Hello, Who Just Joined? August 19, 2011 @ 10:54 AM | By Sarah Murphy

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time in meetings every day. Have you ever stopped to think about how much time is lost due to meeting management mishaps? We’ve all experienced them—background noise from the participant who forgot to mute their line, the barking dog, the loud downtown traffic, the clamor at the airport. It never fails that once the audio conference call gets started, there are the interruptions to ask who just joined as you hear the entry tone or to ask if a specific participant is on the call to answer a question. Something like “Is Dan on to answer that one?” probably sounds familiar. All this lost time adds up pretty quickly.

So how can you host better meetings? Watch this short video to find out!

With online tools that integrate audio and web conferences, you and your participants can meet in an interactive environment, at any time, from anywhere. Using web conferencing services, you can:

• Visualize and manage your audio calls from your computer with simple point and click commands so you can mute that participant with the barking dog, see who has joined the meeting and know who to call on for answers.
• Take your meetings to the next level of interactivity by sharing and showing materials from your computer. You and your participants can easily and seamlessly collaborate online with documents, share PowerPoint slides or conduct a web tour at a moment’s notice.
• Add desktop video to your meeting to give it more impact. With a webcam and a high-speed connection, you and your presenters can broadcast live images to meeting participants. All it takes is a click of your mouse.

Have you tried using the web to enhance your audio conference calls yet? Noticed any improvements in your meetings?

Sarah Murphy is a marketing manager at InterCall. With over ten years of experience in the conferencing industry, Sarah has worked with customers and products that cover all segments of conferencing, including traditional operator attended services, video and online meeting solutions.