This Week: We’re looking at three tech tools that I use in Multisite Church that are indispensable, free and provide immediate productivity boost.

“Watson? Can you Hear Me? Watson, I need you!”  … with those few words from Alexander Graham Bell we were off the races in collaborating over the phone.  In an age of Skype and gchat video . . . the phone still reigns supreme as a ubiquitous collaboration tool.

Over the last few years I’ve used free conference call services for a number of great uses within multisite church leadership:

• Project Check in Meeting – It’s great for pulling team members from a number of locations and teams for a quick 20 minute “around the table” discussion on where people are at with an update service or event.
• Training – I’ve hosted interviews with authors and leaders over the phone and then had our people ask questions of the author – an easy to do training event that respects our people’s time.

Once the prevue of just big business . . . now there are a number of free conference call services out there.  Lots of people have “national wide” calling now making the location of the access number irrelevant. (But buyer beware . . . there are some shady operators in this space that might try to trick you into using a long distance number that will charge you more!)

After having tried a number of these services out over the years . . . I have landed on FreeConferencing.com as the best for me. Some of the features I love are:

• Great web interface to manage the calls while they are happening. (Hold, mute, Q&A, etc.)
• Simple call recording – great for sending follow up to your people.
• The ability to upload audio and play it during the call – I’ve just done this to be “funny.” (Christmas music during our recent Christmas eve check in conference calls.)
• Break out rooms – the ability to have people meet in separate “rooms” during the call.

The runner up in my books is FreeConferenceCall.com . . . I like how you can customize the audio greeting as people arrive at your calls.

Link to some tips for hosting great conference calls.

What about you?  How are you leveraging conference call services within your church?

On Friday we’re going to look at a mission critical service that our creative team uses every day to move documents around between our campuses. Subscribe to the blog through email and you’ll get exclusive bonus content.