Meeting 3.0: 4 meeting trends

Two of my friends got new jobs this month, both of them for companies that work without a physical office.  All of the colleagues work from home or at the client’s office. Every other week the colleagues meet on a Friday morning. They spend this time socializing and naturally discussing the progress of projects, and on other typical meeting tasks.  Other companies have embraced teleworking where colleagues are not tied to an office or any specific place.  They usually work from home and they thus see each other less at work. And this also often changes the way that they hold meetings. As “tried and true” dissolves, what happens to meetings now? We observe these trends.

1.  Meeting online 

Companies, already used to telecommuting, meet more and more online. Since team members already use apps like Skype, Facetime or Google Hangout in their private lives, this type of meeting is effortlessly adopted. Organizations increasingly have designated video-conference rooms.  Of course the boom in video conferencing doesn’t mean that traditional meetings are obsolete, it is necessary to meet in person from time to time.  Still: doesn’t it make sense to save time and travel costs by holding video conferences whenever possible, simply using a laptop, tablet or smartphone?

2. Video records 

More and more companies are phasing out written meeting minutes. These are replaced by a list of decisions and meeting records are kept in audio or video. That saves time.  One disadvantage:  at the moment you cannot easily search for specific parts of a meeting in video or audio. However, with the significant leaps being made in the area of speech-recognition technology, it won’t be long before that is also possible.   

3. Stand-ups

Sitting too much is bad for your health. And that is putting it mildly. Recent research indicates that people who sit 11 hours or more daily have a 40% higher mortality rate. In order to sustain employability of the work force it is thus very wise to regularly change position. Something that is easy to implement for meetings. Stand-up meetings can, for instance, be significantly more stimulating. And there are more advantages. You have an active posture when you stand up and you display more non-verbal communication. It also improves teamwork and creativity. Try it! It takes a while to get accustomed to it, but before long you won’t want to go back.

4. Paper meeting notes are so passé! 

Soon the days will be over when you go into a conference room with a pile of paper under your arm. More and more employers work flexibly and use different devices. This is particularly true for those organizations where employees can bring their own devices .  Due to this, paper meeting notes are being increasingly replaced by digital ones. And what is more convenient than reading through all of the meeting materials on your tablet or laptop? If you have paperless meetings you will never have to ask yourself if you are working with the correct version. Paperless meetings enhance the meeting momentum and in addition to saving paper and heavy carrying, it also saves you a great deal of time and money. Meeting 3.0?

Try it now, for free!

iBabs Meeting Assessment
iBabs is a leader in paperless meetings and enables you to reduce these piles of documents to the thickness of your tablet. Thousands of organizations have been using this system for more than 15 years.

Popular posts

Posts by topic

iBabs Meeting Insights

Join over 24,000 professionals on the Meeting Insights email list to get updated to the latest on meeting management. All our tips and tricks delivered to your inbox.

Get updated to the latest on meeting managementJoin the list!