And now for our second installment of “Conferencing Calamities”. Remember, these were actual conference calls that our customers participated in and later told us about. We can’t make this stuff up!
Conferencing Calamity #2:
“We recently had a great laugh when a participant flushed a toilet, scolded his dog and answered his door to accept a delivery. No harm done, and to this day, no one will admit it was them.”
Let’s continue the laughs…Tell us some of your real life meeting mishaps!
This video clip speaks for itself. I couldn’t help but think how the disastrous ending could have been avoided if this were an audio conference…. Maybe audio conferencing can save lives??
One of the keys to a successful meeting is a good slide presentation. When I design a presentation, I usually don’t give it much thought. I just pick an appropriate corporate template and go. But slides that are attractive and visually pleasing, not only provide a way to communicate quickly, accurately and effectively, but they keep your audience attentive and more receptive to your ideas. So when I stumbled upon some tips for improving my presentations, I knew immediately that I should share them with you.
Marshall Mackstein, Principal at eSlide, a graphic design firm specializing in professional presentations, makes a compelling argument for the value of good slide design in his presentation, “Designing Slides with Visual Value.” In it, he offers some excellent tips for creating graphically stimulating slides by using color, font, proper layout and artwork. His before/after examples are especially useful in demonstrating how good slide design can make your presentation go from boring to brilliant.
Check out this presentation and keep these suggestions in mind the next time you want to add visual value to your meeting.
If you are already a customer, you can receive help from Customer Support Online Chat.
Online chat from Premiere Global Services is designed to help you get your questions answers quickly and easily, without having to pick up the phone.
Try it today- and leave the existential questions to Sir William.
It’s time for your quarterly earnings release. You have sweated through preparing your presentation, editing, reviewing, practicing … and practicing again. You finally feel comfortable with your message, but in all your preparation, have you sweated the right stuff?
I contacted the Service Quality Team at Premiere Global, and here’s what they say are the easiest yet biggest blunders speakers make that often have the biggest impact on their Operator-assisted call:
Not identifying yourself as a speaker when you dial in. If the Operator is unaware you are a speaker on the call, you’ll be placed in the main conference with a closed line. It’s likely that you will not be able to speak when it’s your time, or your conference will be delayed while the Operator searches for your name amongst all your participants.
Calling in at scheduled start time. We know you’re busy, but if you don’t dial in a few minutes early, the Operator can’t conduct a sound check or go over all the call details, such as Q&A prioritization or proper pronunciation of all your speakers’ names.
Not distributing the confirmation code. PGi is committed to protecting the privacy of every client we serve. Without a confirmation code, your participants will likely be asked for additional pieces of information to ensure we’re placing them in the correct call. Having the confirmation code helps facilitate their access into your call.
So the next time you host an Operator-assisted conferencing event, don’t forget to sweat the small stuff. It is often the difference between a successful call and an apology to your participants. For more tips on hosting conferencing events, please go to PGiSupport at http://support.pgi.com/.
What gets hundreds, sometimes thousands of references on Twitter each day? No it’s not the latest badly behaving Hollywood celeb, it’s actually the conference call. That’s right, hundreds of people tweeting various reactions to the very conference calls that they are attending. Here’s a quick sampling (names removed to protect the innocent): - “just spent 70 minutes attending a webinar/conference call from my living room couch. Glad it’s over cause my cell phone is about to die!” - “one conference call standing between me and the weekend” - “These late night rehearsals are no good. What say we stay home & rehearse via conference call?” With all this chatter on Twitter about something we hold very dearly – the conference call, the PGiMeet team is jumping into the fray. Follow us at PGiMeetTweet to hear our take on meetings, the technology challenges and get quick tips and tricks on collaboration.
We’ve all had some awkward, strange or just funny things happen during conference calls. I remember a conference call from many years ago when I answered a call on my cell phone from my mother. I proceeded to ask my mom (loudly) why she kept calling me when she knew I was at work! Of course, I had not muted the line – and everyone heard me! Oops!
As horrifying as these moments are when they are taking place, they are often the cause of a good laugh later. We recently polled our customers to hear their funny conference call stories. We got great feedback and found there were so many great and gruesome stories that we had a hard time deciding which ones to share. So, in the upcoming weeks, we are going to be posting some of the best and worst moments from conference calls.
And we definitely want to invite you to share your “conferencing calamities”. With more than 17 million meetings taking place every day in the US – there’s a pretty good chance there are plenty of ‘Conferencing Calamites’ out there!
Conferencing Calamity #1:
1. A few months back I was hosting a meeting about how to use a new software package. On the call we had anywhere from 15 – 30 managers from across the country. Before each session I am sure to tell everyone to mute their lines, and that virtual sessions are hard to keep participants engaged, so please ask questions. About half way through a demonstration I hear a women speak up and say, “BORING” thinking she was on mute. So I calmly stopped the presentation waited for a moment, then asked her if she has a question or comment to share. I immediately heard the disconnect beep.
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