5 reasons why a virtual meeting room is the best thing in the world (of meetings)

Virtual Meeting Room (VMR) is not like your traditional conference room: it’s much better! Not only does it facilitate collaboration due to variety of tools. It also enables collaboration anywhere, anytime, with any device. Below we have presented 5 issues that you will never experience in a virtual meeting room that might happen to you in a conference room.

Virtual meeting room doesn’t echo.

It’s 1:54 pm and you still haven’t had lunch. It’s been a busy day and you need to attend a meeting in 5 minutes. There is no way you can make it to the coffee shop next door to get a sandwich, eat it and make it to the meeting on time. So you go to the meeting hungry. The worst part of it is that your stomach doesn’t know that you’re in an important meeting. It wouldn’t even care to be honest. So, whenever there is a silent moment, even for a second, there is a sound of a whale mating call. And it’s coming from your stomach. You feel embarrassed the whole hour you are stuck in a conference room with people you can’t even make a joke about it with. You wish you were invisible.

With a virtual meeting room you don’t ever have to experience embarrassment due to the questionable sounds coming from you. In fact, you don’t even have to attend a meeting hungry in a virtual meeting room. If you want, you can mute your microphone and have a meatball sub without anyone even noticing. Note, you should be prepared to say something at some point without a full mouth.

Virtual meeting room doesn’t require you to stand up. (Even when presenting)

You just had the most perfect burrito from La Choza for lunch (Yes we love food here at Drum). Unfortunately, you realize that some part of your perfect burrito have dropped on your currently ‘not so perfect chinos’. Chinos that used to be beige but are now covered with habanero sauce. What’s worse, you have a meeting with a client in a minute so you don’t have time to go home and change. And it could even escalate from there: the conference room in your office is big, and the whiteboard is (obviously) located so that everyone can see everything. Even your burrito pants.

When using a virtual meeting room, you can stay where you are: at your desk (or on the go with your phone). Even if you want to present something, you don’t have to walk up to the whiteboard. The whiteboard comes to you. Get messy with your burrito, we don’t eat them any other way!

Virtual meeting room can be anywhere you want it to be.

You have a great morning. It’s 8 am, coffee is good, your news app is full of interesting stories, your spouse is still asleep. Your stress levels are down to zero. You have no rush to get to your morning meeting. Wait a second, where is your 5 year old son?? He’s not in his bed. He’s actually nowhere in the house. You call your parents and anyone you know, you search the neighbourhood and ring door bells. After an hour of worry a police officer brings him back home. He just wanted to walk up to the nearby store and buy some chewing gum, what’s the big deal? Well, you certainly didn’t make it to the meeting. Based on a true story.

Instead of having to travel somewhere or even getting up from you desk, a virtual meeting room is anywhere you are. You can even bring it with you in your phone. It doesn’t have a physical location: it has a virtual address. Attending a meeting doesn’t require traveling. By using Drum, you can access the meeting room with a simple URL. Even if you cannot attend the meeting real-time, you can replay the recorded meeting any time you want.

Virtual meeting room has all the tools you need. (Even a pen!)

Have you ever been that person who draws and writes on a whiteboard only to realize you were using a permanent marker? If so, you have probably overcome the embarrassment by now. But it’s not really an ideal way to impress your boss or your potential new client. It’s a common human error, with unfortunate effects.

In a virtual meeting room the tools are there for your use. And the tools are the right tools for you. There is never a mistake you cannot erase. Drum meeting annotation tools allow you to sketch, draw, drag, delete, point out etc. Anything you would have in a conference room. But virtually.

Virtual meeting room shares your documents for you.

You have been working on your meeting documents and mindboard for hours. Finally at 9 pm you are finished and start watching your favourite show, and leave the documents on your desk. You feel confident the morning meeting will be the most productive so far and all your ideas are remarkably good. You go to bed feeling great about the next day. Unfortunately, when you wake up, your dog had a thought: “I wonder in how many pieces I can tear these very important-looking papers in one hour?”. The answer is: 3,459.

When in a virtual meeting room, you don’t need to show other meeting attendees your ideas on a piece of paper. That’s so 2001, right? Sharing of documents is much more simple than that: you can just drag and drop a file in the meeting room, and tadaa! Everyone can see your ideas. If you prefer more visual idea presentation and mind maps, you can share your screen on the app you are using (whether it is paint.net or Illustrator). And everyone can see how your mind has worked. Both you and your dog are happy as a clam.