Tag: meeting productivity

Record and Share Meeting Minutes Online with Minutes.io

by BrothaTech

Me, Myself, and I all in a meeting togetherWho REALLY likes taking meeting minutes? No one (present company included) but it is one of those necessary evils that needs to get done to give meeting attendees a reference as to what were the key meeting points. Now, there are a bajillion ways you could take meeting minutes. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to get done. With the Minutes.io web app, you can make recording minutes painless and sharing minutes instant.

There is no need to set up an account, verify an email address, or subscribe to anything to take advantage of this free little web app. Simply visit Minutes.io, enter the meeting information (meeting name, date, place, attendees, and minute taker) and you’re ready to start. Recording minutes is list-based, and the web interface gives you a couple of options to categorize your minutes:

  • To Do
  • Okay
  • Info
  • Idea

You can then describe the minute, designate a owner or responsible party of the minute recorded, and add a due date. Once you’re done adding minutes, you have the option of printing or sharing the minutes via email. If you choose to email, Minutes.io will populate an email message complete with your name, email address, addresses of other attendees an a nice little message in the body of the email.

The cool thing about Minutes.io is the fact that since it’s a clean and straightforward web app, any device with a web browser can create meetings minutes. So if you are out and about and remembered that you are the designated minutes taker for the meeting you totally forgot about, you can get the job done via your smartphone or tablet device.

Minutes.io is free and ready for you to try out now. So check it out and see how easy it is to record meeting minutes. It just may make recording meeting minutes fun [/sarcasm]

Fuze Meeting for iPad makes Your Meetings Mobile

by BrothaTech

Conducting a video conference or meeting no longer requires a sophisticated conference room Audio/Video setup. As more business professionals, entrepreneurs and small business owners are going mobile, the need to conduct meetings, conferences and presentations on their mobile devices is a necessity.

That’s where the Fuze Meeting app comes in. Fuze Meeting gives you the ability to take the meeting with you. With Fuze you can:

– Run your sales meeting from home or on the road
– Start a technical support session, make someone a presenter and have them share their mac or PC screen for remote troubleshooting
– Start and manage your next team conference call
– Use it to remotely control slides and other content in your board room!

Other features include VoIP integration, in-app instant messenger, a laser pointer functionality, pinch and zoom features, and cloud integration (Can somebody say Dropbox?). Fuze Meeting app will work on the Apple iPhone 4, Android, iPad, laptops and desktops with web cameras. So no matter what device your attendees pick as their weapon of choice, your mobile meeting, powered by Fuze, has you covered.

There are other mobile meeting apps out there that can tackle a similar task. What will set Fuze Meeting apart is the fact that your iPad or Android Tablet will add HD video conferencing in 720p. So if you do have conference attendees with high-powered video setups, your tablet device will have no problem displaying their video feed on your device in high quality.

Fuze is available for the iPad as a free download in iTunes (OS 3.2 and up). If you need more than two participants for your meetings, an in-app upgrade is available.

As more people ditch their desktops and maybe even laptops for a more mobile way to operate their business, look to applications like Fuze to get folks out of the office while keeping them connected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OkC2IRZc-4&feature=player_embedded

5 reasons for video conferencing in your small business NOW!

by Mario Armstrong

With more businesses looking to cut costs and employ workers from anywhere, video-conferencing is becoming more justifiable then ever before. Just take a look at the recent iPhone4 and you’ll notice that Apple has recognized how important it is to enable callers to be able to see each other. In business, non-verbal communication clues can be the absolute difference between closing or (without the”c”) losing the sale.

So if you are new to video-conferencing, here are 5 reasons why you should take a hard look at video-conferencing NOW:

1. Meet with clients and collaborate with internal staff more frequently! Face-time with customers and staff is critical but not always practical, so use video-conferencing to bridge the gap.

2. Demonstrate your thought-leadership skills and build your presence! Use it as a platform to deliver webinars and other thought-leadership activities, perfect for presentations and demos. Don’t translate that to mean it’s a place to sell, sell, sell!

3. Reduce travel costs! The next time you have a meeting out of the office, calculate all costs involved (gas mileage, parking & most importantly your time). It may shock you to see how much you are paying out in order to have an in-person meeting. Yes, I know it is best to meet in person when possible but do the calculations and see if it helps justify video-conferencing costs.

4. Reclaim your time! This is critical, every successful business owner will tell you that managing your time effectively is one of the most critical challenges to master if you intend to really maximize the impact of your business.

5. Video conferencing crushes a typical phone call! Phone calls are boring! Seriously, phone calls are boring and lack the non-verbal communication that can help tell you if your message is reaching its target appropriately.

Here’s a real-life example for you! Several weeks ago while preparing for a presentation about mobile apps and productivity I was introduced to the AT&T Connect conferencing app as a way of connecting and collaborating with several parties from different locations. I’ve used video-conferencing with other services like GoTo Meeting in the past, so I was certainly familiar with the platform but I don’t think back then that I really appreciated the productivity enhancements and the game-changing capabilities.

I was impressed with AT&T’s Connect service especially the mobile app which allowed me to join the conference, participate live, even view the whiteboard and other images that were being presented. To be on your mobile and interact with the conference as if I was at my desktop was really empowering!

If you aren’t sure if video-conferencing is for you take this trial for a spin and let me know what you think!

TRIAL:
https://trial.uc.att.com/portal/?Guid=26b2ca0f-2c55-4081-9086-136002d9e2e9;07858079-72F0-46F1-9460-BAFE7CDA84A4