Why Web Meetings Fail (Hint: It’s the data)

Posted: December 8th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: File sharing, Web meetings | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

It’s Monday morning. The glow of the weekend is still lingering. But here comes your first web meeting of the day. And we all know how that will play out.

10:00. Dial-in. Launch meeting in browser. Dial passcode. Where’s the passcode?

10:02. Dial *. Hold music. Click link. Your online meeting requires an updated plug-in. Would you like to download it? Yes.

10:05. The meeting organizer has not yet arrived. Is that me? Crap, it’s me. Dial #. Dial *. Dial #*. Where’s the passcode? No, the other passcode. No…stop…just give it here.

10:09. Plug-in has finished downloading. Please restart browser. Meeting organizer has arrived. There are 34 people on this call.

10:10. Good morning. Sorry we’re late. I’m rebooting my browser. How’s the weather in Louisville?

We live in a high-tech world, where everyone is just a Tweet or text away. We multitask on our devices, we edit movies on our laptops. So why is it that we still can’t have a simple web meeting?

It’s simple. It’s the data, stupid. There is both too much data and too little. And both are always too late.

On the too much data front, how impossible is it to remember a dial-in, a passcode, a conference code and more, all for just one meeting? And what about those plug-ins? It seems like just when you least expect it some new plug-in or some update to your old plug-in is needed to even get your meeting started. If web meetings are going to be a viable option, we need to be able to take advantage of all the technological advances we’ve made in other arenas and be able to have a simple interface, no numbers to remember and no downloads. The way we see it, you should be able to invite someone to a meeting as easily as you share a Word doc with them.

And speaking of sharing, one of the other major issues with web meetings today is that there is no quick and easy way to pull up or refer people to needed files during a meeting. Everyone has lived through the agony of being asked for a different document than the one you already have opened and then having to scramble about your machine to find a different document, with of course the whole world watching.

We’re advocating for a kinder, simpler way of sharing data. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just point people to an adjacent data room during your meeting, letting them download the document they need without you having to worry about it. Because, really, don’t we just all need one less thing to worry about?

So that is our thought of the day (or data): if we want to save web meetings (and add 10 years back to our lives) let’s simplify them—and ban passcodes while we’re at it!—once and for all.

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