10 Tips for Successful Conferencing and Collaboration

By Mike Wixon

How many times have you set up a conference call, only to have 4 out of 10 participants show up? How about when you hosted a web meeting for added collaboration and the key person in the meeting can’t get connected to the web portion?

It is difficult to imagine life without conference calls and today, even web conferencing is becoming ubiquitous. These communication tools make business life more convenient and productive.

ThinkEngine Networks builds the hardware and has developed the software that runs the conferencing applications at many top conferencing service providers. Through countless conversations with our customers and their customers, we have developed our top 10 list of conferencing best practices to make virtual meetings more effective.

1. Simple steps increase participation. If you hold recurring meetings, start at the same time each week. Use Outlook or calendar tools to keep the call on people’s schedules. Send out an agenda the day before to remind participants of the call.

2. Determine if you are trying to reach a broad or narrow audience. The audience then dictates the type of call and meeting tools to use. For example, if you need to deliver a major announcement to 1000 employees you may want to host an event call with a question-and-answer session and make the recorded call available to those who missed the call. For routine meetings, a reservationless call works great - use the same dial-in number and passcode each week.

3. Make the actual online meeting productive for everyone. Show up on time or a few minutes early. Test the web connection ahead of time. Set meeting objectives. Use interactive web features to illustrate points and collaborate on documents.

4. Improve the audio quality of calls. Make sure your service provider and speakerphone offers full duplex audio. If you’re on a cell and there’s background noise, use the conference mute feature when you aren’t speaking.

5. Don’t sweat the technology. Let your conferencing service provider help you figure out the tools you need for different meetings. Focus instead on the audience

and message.

6. Consider trying new features and add-on services on your conference calls. A picture is worth a thousand words so why not demo the software online while the prospect is on the phone instead of talking through PowerPoint slides?

7. Take advantage of flat-rate meeting rooms offered by some providers if you hold several reservationless calls per week. You may come out ahead with a low flat monthly fee for unlimited calls.

8. Provide options for international participants. The most common way to for them to join is by providing a toll number where they pay for their international transport. Many providers also offer international 800 numbers if you wish to pay for all components of the meeting.

9. Maximize your company’s network, LD rates and conferencing contracts. Most conference calls are intra-company so use on-network minutes whenever possible. Consider consolidating conferencing providers internally.

10. Consider a managed solution if your company conducts many conference calls each month. Even if you are using 10,000-20,000 conferencing minutes per month you should talk to your service provider about managing a bridge on your customer premise for additional savings.

Done right, there’s nothing better than communicating sales pitches, board updates, employee messages or project statuses without traveling to multiple cities and countries in a mere fraction of the time. IT

Mike Wixon is a senior member of the management team at ThinkEngine Networks, a leading provider of TDM and IP-capable conferencing bridges and media servers. He has more than 20 years of high tech experience and is recognized in the industry as an expert in VoIP. Wixon is responsible for building the customer base, managing customer relationships and has been instrumental in the design, development and evolution of ThinkEngine’s VSR1000, which includes both TDM and IP interfaces as standard equipment and is capable of processing 968 simultaneous sessions in a compact 1U platform.

» Internet Telephony Magazine Table of Contents