Patrick Moran is chief strategy officer at Fuze Box, the company behind Fuze Meeting. He was also chief marketing officer at Mzinga, a leading social media and white label community provider, and led online marketing at Cisco WebEx.
Companies of all sizes and in all sectors regularly use virtual meetings to connect with colleagues, partners, clients, and prospective customers. In fact, some 87% of companies worldwide already use web conferencing or are considering implementing it soon. However, getting virtual meetings right takes a bit of skill. They differ from in-person get-togethers in many critical ways – and to succeed with web-based collaboration, meeting leaders and participants should follow a few simple tips.
What Are Virtual Meetings?
There are many different ways to conduct a virtual meeting – from new, fully web-based services and traditional downloadable web meeting software, to pricey installed software systems. Many web conferencing applications now support document sharing, real-time interaction, simultaneous audio conferencing, mobile connectivity, high-definition video, and other next-gen features that make virtual meetings more like face-to-face ones.
Whatever type of virtual meeting software you use, the benefits of web-based collaboration are clear. For one, companies can get people together no matter where they are located – expanding the universe of ideas and gaining valuable input from remote team members. For example, your company could have a creative team in New York, a sales team in Boston, consultants in satellite European offices, and technology developers in San Francisco. The entire worldwide team could join a virtual meeting using only a web-connected computer or mobile device and instantly engage in real-time collaboration on documents and videos, whiteboard ideas, talk through strategies, conduct real-time chats, and share information. Getting all of these people together for a face-to-face meeting would be prohibitively expensive and extremely disruptive to overall productivity.
Here are some tips to make sure you get the most of your virtual meetings.
Tip 1: Make Sure Virtual Suits the Meeting
Almost all types of meetings – from project planning and creative brainstorming, to client prospecting, sales calls, real-time video editing sessions, and management meetings – can be conducted virtually if you have the right web conferencing application. However, there are some types of meetings that are better done face-to-face, such as those involving personal employment development discussions, key customer prospecting meetings, and some client meetings. Basically, if you feel like meeting a client, employee, or partner face-to-face is important for building that relationship, go with your gut; interpersonal relationships are key to building your business. Ditto if you think the content of a meeting is just too personal to conduct over the web.
Tip 2: Know Your Audience
Who are you meeting with? A new client? Team members? A prospective customer? Tailor the content of your virtual meeting to the audience, and make sure everything is appropriate to share with all participants. The needs of your audience should also drive what type of application you use; particularly for meetings with external participants (like clients or sales prospects), you should make sure the technology is easy enough for them to use with just a click and a phone call.
If your web meeting solution requires a download or has some level of complexity, make sure participants are familiar with the web conferencing technology before they log on. Send out instructions by email a day or two ahead of the meeting and list contact information for IT support if they’ve got questions on how to use the technology. Once participants log on, welcome everyone and remind them to speak up if they’re having trouble with the web conferencing application or service.
Tip 3: Set a Meeting Agenda in Advance
At the beginning of the virtual meeting, set ground rules for passing control and speaking. Use a technology that lets participants virtually raise their hand or click on a flag to chime in. Set guidelines for chat use; make sure participants know how and when they are able to use chat in personal and broadcast fashion, and set guidelines on when participants can engage in side-conversation chats.
Setting an agenda and meeting protocol in advance will help your meetings to go more smoothly from start to finish.
Tip 4: Choose the Right Moderator
The moderator has an important role: setting the tone for collaboration and keeping the agenda on track. The moderator should keep the conversation going, make sure everyone has had a chance to comment, ask questions, and ensure everyone who wanted to was able to chime into the conversation. Make sure the moderator is familiar with the features of the web conferencing system available solely for “leaders” of the conference; many applications allow moderators to select speakers, control document sharing, and keep track of the meeting’s progress.
Tip 5: Save Your Work
You should always choose virtual meeting software that allows you to save documents, chats, discussions, notes, whiteboard memos, and all other important content. The moderator or leader should continually save all content both throughout the meeting and after it’s done. Make sure to save both the audio and session files, because you may want to use the meeting content again or make information/recordings/videos available to colleagues who were not able to attend the virtual meeting.
Virtual collaboration is critical to your company’s success. The right web conferencing tools will enable your employees, partners, and customers to interact and collaborate effortlessly in real time, driving innovation and bottom-line business growth.
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Images courtesy of iStockphoto, Yuri_Arcurs, rzdeb, and leluconcepts
Reviews: iStockphoto
Tags: business, collaboration, List, Lists, virtual meetings
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