The Good and the Bad of Virtual Meetings
In today's "Glocal" environment more and more organizations are
turning to virtual meetings to help people connect and more
effectively get things done. Virtual meetings can be very
powerful, but also can be a major detractor to doing business.
Stick with the below goods and watch out for the not-so-goods:
When virtual meetings are good -
* Very cost-effective to get a large number of people together
to hear a common message; whether they are across the hallway or
across the world
* Tend to stay on time; you can better control pontificators or
meeting hijackers taking over your meeting or diverting
attention from the meetings focus
* They are easier to coordinate than physical meetings; no
worrying about room size, setting up equipment, or supplying
refreshments.
When virtual meetings aren't so good -
*Tend to lose interactivity; participants on a virtual meeting
will not speak up as much as if there were a physical meeting
* No reading of body language; during physical meetings, you can
both see and hear your participant and can better discern
whether a participant is truly engaged and in agreement. During
virtual meetings the visual connection is lost so gauging true
acceptance is much more difficult.
* Unfamiliarity with technology; could be the technology works
just fine, but the person running the meeting isn't familiar
with the technology. Make sure either the meeting owner knows
what he or she is doing or has someone physically with him or
her who can drive the technology and make sure it all works
well. And for Pete's sake, do a dry run first to raise any
potential glitches prior to going live.