conference call

This week, I have either led or participated in at least 12 conference calls with online presentations, aka Webinars. Let's face it, no matter how elegant, all forms of virtual meetings pale in comparison to real face time. But given the effect of our dire economy on many companies' travel budgets, time spent on conference calls and Webinars probably will grow for lots of product manager types.

After many hours every week spent on speakerphone, desktop sharing and compressed PowerPoint slides, I feel compelled to share advice for Webinar hosts, especially vendors trying to sell their wares and services in virtual meetings:

I just got off two conference calls with slideshow-style Webinars in two consecutive hours.

In the first one, the meeting started at least five minutes late while participants struggled to get the Webinar slideshows to appear on their screens.

In the second one, the same problem held the meeting up for a couple of minutes. Not so bad. But about halfway into the call, a participant put the conference on hold, meaning the rest of us heard "holding pattern" beeps every 10 seconds or so from that one person's phone line.