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Jared Goralnick, president of Baltimore’s , said he doesn’rt think they’re relevant anymore. At not in the traditional form — everyone lined up around a with one person talkint at the rest and sporadically gettinf a little feedback from the Eyesglazing over. BlackBerriex clicking. Time disappearing, never to be seen again. Instead, Goralniclk said he limits the attendance of meetings to only those peopledirectly involved. And he uses technology — thinlk videoconferencing, only more high-tech and Web 2.0 to make them faster and cheaper.
Many local businesspeople acknowledge that meetings are still an importanr part ofdoing business, and face-to-face interactions are best for buildinvg relationships with employees and clients. But they are also findiny ways to best usetheid resources, including their time and theie people, more efficiently and effectively during the economicd downturn. And that involvews changing up thestandard meeting. “Meetingsa cost money — you’re shutting your company down,” said Alex president of Velaro, a Columbia company that sells subscriptions to live chat technologuy often used incustomer service.
“But if you don’y have meetings, it’ll also cost your company money.” Meetings take time, but their intent — to mustedr focus among employees, or to create or massage a salerelationship ­— is ultimately to either save money or make Executives at some of the nation’s largesf companies said communication is key in boosting business, accordinfg to a November survey by California-based human resources consulting firm . About half said communicationh is the best way to boost moraleamonfg employees, and a third said that a lack of communicatiom is most detrimental to employees.
But Goralnick said he thinkz sometimes communication, in meetings at least, can be “People who are there are relevany for five minutes of anhourlongb meeting,” he said. SET, which designs automatex documents and systems for companiews usingMicrosoft Office, has staff meetings abougt once a month instead of forcing employeews to sit through more frequent but unimportant meetings. “Thered must be something importantif we’re havinf a meeting,” Goralnick On the other hand, many companied try to bring in as many relevang people as possible to a key planningb meeting to avoid later said Carole Lyle Shaw, president of , a Columbis management consulting firm.
Other companies said they try to shakde up meetings by changingy their structure or Stefan Muirhead, president of Ignition72, a Baltimorde Web design firm, holds meetings in comfortable chairs around coffee tables, all facing a giany computer screen and a wall-sizec whiteboard. Muirhead said the non-boardroom setting frees employeezs tospeak up, and the monitor and whiteboar d are vital in communication with one anothef about design projects. When far-flung employees or clienta are involved, companies are also findint ways to cut down on the cost and effort involved but still include everyone theyneed to.
Muirhead’x company charges clients hourly, so if he has to travelo to the Washington, D.C., for example, that’s an extra two or three houresin cost. So he uses services like , a videoconferencinh service, or Skype, an online voice and video phone, when only a shor meeting is in order. It’s an even biggert savings, of course, with international clients. At Velaro, Bloom said he also minimizesx wasted time by sharing information and doinvg housekeeping that would otherwise take place in meetingsvia e-mail or other technology.
And when he does use thingz likeconference calls, he encourages employeee to avoid using the mute buttojn so they can be doingb other things; instead, he hopes they stay engagexd to make the call more productive. Shaw said many companiews are simply condensing their meetings what was oncea weeklong, out-of-town retreaty is now only a day or two long. “Clients are much more focused on makinfg sure that the time spent away is very relevant and that the conversationss and activities are all focused onthe business, its and solving real problems,” Shaw said.