Improving the Virtual Meeting

I love watching the old Star Wars movies and seeing the fantasy technologies the characters use, taking note of how many of them are realities now. Recording devices, imaging screens and cell phones are just some of the technologies that have been developed through the inspiration of movies.

One of the new Star Wars movies recently showed meetings where 3-D images of people appear in the middle of a room. I wonder if I will actually be able to pay attention in a virtual meeting when there’s a real-life version of a person standing in front of me?

Sometimes getting yourself to really focus in a conference call or virtual meeting is pretty difficult. With someone else driving the PowerPoint presentation, you end up sitting at your desk with your keyboard calling out to you to check email and complete that proposal you’ve been working on. Presenters will often try to get you to participate with a poll, but that’s not always enough to hold your interest from a bird that keeps crashing into the window above your desk.

But times may be changing, I have recently noticed an increase in the types of virtual-meeting products available to help keep us engaged and involved. The Boston Globe’s Michelle Johnson recently reviewed Conferral, software that allows you to easily share your computer screen with your coworkers. Instead of emailing a file and having someone use editing tools and send it back, you can now quickly review the document with one or more people in real time on your computer screen. Just sending a simple invite allows everyone to read your document and see changes as you make them.

Conferral’s future releases will include two-way revisions, streaming video and a remote control. This product will be a great addition to the virtual meeting, and I think having the ability to work hand in hand with a coworker who may be located in another part of the world is great. These types of technologies are a step in the right direction for effective virtual meetings -- that is, until electric shock treatments are available to keep us focused.

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