A real live in-person meeting

I am the mayor of a small city. We have monthly meetings. We are moving this month to 21st century and everyone will have laptops, with the city secretaries computer connected to projector. All laptops are Windows 7 Professional. They are all networked, w/ internet access, along with access to the city’s LAN.

If we wanted to be able to Instant Message, share our desktop w/ other members, share our desktop with the projector, what would our options be to use something free or out-of-the-box Windows to accomplish one or all of these? What about Windows Meeting Space?

Other dilemma. City Secretaries screen is shared with projector. What if I wanted to Instant Message the secretary, but don’t want message displayed on screen?

bc0167 said:

I am the mayor of a small city. We have monthly meetings. We are moving this month to 21st century and everyone will have laptops, with the city secretaries computer connected to projector. All laptops are Windows 7 Professional. They are all networked, w/ internet access, along with access to the city’s LAN.

If we wanted to be able to Instant Message, share our desktop w/ other members, share our desktop with the projector, what would our options be to use something free or out-of-the-box Windows to accomplish one or all of these? What about Windows Meeting Space?

Other dilemma. City Secretaries screen is shared with projector. What if I wanted to Instant Message the secretary, but don’t want message displayed on screen?

As a service Citrix's go2meeting.com

Can do all of the above plus record the meeting, have individual (or all chats) show desktops, etc. Can be used via VOIP (computer) a phone conference, and other media.

Free to try for 30 days. I use it elsewhere and it is a much better alternative than Skype.