Today is the day when you can finally stop dreading the conference call

Last week we talked about how online meeting and browser-based web conferencing tools can make your working life better with enhanced collaboration. Holding meetings and conference calls online or within the browser can increase connectedness, productivity, flexibility and most importantly, save you money. But not all conference calls bring you these incredible results. Why? One great example of a failed conference call can be seen in the video below.

David Grady: The Conference Call

If you watched the video, you witnessed an extremely common situation that can happen during online conference calls:

“Hi everyone, this is David Grady. Thank you for joining the call. This is the first meeting of the Data and Electronic Information Integration Management Governance Committee. As our company grows we need more input from colleagues across the globe, so having effective conference calls is key to achieving a high-value outcome. We have a lot of people on the call, a lot to get through today, so let’s skip the roll call and dive right in. Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide if..”

Bloop bloop

“Hi, who just joined?”

“Hi it’s Peter, sorry I’m late.”

“Hi Peter, it’s David. I was just saying that we have a lot of people on the call and a lot to get through so I’m just going to skip the roll call and dive right in. Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide, if..”

Bloop bloop

“Hi, who just joined?”

“Hi, it’s Joe, working from home today!”

“Hi Joe, thanks for joining today. We have a lot of people on the call…”

And it goes on like this for a while. By the time the meeting host is finally able to start, Joe’s dog starts to bark, Nigel from the UK joins the wrong conference call and someone is typing rather loudly.

Ever experienced such a hassle during a conference call? People often think that hassle during web conference calls is inevitable and part of online collaboration. But we say it’s not. With browser-based collaboration, the above scenario is much less likely to happen. Read how you can overcome the hassle and actually be able to agree on the ‘very important proposal’ before pulling out all your hair as the meeting monitor.

Starting on time

If you are meeting within the browser, you don’t need to download, update or load any software prior the meeting. These operations are a common reason for delayed meetings. As people realize the meeting is starting in 5 minutes and open the software, they might need to update it which often takes more than the 5 minutes they have. Browser-based meeting tools don’t require any of these delaying operations. Just your browser. You can finally start your web conference calls on time. You might, however, want to send an extra reminder to Peter. Just in case.

Unique meeting URL

When you are meeting within the browser, the meeting can only be joined with the unique meeting URL. Like with Drum, the Nigels and Georges who are not supposed to join the conference call can’t accidentally join it. You can share the URL with just the people you need in the meeting. They just copy and paste the link to their browser and voilà! The web conference call can be started! You can also monitor the people who join from the waiting room: you can view who is waiting to join the meeting and select the ones you have actually invited to join the meeting, enhancing the meeting security.

The stage is yours, not Joe’s dog’s

With browser-based collaboration tools and web conference calls you can have all the attention to yourself. If you want. Like in traditional conference call setting, the meeting attendees can mute their lines. No more barking in the background. Even the video add-on on Drum Web Meetings has an ‘active speaker’ functionality: only the video feed of the person who talks is shown.

There are so many conference call issues and challenges you can overcome when holding them within your browser. We guarantee a weight will be lifted from your shoulders once you try online meetings for the first time. That’s how you want your meetings and conference calls to be: care-free, simple and effortless. And more importantly, as productive as possible!