Making the Most of Online Meetings for Your Small Business

Online meetings and videoconferencing tools are allowing businesses of all sizes and budgets to enjoy the benefits of collaboration over the internet. Online meeting platforms including NetMeeting, making it easier than ever to exchange information, conduct presentations, or simply brainstorm ideas for a team project. Since everything takes place on over the internet, you can spend much less time worrying about traveling and the physical space of your meeting, and much more time simply getting things done.

Even though you won't have the formalities of a standard meeting-no handshakes, or business card exchanges-there are plenty of ‘online' versions of the same communications. Today, you can set up an electronic version of your business card if you need it to send it through e-mail. Video cameras and microphones are becoming sharp and clear enough to look like real television; even though you won't have face-to-face communications with your team, you can still make good eye contact and get your message across.

You'll need to invest in a solid internet connection to make sure your online meetings are successful and efficient; nothing will ruin the agenda more than losing your internet connection of finding out that you've lost communication in the middle of a presentation. Investing in the right equipment from the start will prevent technical difficulties, and making sure participants are trained and comfortable with using the software will also help in keeping the meeting running on time.

Setting up a web cam is the easiest way to get started with online meetings for your small business, and you can use a variety of free software programs on the internet to start conducting web meetings, slideshows, and presentations.

Collaboration tools on the web also make it easy fro multiple users to work on a project together; you don't have to wait for everyone to be at an office at any time, but can work on a single document simultaneously. Try working with Google Docs & Spreadsheets for easy sharing of basic information; it's a highly effective tool for sending and publishing to large groups of people, and can help limit e-mail attachments and multiple copies. Google Docs & Spreadsheets also lets you track how a project has unfolded, making it an effective project and time management tool as well.

A few more do's and don't for your online meetings:

• Do take the time to test all equipment before the meeting, and confirm that all participants are comfortable with using it

• Don't rush through a presentation and speak too quickly; your presentation should be paced in the same way it would if you were having an in-office meeting

• Do create an agenda so that everyone can follow and stay on track; limit questions to the end of each segment of your meeting

• Do send out the agenda ahead of time, so participants can be ready with questions or changes well beforehand. This can cut down on the length of your online meeting since you'll be spending less time trying to keep agenda items organized

Online meetings make it easy for you to collaborate and complete projects with employees around the globe; take advantage of the software and capabilities of the internet for your small business for an easy step towards productivity.