Chapter 8: Organize virtual meeting

8.1 Social platforms for virtual meetings

A virtual meeting is a meeting in which the participants join over the internet or a telephone line from different places, instead of sitting in one room. The platform is the online service that connects them: it carries the voices, and often the faces, the shared screens and the chat messages. Choosing and setting up the right platform is the first task of the person who organises a virtual meeting, because a platform that members cannot join, or that does not suit the size of the meeting, defeats its purpose.

Example: a hypothetical distribution company has branch managers in five towns who meet every month. Travel to a single venue costs a day and fuel, so the administrative assistant arranges the meeting on a video conferencing platform that all five managers can join from their offices.

8.1.1 Conference calls

A conference call is a call in which three or more people speak to one another at the same time, usually by voice only. Participants join by dialling a number given by the organiser and entering an access code, or by tapping a link, or by being added to a group call on a messaging application. Conference calls are useful when some participants have weak internet connections, are travelling or have no camera, because an audio call uses little data and works on a basic phone.

The following points describe how conference calls are arranged and run.

• Dial-in or link: Give each participant the way to join, a dial-in number with an access code or a link, together with the date and the time.
• Host: One person, usually the secretary or the chairperson, starts the call, admits participants and ends it.
• Roll call: Because nobody can see who is present, the host calls out each name at the start, and each person answers, so that the attendance is recorded.
• Speaking turns: Participants say their name before they speak when voices are not familiar, and speak one at a time.
• Recording and notes: The secretary takes minutes as in an ordinary meeting. A call may be recorded only when the participants have been told and have agreed.
• Limits: A conference call has no shared screen and no way of seeing documents, so papers must reach participants before the call.

Compare a conference call with a video meeting before choosing.

8.1.2 Steps in creating social platforms for virtual meeting

Creating the platform for a meeting means preparing the online room in which it will take place. The steps below apply to the video conferencing platforms widely used in offices, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet, and also to a group created on a messaging application.

1. Decide what the meeting needs: the number of participants, whether faces and shared screens are needed, and how long it will last. A short call with four people needs less than a three-hour meeting with forty.
2. Choose a platform that all invited members can use. Check whether they already have accounts, whether the organisation has approved the platform and whether the free version limits the time or the number of participants.
3. Sign in to the platform with the official work account, and not a personal one, so that the meeting belongs to the organisation and can be taken over by another officer.
4. Create the meeting from the calendar or the schedule button. Give it a clear title, the date, the start time and the end time, and state the time zone, for example East Africa Time.
5. Set the meeting options. Turn on a waiting room, or lobby, so that you decide who enters, choose whether participants join with their microphones muted and decide who may share their screen and who may record.
6. Add a co-host, a second officer who can admit participants and manage the chat if the host loses connection.
7. Copy the meeting link and the joining details, and test the meeting: join yourself from a second device, if you have one, and check sound, camera and screen sharing.
8. Keep the link and details ready for sharing with invitations, which is the next stage of the process.