Making the most of Virtual Meetings with Live Meeting
Over the last few years we have seen some benefits as to how technology has changed the way we work. Mobile phones, e-mail and more recently, the advent of corporate instant messaging, have all contributed to a more immediate and effective way of working with people in different locations. However these “shifts” in technology still lack a certain something. With phones, productivity is dependent on the ability of people to communicate clearly. This doesn’t always work on a conference call when you are asking people to get to the right page in a document or presentation!
The same applies with e-mail. It isn’t immediate; instead it relies on the recipient being able to “do something”. It again can come unstuck on human communication and interpretation of information!
These technologies came into existence to help supplement or support the situations where you cannot (or do not want to) meet with people. Maybe these people are half way round the world and while the air miles can be tempting, the jet lag most certainly is not!
This is where Live Meeting steps into the spot light. If, as a worker, you possess an internet connection, computer and a phone, you can use this virtual meeting tool to help meet deadlines, communicate clearly and avoid jet lag. Live Meeting can be blended in to day-to-day work practices so the worker has a choice as to “how” and with what frequency they communicate.
An Invitation.
With the ability to invite anyone to a meeting through Outlook, by using the Live Meeting Add-in pack, you will find that a simple click will change a schedule request into a Live Meeting event. Your collaborators or attendees click on a link that launches a browser, connects to Live Meeting and lets them join the virtual room. Once there, you can present a PowerPoint presentation, annotate documents or brainstorm on the built in whiteboard, among other tools.
A tool for all reasons?
In the same way that a phone can be used for many different tasks, Live Meeting can be as flexible. The selection of built-in tools, allow you to perform many different roles within a meeting. Using PowerPoint is really only scratching the surface, as you can upload anything you can normally print in Windows. For example a Word file to review, an Excel spreadsheet to collaborate on, or a Project Plan to keep track of? These are just a few of the formats you can drag into Live Meeting, and then draw over the top of, as if you were sitting next to the work colleague with a printed copy and a pen!
Live Meeting has six built-in slide types (aside from being able to use PowerPoint or other files):
• Sharing
• Whiteboard
• Text slide
• Polling Slide
• Web Slide
• Screen Snapshot
With sharing you can choose to show your desktop, an application or even just a window to the other meeting attendees. They don’t even need to have the application on their computer, as they are watching your machine through a virtual window. But take this tool one step further and you can give an attendee control of the application (don’t worry though, as you always have the ability to take control back!). The meeting then evolves into a teaching session or a collaboration moment. For IT, it can help troubleshoot a problem or understand how to replicate an issue!
Knowing that you can draw on top of any file you upload into Live Meeting, helps get the point across and the same annotation tools can also be used on the Whiteboard to draw a diagram. If you have a tablet PC, the stylus will work just as well as the mouse. The added benefit is that you can create a downloadable graphic version of your work which saves you having to copy it down from the real world whiteboard. Creating a workflow or an organisation chart is simple in Live Meeting. Cut, copy and paste allows duplication of annotations such as boxes and using the mouse to move them on screen, tidies up the picture. Let’s put this in context for a moment. You could be a member of a global HR team, running a project to map out succession of high quality staff. In the past you would have had to get on a plane to meet with your colleagues, but now it just takes the meeting, not a few days!
The polling slide allows the presenter to set, ask and interpret attendee’s responses to questions in a meeting or at a training event. Not only this, but it will also assist in keeping peoples’ minds on the content and not on other things happening around them. In the training environment, a presenter could use the polling slides to perform a training analysis or to check the attendees understanding of a concept.
Aside from these tools, you can even record the meeting. This will provide those who cannot attend with a Windows Media file version of the event, audio synchronised with what has been happening on screen. Even the application sharing is recorded, making it a valuable training tool for educating users on how to use a software product!
Live Meeting is designed to allow the user(s) to focus on the content or message and not the method of communication. It underpins productivity and is a powerful enhancement to the tools you now use on a daily basis. What’s more, it’s environmentally friendly as there are no paper documents. It can help reduce carbon emissions, as you won’t be driving your car or travelling by plane to your next meeting!
To experience Live Meeting go to http://www.microsoft.com/uc/livemeeting/default.mspx, also go to the download section for the free trial.
