At this present juncture, business world is very diverse and companies have employees and customers located all over the world. As you can pretty much imagine meeting with coworkers and clients can be time consuming and expensive if you are not located in the same area. Luckily, there are number of conference call services that can be used in order to communicate effectively without having to jump on a plane every time you want to have a meet.
In that regard audio conferencing has been widely used for quite some time and is a cost effective way to hold a meeting with folks from around the globe. This type of service makes use of the telephone and enables all the attendees of a meeting to hear each other in real time. Individuals dial in to an open line and have a meeting much like they wood if they were physically located in the same room.
On the other side of the coin, video conferencing has been around for over a decade but has been mostly used by big companies due to the costs of the equipment. At the present moment, however, costs have come down and this type of conferencing is available to even small business owners. Termed as a step up from audio conferencing, video conferencing involves the use of a camera and large television or monitor so not only can you hear each other, you can see each other as well. In an ideal scenario this works well for sharing visual info via a white board and is nice as it gives the team a more cohesive feel if they can see one another.
Web conferencing is a modern technology and makes use of the Internet. Individual simply surf to a web site and the conference is held online.
This is a ideal way to share files or visual aids and can be used in a power point presentation type of style. It can work pretty well for training as well as for troubleshooting problems in software. Furthermore web conferencing has audio as well as visual and another technology that the others dont have – text messaging. It is worth remembering that in a web conference, attendees have the ability to send a text message – be it a question or comment and you can hold the text for later rather than interrupt your presentation.
While these new and innovative technologies open up doors for different ways of meeting, the age old business etiquette of holding a meeting still holds true – with a few new requirements.
With teleconferencing, you need to be accustomed of the fact that your attendees might not all be in the same time zone. Thats why; you want to schedule the meeting for a time that is convenient for all. Irrespective of the fact that whether you are holding an audio conference, video conference or web conference, you will need to schedule the media for the time you want the conference held. Its a perfect idea to gives you some leeway and schedule extra time before and after the meeting.
The Internet offers a practical venue for the conference call. With its low cost as well as ability to accommodate many listeners it is now practical to open a conference call to almost anyone (at least to listen). Majority of firms now do. For instance, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal related how IOMEGA does this as an efficient way to control the irresponsible babble on Internet bulletin boards. Individual posting idle chatter now attract accurate responses from others who have heard the actual story on a conference call. Because of this simple reason, the irresponsible postings are controlled. Naturally, investment professionals more often complain that this allows the novice to access raw information that needs interpretation by someone more knowledgeable – namely such a professional.
Though, companies like the ability to make one public statement, and then be free from government limitations on how investment information must be released. And individual investors like it too, as access to these facts and figures gets them access to information that once only slowly reached the average investor. Believe it or not even Chairman Levitt of the SEC sides with the theory of greater access for the masses. If the article in the 24 May 1999 issue of the Wall Street Journal is taken into account, the NASDAQ has even funded a pilot program to pay for public access to conference calls.
Using the Internet has many benefits besides the instantaneous international release that results. Remember it is possible to save the audio files so that the call can be accessed later at a more convenient time. In addition it would be possible to edit out meaningless portions to provide sort of a “Cliff Notes” of each conference. Naturally, there are few limitations. In case if everyone could ask a question, real brawls could result as the conferences became uncontrolled. Thats why most Internet systems limit who can ask a question. An outstanding benefit for the average investor is to witness directly a firm’s management in action. While the information might be identical, an investor gains confidence in management that presents a virtuoso performance over one that is defensive, hesitant, and obfuscate. Moreover the details aside, the speed of response and other items that dont get incorporated in an analyst’s report can add a lot to one understands. Not so long ago, a small investor’s only such access might have been at a company’s annual meeting.
Number of firms has opened to provide investment-related conference-call services in one form or another over the Internet. Few of them require membership and user fees, but the trend seems to be toward company funding of the low cost service, and free or very low cost access by the public. According to the WSJ article mentioned above, companies now providing some for of access include countries: Vcall (Philadelphia), (Dallas), (Street Fusion, (San Fransisco), and (Boston). Whats more expect that more and more firms will offer the public Internet conference call. You can encourage firms you are interested in to do so. This type of communication is yet another form of ultimate corporate democracy.
