family together and have an online dinner party without having to wash up everyone's plates.

Kids can have a virtual sleep over by inviting their buddies online and maybe sharing games or building Lego.

From a business point of view, being able to hold board or team meetings using a tool that only costs 120 dollars per year is fantastic. A board I serve on flies twelve people into Canberra twice a year. Fly them in once and have 6 more team meetings online for half the price. We have a variety of video conferencing and webinar solutions that provide more than even the skype premium does and with our numbers it makes sense to have tools that can handle hundreds of users at the same time... but for ad hoc breakout groups or projects across jurisdictions or plain old tutoring, Skype offers a way for individuals or small groups to operate effectively in the video conferencing space without shelling out big dollars for enterprise systems.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/features/allfeatures/group-video-calls/#

While people are getting used to video conferencing, be it for friends, family or business... it will take people a while to understand the etiquette of operating in a video conferencing environment... but when they are ready here are a couple of sites for you to have a look at...

 

http://www.vide.net/cookbook/cookbook.en/list_page.php?topic=6&url=etiquette.html&level=1&sequence

and

http://www.emilypost.com/communication-and-technology/computers-and-communication/111-video-conference-etiquette-tips

In reading through the tips, I think we need a different set of rules... In our meetings we hold on Fridays in the digital donga - hawaian shirts are required, eating is also allowed because you might not get another chance during the day and there were a few other points in the notes that I thought were a little tough.

The following video covers some rules that you might expect a formal team of executives to follow - but maybe not all our kids.

 

 

https://courseware.e-education.psu.edu/resources/Videoconf_etiquette4.pdf

 

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