How to use conferencing to be more efficient in 2009, part 3 January 6, 2009 @ 09:13 AM | By Cambria Vaccaro

Happy New Year! 

Now that we are all back in the office and ramping up, I wanted to finish out our series of posts on how to use conferencing to be more efficient and effective this year. 

We’ve already talked about using conferencing in the training, legal, sales and pharmaceutical industries.  I promised you we’d cover the Technology and Marketing sectors, so here we go!

Technology

• Crisis management – Have you ever had a production server go down in the middle of the night?  Have you ever gotten a database alert telling you it’s reached 95% capacity while you’re on vacation?  These are the times when the technology group needs crisis management – a no-frills, ready-when-you-need-it conference call.  During those few sane hours you have in the office, simply get a reservationless toll-free number set up and activate a conference call code to go with it.  Distribute it to your team and when you have a crisis, message everyone the information again (just in case they can’t find it in their sleep) and have them dial in.  With the right team members on the phone it will be easy to do a quick situation analysis and delegate duties to the appropriate people. 

• End user support – Your group lives (and sometimes dies) by its end users.  If you have a small IT group supporting many users, chances are you’ll need a way to have remote access to those machines you are responsible for.  The advantage of using a web conferencing system for this function is that you can have more than one technical member of your team dial in and diagnose the problem!

• Training – When you have a new procedure for handling service tickets, a new organizational structure or on call schedule, you’ll want to get your team together and discuss.  If you combine a conference call with a web conference (and maybe throw in some desktop video) you can talk to your entire team at the same time.  You can share an application to show the new ticketing procedure or see everyone’s reaction as you explain the new on-call schedule. 

Marketing

• Deciding project scope – In marketing, what seems like a “simple” promotion can involve several teams of people including the creative group, product management, webmaster and of course, the promotions team.  So, when we have an idea for a promotion that is on our calendar, we like to get everyone together to make sure we are planning the project within reasonable time frames and product expectations.

• Getting buy in – Has your marketing team ever had one of those “that would be so cool” ideas?  Your team conceived the idea and is convinced it will work. But, you need to get buy in from another group.  In this instance, we put together a fantastic web conference with web cams, streaming video or audio, etc.  We use anything that will relay our excitement and enthusiasm for our idea.

• Team meetings – Every team has to meet.  Wow, do we ever meet here at InterCall!  We have monthly team meetings for our entire marketing group and then each smaller division has weekly meetings.  Our marketing group is spread across a few different cities.  So, at least once a quarter we have a video conference. It gives everyone a chance to see each other and goof around a bit, getting to know each other better.  Smaller groups generally have web meetings to discuss their on-going projects and timelines on a weekly basis.

Ok, so you may have guessed why I had a little more insight on the marketing portion of this post.  These are the methods that we have used successfully within our own team here at InterCall.  If you’re out there and you have more ideas, please share them with me!  I am always looking to give our marketing team new tools and ways to be creative.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.