With the recession still continuing to bite, a number of companies have implemented a ban on all non-essential travel.
When I was younger (and carefree and single) I used to enjoy travelling the length and breadth of the country, staying in hotels, having a full English breakfast and a 3-course dinner all at my employer’s expense. These day, however, I’m more of a “home bird”. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, there was no such thing as virtual training or virtual meetings but these days, with all the tech at our disposal, is it really necessary to travel for a meeting or a training course?
I recently put together a training event called “virtual meetings” with the following elevator pitch…”whether it’s a meeting, a training course or a 1:1, more and more of us are using Webex or Live Meeting to run virtual meetings. In this event we’ll show you how to use Webex and LiveMeeting and provide tips and tricks to make your virtual meetings more productive.”
So what did I cover? In addition to a brief demo of Webex and Live Meeting, the top tips included:
- When presenting virtually (using Webex, Connect, etc) use “Share Desktop” rather than “Share File” or “Share Application”. With the latter 2, I’ve had issues with missing fonts and graphics
- Don’t forget to end sharing when you’ve finished otherwise people will see you reading you emails and IM’s!
- Use 2 monitors if you can – you can put the chat panel and any notes on the second monitor
- Mute the attendees as there’s nothing worse than listening to someone else typing/talking/eating/breathing heavily!! down the phone line
If you have any more tips for running virtual meetings, please share them with us.