After web meetings, the conference call is a frustrating experience
By Tom and Sharon C.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
I recently took over a store for one of the largest retailers in America. I had spent most of the last decade working for a string of web companies designing new sales applications, and was frankly impressed by their technology. Their inventory tracking and management systems were great, tech support was strong, and the hardware & software available to the store employees was user friendly.
Given all of this, I was amazed when I took part in the weekly sales meeting. It involved 12 store managers and the District manager on a conference call clumsily moving through the DM’s itinerary. There were dozens of pregnant pauses when people rustled papers to find the one he asked us to have in front of us. Several times the meeting was paused so that documents could be faxed or e-mailed to people who didn’t have a copy. Worse, 13 people on one conversation makes it difficult for anything but a speech. True interaction is impossible because it becomes chaotic. After a month of this I finally spoke up.
Web conferencing software is 10 years old, it works in a simple web browser now, and it is truly the best way to run a meeting when everyone can’t be in one room. Web collaboration allows anyone to post a document for everyone to peruse and change together. Web conferencing is now solid state, user friendly, and effective. Online meetings are something I had been doing for 5 years, and I had grown accustomed to the fluid interactivity.
So I pitched the DM on the joys of web meetings and utility of web collaboration. I got shot down because of price and technical support. I’m working on overcoming these objections. Any ideas?