Small Lawfirms Benefit From Online Meetings

Web conferencing is a playing-field leveler for the small to medium law firm.  Online conferencing lets you visually interact with your clients in real time,  without the huge investment in a videoconferencing system and more office space for the system.
You don’t need to be a “computer geek” or have an IT department to hold a “webinar” or an online meeting.  All you need is your computer, a webcam, and an online meeting provider.  You can meet with your clients in real time, share documents with them, make changes to the documents and answer their questions over a secure phone line, for as little as $39.00 per month.
The best online meeting providers offer easy to understand tutorials and risk-free trials to help you take advantage of all online meetings have to offer.

One CEO’s Take on Net Meetings

“We have chapters in three states and resources from Maryland to California. There are monthly online meetings with each chapter, quarterly meetings with each member, and interchapter meetings. I did a comprehensive study of the available Web conferencing services available and have found that, by far, the best one out there is Infinite Conferencing. Infinite Conferencing even hosted a virtual conference for us with members from Maryland, Ohio, and Texas. Our speaker was from Chicago and I was able to facilitate the meeting from my office in Fort Worth. We accomplished in one hour and 45 minutes what normally takes four hours of meeting time and we never left our respective offices.”

-Mal Bass
Executive Forum Group, a national CEO organization

Warm Up Your Online Meeting

Online meetings benefit from icebreakers every bit as much as the face-to-face meetings.
Shy participants need help getting comfortable participating. Bored attendees need to see the content will be useful.
This doesn’t change just because we can’t see each others’ faces.
There’s also the intimidation factor of online technology. Many of us don’t know how to use the tools, or are uncomfortable
not seeing each others’ faces.
Next time you lead an online meeting, try incorporating one of these 4 icebreaker approaches and you’ll see a difference.
1. At least get an introduction
You’ll always want to at least have everyone introduce themselves. (If I’m in a meeting I want to know who else is on the call, don’t you?) If it makes sense for your meeting, have them add something personal about themselves as well. I like to guide the personal side with a question - favorite pet, something fun about themselves we may not know, best vacation spot, you get the drift.
2. Ask for a lead-in
Help everyone understand the reasons for the meeting. You might ask each person to share one thing they want to get from the meeting. Advanced online tip: if you have interactive chat in your web conference software, have everyone type in their answer. Think of it as a quick software orientation inside the icebreaker.
3. Visuals rule
Use a powerpoint slide to display a question or visual puzzle. This icebreaker technique is a chance to make sure the web conference software works for them. If you plan to use the webinar’s document annotation tool, have them try that feature out too.
4. Take a Poll!
If your webinar software supports it, post a survey for attendees to take. It can be an on-topic survey, particularly good as a lead-in for a training meeting, or even a “fun facts” set of trivia questions. If you give the survey results (and the correct answers) later in the meeting it can make a nice break when the energy starts to flag.
Decide on an icebreaker (or two) for your next online meeting. Your attendees will appreciate it.

Three Jobs for the Meeting Facilitator

Start with an agenda. Ask your manager what (s)he wants on the agenda.  It’s also a good idea to send an e-mail to the meeting participants, asking them what they’d like to see on the agenda.
If you have any issues you’d like to see discussed, put them on the agenda,too.  Perhaps you’ve read an interesting article in an industry publication or heard about something a competitor is doing. Put it on the agenda.  As the facilitator, you can use these tidbits of information as ice breakers, too.
Include everyone in the meeting. As you move along the agenda items, be sure to solicit input from everyone who’s logged in.  If someone hasn’t contributed to an area, ask him or her to summarize what the others have said.  In that way, everyone will feel a part of any decisions that are made.
Last, set a time limit for each agenda item … and stick to it!

Keep the meeting on track. The main reason facilitators are necessary is because meetings have a habit of getting off track, taking too long and not covering what needs to be covered.  A good facilitator takes care of the details, watches the times and makes sure everyone’s opinion is heard.

If you are planning any brainstorming sessions, be sure to keep them positive and encourage everyone’s input.  Remember that brainstorming is not a time to judge ideas. It’s a time to put everything on the table. Even the wildest, craziest ideas can sometimes trigger a workable solution, so you don’t want to discourage anyone.

Summarize agenda items before moving on. Once you’ve completed an agenda item, summarize everything that was discussed as well as any assignments that were made. Leave no dangling ends as you move to the next point.

Send out meeting notes. Write a summary of the entire meeting and send it to everyone who attended as well as those who should have been there but couldn’t, such as your manager. Get it in their hands within three days of the meeting, then encourage the participants to get back to you if they notice any discrepancies.

How to Choose An Online Meeting Provider

We small business owners have to be careful.  We need to invest in growing our business, but not waste a cent.   Web conference software can help, if you understand what to look for.

Often, owners are afraid the service will cost too much. They worry they might get locked into a fee for something that doesn’t do what they need. Sound familiar?  If so, read on.

The good news is that web conferencing vendors have pricing plans geared for small business owners. For example, Webex’s MeetMeNow prices out to as low as $39 a month for an unlimited number of meetings (15 participants per meeting). The other top-tier companies (Cisco, Adobe) have similar plans.

The trick to deciding whether the finances make sense is to figure out what you’ll save.   Are you traveling to meetings? Internet web conferencing will save travel dollars.  Are you always pressed for time?  Web conferencing lets you be in “two places at once.”  When you calculate your savings in dollars and time, you’ll probably agree that web conferencing is a good investment.

Next, determine what features you absolutely must have.   If you’ve used internet conferencing before you probably already know what you need.  If this is new technology to you, take advantage of free trials to see which of these features make the most sense for you.

• Audio Conferencing: If you’re interested in VoIP calling (calling over the Internet) you’ll want to check whether the vendor provides this.
• Video Conferencing: If you have a webcam on your PC and are comfortable using it, you’ll want a vendor that allows for video streaming.
• White Board: Virtual whiteboards are a great tool.  Your group works together to draw out a new concept, just as if they were in the same room.
• Annotating Documents: Do you want to read and edit documents together?
• Number and Size of Meetings: We like a plan that allows unlimited meetings.  Some vendors will limit the number of participants per meeting, but how often do you need more than 15 people on a call anyway?

Bottom line: You’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking advantage of online meeting vendors’ free trial offers!

Team Building, Virtual Meeting Style

Are you familiar with the 4 phases of team building? They are affectionately known as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. In order to get your team working like a well-oiled machine, you need to encourage candor, critical thinking and kindness – at the very least civility — among your members.

How well your team meetings go is a good predictor of how fast your team will get to the Performing stage. Let’s say you’re in the Storming stage. You know. That’s where the members don’t quite trust each other, or you, yet. There are turf battles emerging or ongoing. No one feels real comfortable saying what’s really on their mind.

What to do? Try this strategy in your next online meeting. Start with a blank shared document split into quadrants. Assign a relevant question to each quadrant. It’s good here to have a mix between subjective and objective questions like:

1. What potential do you see for our team?

2. In a perfect world, what would you have our team accomplish this year?

3. Name one thing you enjoy about your work.

4. Share your biggest concern about this team.

5. What one thing about this team is working really well?

Like all brainstorming sessions, let people pass if they can’t think of an answer. Give everyone about 30-60 seconds. This isn’t the time to analyze responses. Write everyone’s thoughts down so the group can see them.

You have a couple of options now. Take 10 minutes and let the members discuss the document and ask clarification from each other. Then, maybe, go back to your mission statement and see if it needs revision. Or, maybe you need clarification from the higher-ups on what the team’s goals ought to be. Here’s where your leadership/facilitation skills kick in.

This process doesn’t take long and yields good results. The most significant is that you and your teammates will gain a better understanding of each other. These insights will help your team quickly move into the all-important Performing stage.

How’s Your Travel Budget?

How’s your travel budget these days?  An Orbitz survey of more than 600 business managers revealed that 79% were pressured to slash their travel budgets.

So if your travel budget is bleeding red ink all over your bottom line, you’re not alone.  You’re scrambling for cheaper flights, a smaller car, cheaper hotel rooms – anything that will help save on travel costs.  And the competition for those commodities in increasing!

Want to slash your travel budget while providing the same level of service to your clients?  Just take a meeting — an online meeting, that is!

Online meetings let you interact with clients, business associates and even vendors in real time.  With no additional costs for travel, food or lodging.  And no time lost in traveling.

Three of the top online meeting providers offer you access to their services for as little as $39/mo.  For that ridiculously low price, you can meet with up to 15 people — as often as you need to.  There’s no extra charge to you or your client(s) for the telephone connection.

Check out our online meeting provider reviews – you’ll find a solution that works for you.

Essential Tools for Successful Online Meetings

When you’re shopping for an online meeting provider, make sure to look for these valuable tools:

A “whiteboard” feature.  This essential tool allows freehand markups of documents and other presentation materials just like you were in a face-to-face meeting.

Another feature that you’ll want to have is the ability to transfer keyboard and mouse control to a participant.  This can really help a participant fully explain his points and call up documents he needs to assist his explanations.

A chat facility, so participants can communicate with you and others without disrupting the proceedings of the meeting, is invaluable.

Finally, look for moderator tools that include options like mute functions. This can be very helpful in shutting out unnecessary background noise that disrupts the sound quality of the transmission.

Save Big Bucks With Online Meetings

According to US News, Mark Fritch, owner of Fritch Custom Log Homes in Sandy, Ore., has a problem: The office of his engineer is dozens of miles from his own office. To have a face-to-face meeting with his engineer, Fritch says, “I can figure it’s going to take three or four hours out of my day and 50 miles of driving.” With today’s gas prices, traveling that far is also a drain on Fritch’s wallet. But Fritch has a solution that saves him time and money: He uses a Web-conferencing program to set up a virtual meeting with his engineer. It allows them to view on their individual computers all the documents and photos of their latest home-building project as if the materials were spread out in front of them on a table. Fritch says that holding virtual meetings, which he has done for the past three years, has substantially cut his travel costs. “When I look at dollars and cents, I’m saving time, I’m saving fuel – it’s a win,” Fritch says. Web-conferencing software is an example of how technology has made staying in the office–and saving on fuel costs–work for more and more business people. And the technology has become increasingly affordable for the small fry. A monthly subscription can be as low as $39/month. Less than the cost of filling up your SUV!

Want to know more?  Click here to read our reviews of the top online meeting providers.

5 Advantages of Online Meetings

Whether we like them or not, meetings are an essential activity of business life. It does not matter if you are a one-man/woman operation or work in a conglomerate, meetings with suppliers, colleagues, subordinates, and/or superiors are required.

In the old days, there were two ways to meet: Face-to-face or over the phone. Then there was video conferencing, but the other ways were still more practical, because they were far less expensive. Nowadays, however, thanks to technology, all one needs is a computer and access to the Internet to conduct an online meeting.

Online meetings have several advantages over the traditional methods.

1. Online meetings can be conducted with little advanced notice since the participants do not need to leave their workstations to meet.

2. Online meetings are cost-effective: You don’t have to reserve or prepare a meeting room. Neither you nor your participants need to travel outside of your office, thus no money is spent in order for the participants to attend the meeting.

3. Today’s online meeting vendors have powerful tools that enhance real time collaboration among the participants. For instance, you can transfer keyboard and mouse control to a participant to allow her/him to fully explain their points and call up documents as needed to assist in explanations. Participants are also equipped with chat facilities so that they can communicate with the other participants without disrupting the proceedings of the meeting.

4. Powerful moderator tools allow you to completely control the meeting. For example, mute functions can prevent hard charging participants from unnecessarily butting in on the discussion. As any facilitator knows, face-to-face meeting moderation is not so easily accomplished.

5. It is easy to record the meeting’s proceedings for future review, playback, and broadcast. There is no need for special recording and reproduction equipment.