Five Ways An Interactive Meeting Tool Will Boost Your Business
From communication to filing, management to sales, and marketing to production, digital technology has made its way into the business world at an amazing rate. Yet one area where it had previously only been inefficient and clunky was in the boardroom. Long set-up times, technological trickery and troubleshooting kept presenters from fully utilizing their laptops and projectors — but today, those woes are over, and it’s finally official that if you want to make the most out of your daily meetings and project planning sessions, you want a dedicated interactive meeting tool in the room. Here’s why:
Regular meetings are a waste of your time.
According to Attentiv.com, over 60 percent of meetings are conducted without a pre-conducted plan of action. That means over half of the 11 million meetings held every day in America are a potential waste of time. That’s hundreds of millions of meetings a month.
The numbers get worse. More than a third of the average nine people present at any one meeting believes that the meeting was unproductive – most people cite that no real decisions were made, or that a lack of planning would set the average meeting up to fail. Let’s face it – most people lose track of what’s going on in a meeting within the first half hour. They fall asleep, suffer from the distraction of the enticing donuts in the corner, or just plain tune out the constant arguing and lack of direction.
If you feel that your company is losing precious working hours and a sizable potential revenue every single day because of unproductive meetings, you’re probably right. But not all meetings are created equal. Interactive meetings have to be planned with a goal in mind – they’re catchy, call for attention and discussion, and they force an equal level of participation from everyone, whether they’re in a boardroom in New York or their offices in London and New Delhi. From seamless multimedia integration, file sharing and crisp audio-video quality, a proper interactive meeting tool can cut short the long inefficient hours, and replace them with something worth your company’s time.
Interactive meetings are the future.
Virtual meetings are becoming the norm among businesses of all kinds, and for good reason. The old rules no long apply – team leaders and managers are learning new skills and developing new techniques to make the most out of this new technology, and the reason its working so well is because interactive meetings are taking advantage of all the factors of a successful learning session.
Interactive conferencing providers are offering integrated functionality with email accounts and other applications to help include meeting members in the discussion.
With interactive conferencing, BlueJeans and other companies are offering a smarter, better alternative for businesses.
Your meetings will be cheaper.
It’s simple – interactive conferencing allows for members between countries to close the distance, and effectively discuss anything from sales strategies to production management without having to arrange for travel costs, boardroom space, and various other implications. This way, not only is time and money saved, but businesses cause less disruption in their workflow as they can instantly communicate with one another from offices across the world.
From a productivity standpoint, the time saved making faster, smarter decisions through interactive meetings also counts towards a financial gain. Attentiv.com shares that on average, a single meeting costs $338 of any one attendee’s salary – for many, that’s a significant cost that racks up quickly.
Your meetings will be more engaging.
The human brain doesn’t remember things too well if they’re only discussed over the phone – but with video output, multimedia presentations and an interactive file sharing element, meeting attendees can focus and engage on meetings like never before.
Much of the complaints put forth by meeting-goers can be blamed on the lack of focus exhibited by managers – interactive meetings give them the prerogative to plan ahead, and develop a concise presentation for the day’s issues and projects. Only by having a point-for-point plan of action can a manager keep the attention of every attendee for the entirety of the meeting’s duration.
Your meetings will be more effective.
Interactive conferences cut short the downsides of a traditional meeting – but they present managers with new challenges, instead. By keeping a certain level of casualness, managers can effectively build and foster a relationship with their team, no matter how far away each member is in the real world.
Something as simple as a pre-meeting ice breaker can prepare a meeting’s attendees to the challenges to come – and through the technological benefits of modern conferencing technology, you can have your members attend a meeting from their mobile devices, desktop applications, and web browsers alike. Add file sharing, synchronized video viewing and multimedia presentations, and you’ll have more tools to tackling your everyday issues than ever before.