Virtual meetings can be more valuable than face-to-face meetings, on the conditions of following some ground rules as the ones laid down by Keith Ferrazzi, trainer and researcher, in her article published on The Harvard Business Review (http:https://hbr.org/2015/03/how-to-run-a-great-virtual-meeting).
Prefer video conferencing to audio conferencing
Video is more engaging than audio only, as participants can see each other‘s emotions and reactions. Therefore, turning on your monitors is always a great idea. Today, technology offers valid and tested solutions for superb Full HD video conferences, like R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com ), a suite of on-premise based web conferencing servers that ensure great telepresence and supportive-streaming with very low delay.
Prepare participants
Sending a concise list of the topics to discuss during your virtual meeting to every participant is proved to be really helpful in almost 100 % of cases. Your guests can thinking ahead of the contents and formulate some good suggestions or ideas. Another advantage is that this increases their engagement levels.
Listen to your team’s opinions before the meeting
Preparation is not a one-way road. The organizer must be prepared as well. This is the reason why it is important to get some feedbacks from the participants to your meeting even before it starts. The agenda can be then modified, in order to cover all the points that are relevant to the main topic.
Introduce participants to one another
People feel more comfortable when they know each other, and they also perform better. This is the reason why it is important to create connections and introduce your guests to one another at the beginning of any real and virtual meeting.
Give each participant some time on the agenda
Everybody must give his contribution to the meeting, as it fosters collaboration and allows you to get input from all the team members. In this way, your guest feels also more engaged and participative.
Request your participants’ attention
Multitasking is proved to be the natural enemy of attention. Therefore, ban mute and forbid your guests to leave the meeting to go somewhere else and perform different tasks. A great way to check that every participant is attentive is to enable video, so that everybody gets visible.
Ask for questions at the end
When your meeting is going to finish, it is not a bad idea to leave some freedom to your guests. It is the time to allow questions. While you are answering who asked the question, the other participants can relax and take a break.
Are you interested in virtual conferences? You are going to find several useful resources, guidelines, articles and interesting posts on R-HUB`s blog at http://www.rhubcom.com It is also possible to enjoy a 30 days free trial of R-HUB solutions for audio and video conferencing.