Organizing Meetings via Videoconference

As part of our continued celebration of Berrien RESA’s Green Meeting Month, here are some tips on organizing meetings via videoconference.

Communication Tips

  1. Make sure all sites reserve the room or videoconference system to participate in the meeting.
  2. Facilitate the entrance of people into the meeting; welcome them and make sure they can see and hear ok.
  3. Facilitate the conversation. If the meeting is more than a one-way delivery of information, you may want an experienced videoconference facilitator to assist for the first meeting or two. This facilitation will help everyone learn how to behave in a videoconference. If not available, the meeting leader should not assume that people will just speak up at the beginning. It is helpful to call on people to ask for comment.
  4. Side conversations should occur only when the site is muted and when doing so will not interrupt or detract from the meeting.
  5. Make sure any materials for the meeting are sent beforehand; preferably digitally to all the participants.

Technical Tips

  1. Arrange for bridging the sites into one meeting
  2. Make sure all the sites test ahead of time (particularly test H.239 / sharing the computer)
  3. Plan to connect 30 minutes in advance of the meeting to work out any issues
  4. MUTE! The easiest way to make sure all sites are muted as they join the meeting is to set each endpoint to mute on autoanswer.
  5. Prepare visuals appropriately for videoconferencing

More Resources

For more tips, check out these resources:

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