The recent report for Dimension Data (www.dimensiondata.com/uk/conferencing) shows how effective unified conferencing (audio, video, web) - using the latest digital technology - can provide substantial cost and productivity savings.
Interviewed as part of the research and providing an HR comment on the findings of the business survey, I made the point that effective tailor-made support and guidance is usually needed for senior executives beforehand to ensure that such conferencing works.
In the recent past, dedicated conferencing rooms have often been unused. Although the then new and untried technology was seen to be a good idea, it was assumed - often by IT - that when you tell a senior manager, nurtured in the analogue age, what to do he will automatically know how to do it.
Introduced to the digital age by his or her teenage children, the manager might well now appreciate some 1:1 reverse mentoring in the office to help him get up to speed as the technology becomes more economic to buy and slightly more user friendly.
But there are some further fundamentals that an internationally focussed organisation needs to get right:
- Conferencing must not be a total substitute for regular face to face meetings where expressions, body language and those quick few minutes before or after a meeting can be an essential part of decision-making (not just on the subject to hand)
- Conferencing can work well when some regular monthly meetings with a fixed schedule and agenda do not actually need everyone in the same place - so perhaps two out of three can be done this way.
- Conferencing may also be essential for urgent unscheduled sessions to deal with an international crisis.
- If you are chairing a distant meeting, meeting rules are just as important as ever. Reacquaint yourself with John Cleese's "Meetings, Bloody Meetings" training DVD - first produced by Video Arts in the analogue age - but still relevant. It would be a good investment.
- As a new chair, you should ideally have met the majority of participants in person before your first conferencing meeting, and all of them by your second meeting.
- Ensure that you have a run through with your IT or facilities people beforehand and that everything has been tested.
- International conferencing across time zones and cultures requires careful planning and cultural empathy by all participants. It tends to be that the core rules will be set by the company HQ, and overseas subsidiaries are likely to conform as far as possible; but corporate guidance on starting and finish times and overall etiquette will still be needed.
- As examples of cultural awareness, the American way of getting straight to the point may come as a surprise to new Japanese participants. Europeans will need to understand that few decisions will be taken immediately in a meeting run by Japanese.
- Since most international business conferencing is likely to be conducted in one language, participants may need a slightly better working knowledge of this language than in face to face meetings where a translated aside is possible.
- Some advice on clothes to avoid that could cause pixilation in video pictures might help when drafting rules.
- If you are chairing a meeting with participants from different organisations including suppliers or clients, you may need to agree the outline rules of engagement with key influencers well before the meeting, and allow extra time in the first session.
- Ask for and act on feedback afterwards regarding the process and procedures, so you can keep learning and improve productivity.