How To Host An Effective Virtual Meeting

Despite the significant amount of time the average business person spends in meetings each week, it seems as though attending a well-managed, effective meeting happens as often as you would find a four-leaf clover. Granted hosting any meeting is no walk in the park, but trying to host a resourceful audio or web conference can be even more challenging. Thankfully, not only does practice make perfect, but our ConferencingShopper blog is chock-full of tips and tricks on improving your meeting’s success.
 
How to manage your virtual conference

Prior to your meeting:

Create an agenda – and send to each participant in advance. If you plan on having a lengthy conference with a large number of participants, then you should also include a time schedule as well as a list of objectives or expected outcomes for each item on your agenda. This advanced preparation will give structure to your conferences, set and assert goals for you and your participants to aim for, as well as shows respect to your participants and to the company.

Assign a back-up facilitator – that is able to take your place in the event of your absence. Be sure to go through both the conferencing software and meeting agenda with him/her thoroughly.
Perform a ‘dry-run’ – to ensure your conference call will run as smoothly as possible. Today’s audio and web conferencing solutions offer a robust, comprehensive list of features to improve communication and collaboration that – although user-friendly – require practice to navigate and execute properly.

At the start of your conference:

Arrive early – so you can set-up and conduct any necessary tests. Nothing kills a participant’s focus and engagement quite like a host or presenter that is struggling with the technology.

Welcome each participant as they enter to your conference – even if your conferencing solution displays the name of each participant as they arrive in your meeting, greet them with a simple, “Hello.” If your conferencing service does not display participant’s names, a simply ask, “Hi there, who just joined?” to keep track of your attendees.

Introduce each other – once everyone has joined, take a brief moment to introduce each of your participants as well as their role in the company and your conference. This will help both the host and participants to be able to direct any questions or comments toward specific individuals.