The Borg are a highly evolved species of cybernetic organisms in the Star Trek Universe whose goal is to "Achieve perfection." They generously offer to assimilate less perfect species into their collective.
Sometimes the inferior species (like humans) aren't so keen on being drones in a perfect collective.
In 2013, TV Guide named the Borg #4 on their list of "60 Nastiest Villains of All Time," but as the Borg like to say:
"Resistance is futile."
So how did the Borg get to be so powerful? They have better meetings. Seriously!
When Captain Picard and his hierarchical subordinates want to make a collective decision, they have to traipse around the Enterprise and sit down together in the "ReadyRoom." What if the elevators are on the fritz? The situation could be over before they even get a chance to talk it through! Haven't they got Free Web Meetings by the 23rd century?
The Borg just communicate directly with each other, all at the same time. The Borg have taken the superior concept of web conferencing to its ultimate expression, and used it to attain perfection.
Lesson learned; if you want to dominate a galaxy quadrant, a web meeting is your best communication tool. Here's how they do it.
Information is power, and the Borg make themselves invincible by sharing all the information they have with every single drone, at all times. If a drone is under attack by Captain Picard, say, using a phaser rifle, the Borg drone asks their collective to look up the phaser rifle's specifications, and dials a protective force field into his or her suit.
Borg drones can adapt to any threatening situation because they have all the info at their fingertips.
Web conferencing works the same way. If one participant has some vital information for the staff team, they just use Free Screen Sharing to upload the PDF, Excel file, or video to the team. It could be a poem they read on Brain Pickings yesterday, last year's financial reports, or even the minutes of the previous meeting that were taken automatically using Conference Call Recording.
Web meetings move information quicker and better.
We are trying, at least. In 2015, you can attend free web meetings sitting at your own desktop, or even a laptop. Even if you don't have your laptop, all you really need is a smartphone to "be there." With the spiffy new Mobile Conference Call App it is now free and convenient to attend meetings from anywhere, even using an iPad. We can be part of our team while sitting on a beach, as long as our boss doesn't hear the seagulls and waves in the background, or the lifeguard coming up to flirt with us.
The Borg are way ahead, though. Each of the drones has a neural implant that hooks them up by Video Conferencing to the collective 24/7 through a handy device called a "vinculum." The vinculum screens out unimportant info like seagulls and lifeguards, and drones saying "@#$#@" when they stub their toes.
The Borg are always "in a meeting," but it doesn't slow them down. Just ask all the species they've assimilated.
At least we have a primitive form of vinculum; the router, which allows us access to our Personal Meeting Room, where we can use the Moderator Controls to screen out the "chaff" of a meeting. The Internet, of course, is our prototype subspace array. Tools like Outlook Add-In and Google Calendar Sync allow us to use Call Scheduling to set meetings up in a few minutes.
All the new free conference call Features are helping us take baby steps off our planet.
Someday we'll be perfect, like the Borg. For now, we'll just have to make do with Free Web Conferencing. At least we've passed through the "portal" of sit-down meetings. Staff team communication can be effortless.
I can hear the Borg Queen now:
"Your species is primitive and hardly worth assimilating. Your free web meetings are a promising sign though. Keep developing that technology and you may become worth assimilating someday. Then you will know perfection."
When humans invent their perfect communication device like the Borg neural implant, it will come with one significantly different feature.
An off-switch.
After all, much as we love our colleagues, it's nice to get away from the office on long weekends.
Create your FreeConference.com account and get access to everything you need for your business or organization to hit the ground running, like video and Screen Sharing, Call Scheduling, Automated Email Invitations, Reminders, and more.
