Helping Remotely with Screen Sharing

0 CommentsFriday • June 24, 2011 • by Imei

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Last year, I was having some problems figuring out why a USB microphone I had connected to my MacBook wasn’t working properly. As it was a gift from a geek, the geek contacted me via Internet with an invitation to use a screen sharing program so he could see what I was looking at, as well as ask permission to take over my screen. For fellow Mac users, the sharing ability is built-in (go to System Preferences> Internet and Wireless> Sharing, and add the user you want to allow access), but the problem with that is choosing whether you really want someone to have access to your entire computer versus just your screen. There are a number of screen sharing software applications out there, but a slick (and free) one called join.me is helping me share a screen remotely to get my web-related work done.

Join.me’s concept is simple and probably familiar to you. If you are the one sharing your screen with someone else (which was the case for this example), you are the Presenter. The other person is Viewer 1. After downloading the app and firing it up, a widget with five icons appears in a box. When the middle broadcast button is firing, you’re good to go. Click on the share button to the far right, and Viewer 1 can use his or her mouse on his remote screen to activate actions on yours [cool-io]. The Presenter can sit back and watch, learning by observations and questions, or feign ignorance while receiving a light upper back and neck massage from her oil boy [or, an affectionate he-kitteh].

Why oh why does that have any relevance to your artful life and business? If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again and again: most artists I run with are not trained on the business and marketing side of their work. But I keep seeing really talented people, their work, and events remain relatively unknown to those who would appreciate them the most. There is nothing more sad in the art world than seeing a half-empty room. This could be avoided when artists learn to leverage technology and Social Media in their favor, and for many of us, that means we have to learn how to do this ourselves.

Step by step, my geeky pal led me through the backchannel of my WordPress site. Granted, it was set up by a designer, and laid out to my specification, but I always wanted to learn how to tweak it on occasion to add new features or make minor changes. This geek used join.me to show me where to go to make the changes, and he let me do these changes myself with his instruction. At the end, I shared the control of my screen so he could zip around at half-light speed instead of my slow and methodical pace, making a few organizational and aesthetic changes. Voila! You should see a few changes on this blog page already. And now I have the tools to do the same thing to my other sites. A little instruction goes a long way!

I’m thinking of the countless times I’ve tried to instruct someone on how to use a certain platform or device related to web, text, or video work from remote location. Programs I’ve used in the past had a thirty-day trial before you’d be assessed a fee, or in one case, the Presenter did not understand how to activate the program, and we never got a successful screen share going. I think Join.me seems easier, and I am hoping this will help me when I have to help people like my mom with small items of computer confusion.

For you artists who have to carve out graphics for a shared project but you don’t live in the same city, think about what screen sharing can do. What projects would you share? How could this be effectively leveraged for your artful business?

Posted in: Art, blogging, Business, Social Media

Tagged with: business, join.me, remote sharing, screen sharing, sharing, web help