By Mike Song, Tim Burress, and Vicki Halsey

With the economic meltdown, rising environmental concerns, growing apprehension about global pandemics and traveling to high crime-rate countries, and the ever-increasing need to boost productivity and save money, companies everywhere are stampeding to virtual meetings to slash travel costs, go green, and get more done.

The only problem is that most professionals have no idea how to run effective and engaging on-line meetings. According to a new survey conducted by infoexcellence.com, two thirds of all workers say that virtual meetings are boring and plagued by technical difficulties. As a result, meeting productivity plummets as attendees tune out, surf the web, do email, or play with their BlackBerries.

Many professionals are left wondering, Why meet if no one’s paying attention?

Five Tips for Amazing Virtual Meetings

Virtual meetings, when effectively run, can be a boon to productivity and your bottom line. Here are five cutting-edge ideas you can implement today to keep your attendees engaged and contributing.

Turn On the Lights!

A teleconference is like meeting in the dark. No visuals = boring! Help participants see the light by upgrading dismal phone meetings to colorful web conferences. Use charts, slide presentations, and compelling photos to build interest and make your point.

Quick Tip: Look for ways to incorporate team photos into your virtual meetings in order to create a stronger bond with participants. For example, place a professional-looking headshot of yourself on the cover slide of your next virtual presentation.

Champion the Chat Feature

Invite participants to make frequent use of the public chat feature to provide insights, feedback, and even jokes. While you might think this would distract participants, it actually rivets them. Tech-savvy Generation Y colleagues love to leverage chat to communicate and probe for important info. Chat also cuts meeting time because the speaker doesn’t need to be interrupted every time someone wants to make a point. Use chat early in your next meeting to send the message that participants should focus and contribute because their opinion matters.

Quick Tip: Use the Chat feature as a rapid polling tool and idea generator. For example, ask participants to list the single biggest obstacle to getting more done on the job.

Become a Screen Writer

Your audience will be more engaged if the screen is alive with movement and color. Practice using web conferencing tools that allow you to draw or type on the web meeting screen to highlight key points.

Quick Tip: The next time you display a document reflecting a co-worker’s great work, draw a smiley face or A+ on the screen.

Survey the Crowd

Web meeting surveys are easy to create, make meetings fun, and yield a ton of useful information. Impress and engage your colleagues with a few well-thought-out survey questions during your next virtual meeting. You can create questions specific to the meeting’s purpose or general questions like this:

What would make our meetings more effective?
1. Start and end on time
2. Better preparation
3. Stay on course
4. Complete all action items

Quick Tip: Create an open ended ice-breaker question that you can use with early participants to test the survey tool and build your confidence. For example: Who will win the big game tonight?

Avoid Tech Disasters

Avoid technical glitches by being prepared. Create a “Tech Glitch Cheat Sheet” that lists key features, simple fixes, and support and account information for all virtual meeting technology. For example, include instructions on how to mute all phone lines. This is useful when a knuckle-headed participant puts you on hold forcing everyone to listen to the extended version of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana!

Have your cheat sheet by your side whenever you launch a virtual meeting and you’ll be able to overcome technical glitches gracefully.

Quick Tip: You can download a free cheat sheet template at: https://www.infoexcellence.com/icfreelessons.htm

Become a virtual meeting virtuoso, and your coworkers, colleagues, and clients will be happy—and even inspired—to participate at a higher and more meaningful level.

* * * * *

Mike Song is America’s leading business productivity speaker, coach, and researcher, and developer of the "Get Control" productivity webinar and seminar series. Vicki Halsey is an optimal learning strategist, consultant, and vice president of Applied Learning for the Ken Blanchard Companies. Tim Burress is an efficiency expert and cofounder, with Song, of Cohesive Knowledge Solutions. Song, Halsey, and Burress are coauthors of The Hamster Revolution for Meetings: How to Meet Less and Get More Done (Berrett-Koehler, 2009, $19.95, www.hamsterrevolution.com).

Content copyright © 2009 by cohesive knowledge solutions, inc. Permission to reprint granted and encouraged. Copyright strictly enforced on exact reprints and adaptations.

Social networking icons by komodomedia.com.