My Findings on Effective Techniques for Hosting a Meeting in the New World

I work for a large SaaS firm. One of the tools that I’m responsible for keeping online is a virtual meeting and collaboration suite. As a result, a good many of my own meetings are virtual. The more immersed in the industry I get the more I find myself attending a meeting from a hotel room, a coffee shop, or some other generally non-traditional venue. As a result I’ve also started to realize the value in making the most of these virtual meetings. They were important enough that they couldn’t wait for me to get back to the office, so they’re important enough to do well. Bigger picture still is the value of supporting an employee diaspora. In the new era not all businesses can justify relocation and it seems to me that many employees don’t have the old values of a lifetime employer loyalty, but are more interested in finding work where they want to live. Meeting in the middle can be a significant benefit to all parties.

With the increased frequency of on-line meetings, and the cost to business of having all your resources stopping “productivity” to meet, it’s vital that the value of those meetings is not lost to the burdens of the new medium. I’ve tried to take note on a few rants and a few raves of things I find useful in any meeting, but especially things pertaining to the on-line forum.

• In this world market we all have different linguistic foundations. Whether it’s a regional accent or the local language is not your native tongue it really doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you need to learn to communicate effectively with all members of your team. This is even more challenging with a telecommunication tool separating you from your team; the quality of audio when it’s passing through 6 compression algorithms and 3000 miles of fiber cable means it’s pretty quickly going to lose the sharpness of a face to face. It’s the responsibility of all players on a team to make sure that they’re well understood. Speak slower, enunciate; make sure that you use full sentences, and don’t rely on slang or acronyms to highlight the truly vital message. I’m especially sensitive to this because I’m prone to speaking very quickly and letting thoughts run together.

• Master the use of the mute button. If you’re the organize, familiarize yourself with the interface so you can quickly mute/unmute attendees to help ensure that the flow of the meeting is maintained. If you’re not talking and don’t plan to; mute yourself. There are few things more disruptive to a meeting than the sounds of an attendee who’s neither contributing, nor even paying attention. Please don’t breath, drink, type, or background chat into the Mic.

• Speakerphone is a dangerous thing. Be mindful of cross talk and side conversations. If the people near the phone are having side conversations, it can make it totally impossible to understand the speaker.

• Understand your environment
  • Mics pick up very well, you might not know you’re on a busy street, but *I* do
  • Where is the Mic? Is it anywhere near your mouth? Is it too close to your mouth? It’s infuriating when I can only catch half of an epiphany form someone who was muffled by a mic placed somewhere below their chin.
  • How does your audio device respond. Is the mic close to the speakers? Creating a feedback loop is agonizing
• How much do you rely on visual queues? If you’re not using a web cam then you can’t share a hand gesture or white boards as easily with remote attendees.

• Find out what’s needed for you and your attendees to pay attention. If you’re not attending in person, you will tend to give it less than your full attention. If you’re able to engage the audience effectively, you’ll keep the value high

• People won’t walk in on a full meeting room but I often get interrupted when I’m on a call. Find out what you need to do to convey the value of your full attention; be it a sticky note on the door, or simply locking your office.

• Plan ahead to involve the audience, and how to work with them. Cross talk kills a meeting if you don’t know how to schedule each person’s chance to talk.

• If you provide prework for a group before a meeting make certain to give them time to do it.