Google Moderator identified the problem — Mentimeter solves it

Google just announced that they are shutting down their service Moderator on July 31st. Moderator is a tool to “get input from audiences and make everyone’s voice heard” for both online and offline events.

In 2008 and 2012, newly elected US President Barack Obama’s team incorporated Google Moderator as part of their key activities in Change.gov.

Google Moderator internally went under the name ‘Dory’ and was one of their 20 percent projects. Google internally has placed much effort into their workplace culture with Moderator being one of the tools to help them create an environment with open communication.

The pain point Google Moderator identified is pretty clear, as it’s the main thing we at Mentimeter put our hearts and souls into:

How can we change the culture of meetings & events and turn attendees into contributors?

Meetings serve a purpose but we fail in their execution

Meetings are essential and meetings should occur. We meet to make an organisation and/or group synchronised and with that the personal bond becomes greater within the group.

Companies today lose billions every year on unproductive meetings. Therefore, how we do meetings today must and is going to change.

One of the solutions to bad meetings is to not have meetings, yet this does only solve the symptom, not the core problem.

The key issues with meetings today

• There’s no participation — attendees are expected to only listen
• There’s no common view of the fact / opinion base — attendees all have their own view of the problem
• The power lies in the hands of the dominant voice — No unbiased opinion will ever be attained as soon as someone starts airing their strong views

The future of productive and engaging meetings depends on the following

• Everyone needs to be part of the meeting
  With Mentimeter, attendees becomes contributors
• Limit the effect of biased strong opinions
  With Mentimeter, everyone’s experience and knowledge gathered anonymously
• Have a summarised view of the available data
  With Mentimeter you will get a focused discussion based on data, created in just seconds by people voting

Register an account for free and join us in our quest of ridding the world of boring meetings!

For more information on why you should start using interaction in your meetings, visit mentimeter.com.

We’re not alone; Microsoft, Evernote and Prezi agree with us that interaction is the future of meetings. Read more on the topic here.