The Future of Meetings
Meetings have been, and continue to be, a central part of every day business life. Unfortunately, not all meetings give those in attendance value, and many waste our time.
In the mid-1990s, just after Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon.com and a host of other net-based companies started taking off, I recall reading a prediction that large face-to-face business meetings and conferences would soon be history; done in by e-meetings and videoconferencing. Our days would be spent attending virtual meetings without ever again boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, and getting lost in a labyrinthine conference center. In addition to being wrong, the prediction was just plain silly. That’s what happens when you look at the capabilities of technology without looking at human needs. The need to meet, establish relationships, share information, knowledge, and above all wisdom is not going away. No amount of high tech gadgetry is going to change that in a fundamental way.
e-Meetings or Face-To-Face
Virtual meetings or e-meetings, Web-conferencing and videoconferencing have indeed come into their own as important business tools, but face-to-face meetings are still the dominant form of meeting and extremely relevant because there is no better way to build trust, and in our increasingly global marketplace trust is the glue that creates that creates strong, successful, and enduring business relationships. Those who anticipated the end of face-to-face meetings made the mistake of using either/or thinking which often occurs when dazzling new technologies first appear; the new thing is seen as destined to totally supplant the old thing – except that rarely happens.
Instead, the new and the old tend to coexist by doing what they do best. E-meetings, Web-conferencing and videoconferencing are superb tools for saving travel time and expense, focusing on a structured agenda, obtaining senior-level points of view in real-time, building consensus, and making announcements. They’re not so good at, smoothing out contentious give-and-take, or handling emotional or sensitive issues. Fortunately both virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings are readily available. It’s not either/or anymore. Both/and thinking is the new paradigm.
More Meetings
I foresee a growing need for more meetings in an interdependent world that generates increasing quantities of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom that needs to be communicated.
The key is to develop guidelines for determining what type of meeting to have. To do this, you must look at the meeting’s goal. One of the traps we fall into when planning a meeting, is looking at business goals instead of human/emotional goals. Think of it this way. Is your goal to inform, motivate, inspire, persuade, influence, sell, gain trust, negotiate, gain respect, establish new relationships, strengthen existing relationships, share information, share knowledge and experiences, gain credibility, change how people think, solve a problem, determine a strategy, or simply create dialog? Thinking about the goal for the meeting in this way makes it easier to decide what type of meeting will be best and what technology is most appropriate.
- If the goal is primarily to inform by sharing data and information, then a meeting may not even be necessary. It might be far better to use e-mail, groupware, a wiki, a blog, or an Intranet or Extranet and let people collect and absorb the information at their own rate and in their own time.
- If you determine that sharing the information at the same time with everyone would be best, then consider audio conferencing and/or web-conferencing as an alternative to a face-to-face meeting.
- If the information delivery will primarily be one-way, then an e-conference would serve the purpose. If, however, informing involves hands-on demonstrations and/or high levels of interactivity, then a face-to-face meeting is definitely in order.
- If the goal is to influence, build on existing relationships, share knowledge and experiences, gain credibility, solve a problem, or determine a strategy, then a face-to-face meeting is best, but it is no longer the only option. Technologies such as high-end videoconferencing and satellite-broadcast services that use full-motion video could help you accomplish your goals. If all participants have access to broadband connections, and today most do, then web-conferencing offers another increasingly attractive option. Audioconferencing could also be a viable option depending on the number of people attending and the amount of interactivity required during the meeting.
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If the goal is to gain trust and/or respect, or to inspire, motivate, persuade, establish relationships, negotiate, or change how people think, then a face-to-face meeting is a must. If this is not possible, then the next best thing would be videoconferencing.
The need to meet, share knowledge, and develop relationships will continue. Successful meetings will depend on your ability to develop guidelines that leverage both old and new tools to build trusting relationships that foster greater communication, collaboration and community.
Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of six books
Copyright 2006 Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.
