Conducting a great online meeting

It goes without saying that online meetings are a sin and a saviour of the business world that we live in today.  We want to connect disparate workforces, save on travel, and a host of other reasons and therefore we use tools like Sametime, Webex, LiveMeeting and others to make meetings happen.  Nick Morgan had a nice blog post on Harvard Business Review about how to conduct a great online meeting.  With the presence of video in most offerings it really starts to focus on that true virtual experience.  I can attest that having video really does make a meeting more meaningful and brings everyone into the meeting.  Historically it was too easy to have people off doing other stuff and no one knowing but video really engages those who are mobilized.  Recently, when we enabled video on meetings a leader who works remotely 100% of the time emailed me and said that for the first time since going remote she felt she was now part of the team again.

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Here are some quick tips and I would go read what Nick has to say in more detail at HBR:

1. Recognize that virtual meetings are suboptimal and plan accordingly.
2. Plan the virtual meeting in 10-minute segments
3. Pause regularly for group input.
4. Label your emotions, and ask others to do the same.
5. Don’t neglect the small talk — but use video
   

Some very good points and some very common-sense ones as well.  There are certainly some techniques I use and some I plan on trying.