This post is for all who have sat on boring conference calls or – worse yet – hosted painful calls where no one is engaged. As someone who participates in about 10 audio or web conferences a week, I have a few go-to tricks that I like to use to when hosting a meeting to ensure that attendees are listening. After all, when you are seated in a face-to-face meeting chances are you are paying attention. When you are at your desk participating in a call or web conference, chances are you are multi-tasking. 1. Publish an agenda beforehand. Even a few bullets can help set expectations and let people think about how they can contribute 2. Start on time (or as close to on-time as possible). This one sounds easy, but can be difficult. Remember, starting (or attending) a meeting on time shows your guests that you respect their time 3. Know who is attending the meeting and engage with your audience throughout the discussion. 4. For web conference hosts, use polling and Q&A to formally gauge feedback during a meeting. Although these are more sophisticated features for web conferencing hosts they are a fantastic way to keep larger groups engaged. Let’s face it – there is nothing worse than death by power point on large group meetings! (If you are a new Netspoke user, PGi offers daily training sessions online to learn how to use these features.) So tell us, how do you conduct meetings that keep your attendees engaged???
