As a web meeting host, the waiting room is your best friend

Picture a physical area where your meeting attendees are sitting individually. Now Imagine this waiting room had a mirrored glass panel. This panel blocks them from not only seeing one another but also from seeing you. The benefit of this is as a meeting host, you can view the meeting attendees waiting to join your meeting. You have the power to look into the waiting room and individually select who joins your meeting without informing each attendee of your presence. The situation is exactly the same in a web meeting as attendees can be vetted prior to joining. This is a vital step to any web meeting to increases your security and ensuring only the invited members join.

Here is a rundown of what a waiting room gives you:

Know who is in the meeting

The ability to know who is attempting to join the meeting is what makes this method effective (so take full advantage of everything it offers!) This means you can be selective with your attendees. Choose the ones you actually want there and easily remove the ones you deem unwanted. The best thing is, they won’t even know (so no feelings will get hurt). Fully embracing this feature will allow you to structure your meeting and tailor it based on what you think works best. Starting from the attendees and ending with a personalised meeting agenda. The fact that the meeting is online makes you more productive and in no way should it be a distraction to anyone involved.

Wait to start the meeting until people have arrived

Just like in a physical meeting, a web meeting allows you to see exactly who is present and ready to join. This gives you the opportunity to wait for all attendees before starting. Your meeting should therefore be more effective. Beginning the web conference only when the correct attendees have arrived undoubtedly removes the need to re-explain topics when a new attendee joins. Maximise your productivity and only talk about topics once. Not only is this more effective time wise but it will also ensure you come across more passionate and inspirational.

Ensure security is maxed

Grasping the waiting room reference should also set you on a path to thinking about the security of your meeting. By being selective with those willing to join, you are automatically able to exclude those you feel don’t belong (At the end of the day, you wouldn’t just invite a stranger into a private conference meeting would you?). While it might seem obvious, it might surprise some that security online is an underrated and often forgotten concept. Applying these techniques will undoubtedly put you on the path to secure meetings. Keep your information safe guarded from potential intruders.

Don’t just leave the door to your web meeting open. Close your meeting room door. Selectively choose who joins your meeting. Increase your meeting security. These are the vital things which will put you and your web meeting on the path to success. Keeping them in mind will give you more confidence in leading the meeting and put you one step closer to having an effective and productive meeting every time (You could also then look at tips on how to make your meeting more effective) .