We all know about the great features that a
SMARTBoard offers in terms of capturing ideas and presenting them interactively but how many of us use them to collaborate across great distances. Well it appears more and more people in the corporate space are doing just that by making great use of the
SMART Bridgit data conferencing solution. I was lucky enough to meet David Martin the chairman of SMART Technologies and inventor of the
SMARTBoard and ask him what was his inspiration to invent this touch screen device back in 1991(that’s right the
SmartBoard is 20 this year !) decades before Mr Jobs and co got the touch screen bug. To my surprise he said the need for the SMARTBoard was originally driven by the success of the
SMART Bridgit application. Many years later it turns out that when we show people the
SMARTBoard the
Bridgit application is getting equal if not more attention.
For those of you not in the know,
Bridgit allows you to securely and easily share your desktop PC with other users remotely, it means someone using a
SMARTBoard (or not) can share their notes and annotations with any other user across the world via the Internet. If the person running the session so wishes they can allow the remote participants to interact and annotate over the meeting in session. The system also allows remote users to share their desktop with the host and they can make annotations and capture them with white board software such as e.g
SMART Meeting Pro Premium. In fact products like
SMART Meeting Pro premium instigates a
Bridgit session as soon as you start using the board, it intuitively knows that you will want to share this meeting with an audience outside of the meeting room and if you want them to join you,
Bridgit makes allowances for people who don’t have the
Bridgit client by allowing you to email an invite to them with a link and password to access the meeting. In fact SMART have just launched a free
Bridgit App for the Apple IPad allowing users to view and annotate over a meeting from literally anywhere with their IPad, and they will soon be launching an app for the android platform.
Bridgit will also support voice and web cam but I have found it at its most effective when used with a voice conferencing phone or a
video conferencing system.
What has come out of a lot of our meetings with end users considering this technology is the fact that being able to collaborate on data and whilst on a conference phone seems in some cases preferable to a video call. We know this as we allow prospective customers to use our hosted
Bridgit service free for 30 days to get a feel for the technology and judging by the amount of customers we see logging in and out this service will only get more popular. Our hosted service is gathering more customer’s everyday as they realise the benefits of using a hosted service that is secure and doesn’t put any additional burden on their existing IT platform.
If you’re interested in greater collaboration and saving operational costs within your organisation then please drop me a line and I will demonstrate from my desk how easy it is for you to continue to work wherever you are. Be ahead of the digital curve and act now. Its the future………..