The Good and the Bad of Virtual Meetings

When virtual meetings are good –

• Very cost-effective to get a large number of people together to hear a common message; whether they are across the hallway or across the world
• Tend to stay on time; you can better control pontificators or meeting hijackers taking over your meeting or diverting attention from the meetings focus
• They are easier to coordinate than physical meetings; no worrying about room size, setting up equipment, or supplying refreshments.

When virtual meetings aren't so good –

• Tend to lose interactivity; participants on a virtual meeting will not speak up as much as if there were a physical meeting
• No reading of body language; during physical meetings, you can both see and hear your participant and can better discern whether a participant is truly engaged and in agreement. During virtual meetings the visual connection is lost so gauging true acceptance is much more difficult.
• Unfamiliarity with technology; could be the technology works just fine, but the person running the meeting isn’t familiar with the technology. Make sure either the meeting owner knows what he or she is doing or has someone physically with him or her who can drive the technology and make sure it all works well. And for Pete’s sake, do a dry run first to raise any potential glitches prior to going live.