Leadership meeting video conference recommendations? Zoom, Webex, Teams, Hangouts, Connect ??

[allenhill]

Hi,

Relatively new Stake Technology clerk here, searching for help hasn't resulted in very much good info...

With the Covid-19 directive that all meetings should be held digitally, I've been asked to suggest appropriate technology for our Stake Presidency and High Council leadership meetings.

Does the church officially support or have licenses for any of the prevalent technologies? I'm familiar with the following, but haven't used any with my church responsibilities:

* Zoom
* Google hangouts
* Webex
* MS Teams and Skype
* Adobe Connect

Some of them have limited free features with meeting time limits. Is anybody planning to pay for subscription licenses for some of the additional features?

What is everybody else planning to do?

Thanks in advance.

[pfknone]

I have had this discussion with my stake presidency and we determined that Google Hangouts was the first option as it was the easiest to install and people would be most comfortable with. I really was pushing them to use MS Teams as that is what I use for work and school. IN the end you really want to use something is FREE and something most people will already kinda know how to use, hangouts is the example here because most people are familiar with Apple's Facetime.

[superdave98]

Take a look at FreeConferenceCall.com. It has the same features as Zoom and GotoMeeting, but it is actually free. You can add services for an extra charge such as a dedicated phone number or toll-free numbers.

[russellhltn]

Interesting, my company uses FreeConferenceCalling.com, but that's a audio-only conference call. I thought I'd throw that out there that there's another company with a very similar name.

[lajackson]

The Zoom website says Zoom Free will host meetings lasting up to 40 minutes. That would be a good way to test if there were interest in their product. Zoom Pro starts at about $15/month and allows meetings that last much longer.

It would really be interesting to know what the Church uses for video conferencing beyond one to one visits.

[I have no affiliation with Zoom and am simply passing on available information for consideration.]

[marlowejd]

I use zoom for teaching at the University level and have just purchased a Pro private license (15/month) to use for doing meetings in the time of Covid19. It is great for speaker with large audience or educational simulations. I am now looking for something that works for asynchronous content/training. Any other recos?

[barkeraj]

https://meet.jit.si/ is another free one that we ran into. Haven't really used it yet, but seems pretty full featured, no install (just grant permissions) and free (not even a way to create an account).

[Franz]

hi!

I suggest Zoom.

I use it daily in my work as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and also for webinars and group work. It's simple, easy to use, no payments and as for the 40", you simply launch a new meeting and give the ID to everyone in the last 5" of the first meeting. Although last month I held a group session for over 30 people and we were not cut off after 40 minutes! Strange! The quality is brilliant and you can record the meetings too, have people adding comments, talk, chat, raise hands, etc. Plus you can share the screen.

I would actually avoid Google Hangout - I tried it a couple of years ago when I was teaching Italian online and it was a total disaster, the interface is not intuitive and the students were super frustrated.
We gave up after 5 or 6 weeks of trial and error!

It would be useful if the church gave us a simple platform or upgraded the 'Living' (new app) to add video!

Have a great week!

[davesudweeks]

I don't have any personal experience, but my wife used Zoom extensively while she was getting her online degree with BYU-I (I think BYU-I has a contract with them because that was the platform all the instructors used). As the stake primary president, she has begun using if for her presidency meetings. In a meeting earlier this week, she received the expected 40-min cut off warning at about 35 minutes. They went about 10 minutes over and were not cut off. I suspect Zoom may have suspended tight controls on the 40 minute limit temporarily.

She also praised it for it's simplicity, ease of use, and video/audio quality. Participants do not have to download an app to use it - they can join with just a browser. She did think that it would not work as well for large groups - she said a presidency of 4 is about the ideal size for group participation. Larger groups may be OK for disseminating information but not for discussion.

I used Google Hangouts a lot to communicate with my wife while I was deployed to the Persian Gulf and really liked it. But that was just a video call and I never tried it with more than one person at a time.

[russellhltn]

According to the news, the 40 minute limit has been lifted on free educational accounts.