Ask Slashdot: Should We Hang Up on Conference Calls? (ft.com) 145
Make everyone stand. Work to an agenda. Don't let people go on endlessly. There are plenty of suggestions on how to run meetings so they are not a waste of time. People pay less attention to a bigger waste of time: the multi-participant conference call, argues a story on Financial Times. The story -- shared by an anonymous reader and which may be paywalled -- makes a case against the need for conference calls: You know the drill. An invitation arrives in your inbox with a date and time, a list of participants, numbers for dialling in from different countries and a sign-in code (followed by the pound or hash sign). I have had dozens of these invitations to conference calls, particularly those to discuss forthcoming panels and events. None of the calls has contributed much to the eventual event. I know this because my role is often to chair the eventual event. This is the first difference between a conference call and a face-to-face meeting: it is clear who is chairing the meeting, whereas it is seldom clear who is chairing the call. On conference calls, there is usually someone listed as the organiser, with their own sign-in code (followed by the pound or hash sign), but they are often not the most senior person on the call. The organiser, I can say from experience, is seldom the person who is going to be chairing the planned event. Usually, they are the person who organised the call. That may be a senior person; it may be their personal assistant.
The call organiser may take the leading role in the call. It is hard to tell because -- unless you have met several times before -- it is difficult to know who is speaking at any time. Unlike in a face-to-face meeting, you cannot see people's faces. As participants "arrive" in the conference call, they usually say, "Hi, this is Diane", or are announced by a recorded voice like entrants to a 19th-century ball -- "Simon Oates has joined the call" -- but after that you have to listen keenly for any voice marker (an accent, a shouty tone) that will help you identify who is talking. That is if you can remember who is on the call in the first place. What do you think?
The call organiser may take the leading role in the call. It is hard to tell because -- unless you have met several times before -- it is difficult to know who is speaking at any time. Unlike in a face-to-face meeting, you cannot see people's faces. As participants "arrive" in the conference call, they usually say, "Hi, this is Diane", or are announced by a recorded voice like entrants to a 19th-century ball -- "Simon Oates has joined the call" -- but after that you have to listen keenly for any voice marker (an accent, a shouty tone) that will help you identify who is talking. That is if you can remember who is on the call in the first place. What do you think?
They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of the time, conference calls are simply a concrete way to show effort for project managers and other useless layers of middle management. These people have to make noise and occupy space on calendars, or else uncomfortable questions will start to arise about what exactly they're contributing to the company.
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Usually what happens is that I listen in for the first one minute of the call, then I just work on my laptop, paying attention with maybe one-tenth of my attention or if something interesting happens.
They are a waste of time, though, since they distract just enough of my attention that I can't accomplish real work, only non-work like
Re:They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:5, Insightful)
I have countless coworkers that I have never met since they are on different continents, but I manage to accomplish quite a lot of work with them and recognize their voices. Face to face is usually not necessary. Even within the same site (a huge site), it is more efficient to use the phone than have half the participants make a 40 minute round trip walk to the other side of the plant.
It is my experience that the person running the call will prioritize topics so that people can be released incrementally and as soon as possible from the calls.
I'm sorry you work with a bunch of idiots.
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Ditto on this opinion. Not every conference call is useful, but neither is every in-person interaction. I've had significa
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The size of the groups and the number of groups both matter.
Two groups of six isn't bad; usually only one person in each room will talk at a time anyway if there's a decent "captain" keeping them focussed. Six groups of two would be chaos.
Re: They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:1)
Conference calls are always welcomed at work. Normally itâ(TM)s a group of engineers all sharing the same laptop screen while conference calling. The laptop is connected to a problematic piece of equipment and itâ(TM)s a fast, easy way to gather worldwide talent on a problem. Calls have always been educational, usually to all parties.
Iâ(TM)m old enough to remember how difficult something like this used to be. Now the call and screen sharing are all done in one piece of software. Itâ(TM)s
Re: They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:5, Interesting)
Inatead of moanong, I'm not sure why you - or, for that matter, the author of the original article - don't just grab hold of any conference calls that waste your time and make them more efficient.
In my experience, it's almost always clear who is chairing a conference call; I always know which voice belongs to which attendee as I rarely have calls with complete strangers; an agenda is usually circulated in advance so that people are well prepared; and invitees who do not believe that they are required are free to not join.
Conference calls serve a critical purpose by facilitating communication and decision making on a projects or transactions with geographically dispersed teams. Perhaps I'm spoiled as most of my calls are with lawyers or city bankers. That wouldn't tolerate the poor behaviour that this whining article describes.
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In my experience, the vast majority of conference calls are for disseminating information from some people to many more people. This can be much more easily accomplished through emails. It may be the case that no one wants to write up a long screed about how Q1 went and what to expect in Q2, but by writing that up, only one person's time is wasted while on the conference call everyone's time is. By using email for this sort of information, and employee can also decide if the contents are even remotely u
Re: They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't read the article, but what I'm surmising is that they just pointed out that the bad qualities of a bad meeting are amplified by the barriers present in a conference call. Follow the basics of a meeting: Clearly define what the meeting is about, and what is the expected output. Every attendee should have a purpose for being there, and know what it is. Both of those should be included in the meeting invite. Doesn't matter if it's a conference call or not, a poorly defined meeting is going to be a bad meeting. It's just going to be worse on a conference call.
After you learn how to create a proper meeting definition you can pinpoint what's going to be a shit meeting before the first word is spoken. The only difference between a conference call and an in-person meeting? A good facilitator has a better chance of getting something productive out of an in-person dumpster fire. A poorly planned conference call is rarely going to produce anything meaningful.
I saw a really great me'me the other day, something along the lines of "People are really good at knowing when an hour-long meeting should have been an e-mail, but really bad at recognizing that a three day, six page, e-mail chain could have been solved with a 5 minute meeting.
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My #1 gripe. Showing up on time and ready for the meeting.
Nothing better than when the facilitator shows up 5 minutes late, and unprepared. And usually starts with a "Sorry I'm late, [chuckle] and sorry I didn't have time to put together an agenda. I invited all 50 of you here to talk about...". You can hear the eye-rolls through the phone.
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The problem with meetings is how they manage to waste the time of anyone not actively participating as a speaker or listener at any given moment. There are only two ways I've seen to prevent that time from going to waste:
1) Ensure no one has downtime in a meeting by carefully choosing the topics that need to be discussed, only inviting people who need to hear or speak towards every single one of the topics being discussed, staying on topic, and keeping things short and to the point. Doing it this way is dif
Re:They're proof-of-work for useless managers (Score:4, Insightful)
People should understand that sometimes "wasting time" is actually a necessary part of the process. (This does not include truly unnecessary or poorly run meetings, of which I've seen my fair share, also.)
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Certainly so! I wouldn't disagree with any of that. My point was simply that because you're having to waste quite a bit of time between the moments where your continued presence proves beneficial, it would have been better had you been allowed to work on other things in the meantime, as you kept an ear out for something that required your input. I wasn't advocating for Option 1 to the exclusion of Option 2. I was simply pointing out that if we're going to waste people's time, at least allow them to make the
What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No kidding. The real waste of time was how long it took for this person to post their rant.
Just because a tool isn't ideal for YOUR circumstances, don't extrapolate that to everybody else.
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Look, many companies have policies that try to limit meetings, because lots of modern companies understand they have a tendency to be time-watsers when people could actually be doing other work.
Why not focus on something else that may have a tendency to be a time-waster? I understand if your conference calls go swimmingly and everyone is engaged, but there's nothing wrong with questioning if this is the majority of the time.
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I worked at one company where a meeting plan was mandatory BEFORE you could request a meeting (on... *cough* Lotus Notes... this was years ago- and yes Lotus was already obsolete then).
Anyhow, you had to have a meeting plan outlining what the meeting was about- and it was against company policy to discuss anything other than what was on the meeting notes. (you could leave things vague if there were predicted areas of vagueness).
I must say, it did work, meetings were short and too the point- and people took
Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
The full article is paywalled, but reading the summary is a complete waste of time. Of course there are difficulties with conference calls. I doubt anyone really enjoys the format. But you need to have other solutions before saying we should just do away with them.
Conference calls serve a necessary purpose. I would certainly prefer to meet with all of my coworkers / partners / clients face to face for every meeting, but no one is going to spend $10k for a status meeting with a client across the country.
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Having run a large number of successful conference calls, this is what I do, and what is required before I show up for one when I'm not running it:
* Roles designated and communicated. Who is running the tech, who is running the meeting, who is taking notes.
* Detailed agenda: Topics, desired outcomes, rough times, leads, etc.
* The right people on the call to accomplish the agenda: Are the subject matter experts on the call? Are the project managers on the call? Are the deciders on the call?
* And if all the a
Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Funny)
Conference calls do tend to waste some time, but the person who wrote this article is just a whiner. You take the good with the bad.
I don't find conference calls a waste of time... I put my phone on speaker and mute- and ignore what's being said whilst I continue on working as normal.
I only pay attention if I hear someone say my name... "I'm sorry, can you rephrase the question?"
If I've ever missed anything important in a conference call from not paying attention- I'm not aware of it. But is it a waste of time? Not mine- because I continue on working as normal. It's only a waste of time if you pay attention to the conference call.
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Forget legalese, my response is a more crass "huh?". Generally speaking if someone is addressing me in a conference call, it is because they want something from me. Not repeating themselves suits me just fine.
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That is great and all, but phones do cut out, your voice was too quiet, etc.
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I've never been in a sort of conference call as described in the summary. Every conference call I've been on is for the company and you know everyone on the call already. And the only reason these calls exist is because not everyone is present in the same city or building.
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Conference calls are a horrible waste of time. People should jump on planes and fly around the world for 1 hour meetings the way it's supposed to be.
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If it took you two minutes to read 74 words, you need to work on your reading skills.
That includes skimming through the story again to see if you just missed the entire point of the article. It probably took another minute to verify there really was no point.
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Reminds me of the saying "those who have no point use PowerPoint".
Just because you can doesn't mean you should!
Powerpoints have their place- but if all someone is doing is reading a powerpoint... just send me an e-mail instead... of course, I'll probably ignore the e-mail- but I'll also ignore you reading a powerpoint to me.
I run one everyday (Score:4)
I run a daily turnover conference/teleconference call every day with about 40 lines, and maybe 100 people. When we get to the end, the part where I say anyone have anything else, I then say okay everyone have a good day and hang up the phone, and disconnect the video server window. Seems pretty straight forward. The worst part of running a large hybrid call is not saying good-bye but getting a decent roll call and herding the cats into discussing what's on the agenda while keeping the side talk to a minimum. I spend a moderate amount of effort corralling people by saying can't that be discussed offline or taken to email...
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But why do you do this? This seems the perfect example of wasting time. You are wasting the time of a ton of employees on the off chance that a few will have something important to say that could just as easily be distributed via email. Rather than waste the time of the employees who have nothing to contribute nor need to spend their time listening when they could be doing actual work, why not waste the time of the employees who do need to contribute, and have them send out an email to everyone, or even
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It is the daily operations turnover call. It connects the large DC's and the remote operations centers. Tech support, operations support, batch operations and the remote support sites. We cover anything and everything that is part of the daily schedule, on-going outages, and scheduled tasks and repairs. I agree it is inefficient but better than email as there are often up to the minutes status given and questions that need to be asked by the oncoming shift about tasks in progress.
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There is a turnover report that is online or goes out in email following every meeting, but for those directly involved there are always questions to be asked that need direct response. Believe me as much as I want there to be a better option I've not come up with one. With the addition of vendor support staff into the mix who don't have access to in house reporting but are critical to fixes and device upgrades/replacements in progress it really becomes a sticky web of epic proportions. I'd be forever grat
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Just me, personally, I have never been in any meeting with more than 10 active participants that produced any meaningful outcome. Without knowing the details of the meeting, I can only imagine that a number of smaller meetings would be way more effective.
The only reference I have of managing turn-overs was on construction projects. (Think power plant maintenance/outages) The teams were anywhere from 2 to 20 foremen, each with 5-15 guys. There is no way in hell I'd put all of them in a room together to d
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It is exactly what you speculated. Daily Ops turnover from 7/24 operations and support sites.
Tech support, output/peripheral services, batch support, application support, building management, security plus the managers from each area. The scope is fairly narrow and as calls this size go very organized. It occurs 3 times a day, but the off shifts attendance is much smaller.
Re:I run one everyday (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, 100 people on a daily call? I bet a lot of the participants avoid saying anything just for the sake of not delaying the end of it.
I guess even a WhatsApp group would be more productive/effective.
I had a boss with 25 direct reports, which is way too freaking many, enough that he never directly spoke to most people unless it was at the weekly meeting. The weekly meeting ended up being 2 hours of him individually asking each person for a status update. of course the other 23 people in the room generally did not care much about what they said.
It did not help that the "weekly" meting was more like once every 3 weeks, because the boss was too busy to take care of this own employees. Yeah, it was a shit company with shit management. Individually, lots of good people, useless as a group.
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Daily operations turnover call, run 3 times a day connecting all the DC's, and remote operation sites. There are far fewer 'attendees' for the swing and mid shift calls.
Remote Employee Benefit (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the greatest advantages of working remotely is that you just put your phone on mute and continue to actually get work done.
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One of the greatest advantages of working remotely is that you just put your phone on mute and continue to actually get work done.
You can do that in an office too. That's precisely what I do.
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As long as you aren't one of the guys who puts it on speakerphone and forces everyone else around to hear (even when in an office).
We have one guy who spends I don't know how much time scripting out, word for word, what he is going to say during his portion of the call. Everyone can tell he is just reading from a script. He loves conference calls because I guess he thinks people don't realize he's just reading from a script. The one time I had to join in on such a call, I couldn't help but fuck with him
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And I spend time on the other end saying "Bob? Bob? Can you un-mute and answer the question, Bob?"
And play mute roulette (Score:4)
On larger calls with a lot of fairly anonymous people we will play mute roulette.
You mash the mute button really fast a bunch of times without looking and then make some strange noise. The "loser" is the one who doesn't have the phone on mute.
Heinlein had it right in TMIAHM (Score:4, Insightful)
But Prof didn't get excited; he went on smiling. "Manuel, do you really think that mob of retarded children can pass any laws?"
"You told them to. Urged them to."
"My dear Manuel, I was simply putting all my nuts in one basket. I know those nuts; I've listened to them for years. I was very careful in selecting their committees; they all have built-in confusion, they will quarrel. The chairman I forced on them while letting them elect him is a ditherer who could not unravel a piece of string--thinks every subject needs 'more study.' I almost needn't have bothered; more than six people cannot agree on anything, three is better--and one is perfect for a job that one can do. This is why parliamentary bodies all through history, when they accomplished anything, owed it to a few strong men who dominated the rest..."
I've had very useful conference calls, but hardly ever with more than three people on the line.
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I've had useful calls with 40+ attendees.
Admittedly, the purpose of the call was to have all involved parties on the line, at once, so each could refuse responsibility for the issue being (not) addressed, so that management, on the call, could then step out, decide among themselves which team would in fact take this on, and then return and deliver the verdict and sentence.
It's been necessary, from time to time, to have these calls. Sometimes it even ends in the decision that the issue isn't worth fixing. An
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Well it actually is. It's the funding fixes that catches everyone's attention, but the real problem is strategic decisions, re-platforming, legacy maintenance, and what gets done first.
My complaint is that these teams spend way too much time circling the poo, mostly to try and outlast us. When management gets involved things happen fast, but we have to climb the ladder.
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Conference calls are a necessary tool (Score:5, Informative)
Distributed teams can't just get together in a physical conference room We have to meet on conference calls.
As for who is on the call, we use Skype for business. It shows you who is on the call and who is talking.
If I don't have anything to contribute and am not interested in the discussion I decline the meeting.
Of course, if one is rarely interested or contributing maybe it's time for a job change.
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Distributed teams can't just get together in a physical conference room We have to meet on conference calls.
Tell that to free software projects, that have teams scattered around the globe only coordinated through e-mail.
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Distributed teams can't just get together in a physical conference room We have to meet on conference calls.
Tell that to free software projects, that have teams scattered around the globe only coordinated through e-mail.
My son is involved with a global free project. They have group video chats all the time
Regardless I don't think you can compare a voluntary distributed team having loose deliverable schedules with a commercial project. I'm in NY, and I meet daily with my Poland and UK teams. One conference call can be more effective than a week of email.
I like those (Score:2)
I can sleep, read, play games, etc. as long as I am sure to be muted and catch keywords when I need to say something smart.
(No, I don't like them, actually, but I found a way to cope...)
nah (Score:5, Informative)
Summary is so whiny I am not reading TFA, but ..
1. I always know who invited me, because they sent the invitation. If they aren't leading the meeting, then they tell me so.
2. Good meeting software is web based and it does indicate who is speaking. Granted, if some people are sharing a conference room, then we don't have a visual indication which one of their group is speaking, but if they aren't people we usually deal with then we wouldn't know them by sight anyway. In practice it's not a significant problem.
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2. Good meeting software is web based and it does indicate who is speaking.
Shithouse software does this too. The article is a large list of whines that have been solved many times over by even dumb people which doesn't bode well for the author.
Well, if these are the calls (Score:2)
"None of the calls has contributed much to the eventual event. I know this because my role is often to chair the eventual event."
Then yes, why did you accept the invite? A call to discuss an event? Really? I don't get these unless there is planning or action to take in advance, and then it's a call to do something...
And we get a lot of pointless calls, mostly when they fail to compel essential attendees to, well, actually attend.
What happens when you decline?
Depends on how well it is organized (Score:2)
Is the problem the call or the credit? (Score:2)
No, you should not do away with conference calls. Speech is still a pretty quick way to share information, be it financial reporting, identifying issues and soliciting help, or even discussing technical issues. That you're not in a single room or don't have a live video feed isn't a real issue. Yes, in person meetings add body language, which really helps facilitate communication, but it's not going to stop you entirely.
I didn't read the article due to paywall, but from the excerpt above, it sounds like
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Self inflicted? (Score:3)
Look, if you actually call in to those kinds of conference calls, you deserve it, don't you?
My inbox is full of what can only be called "optimistic" conference call organizers, but I'm wise to their game and simply don't bother with it. I'm the one doing the work, so they can blather on all they want, I decide what gets done and how. If they're curious, they can read the emails I send out about it. If they have some input, they can even respond to those emails and get a response.
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That's the beauty of conference calls, they're ideal for organizations where everyone is allergic to personal responsibility, and "shares" the responsibility, so no one person can be blamed. I'd rather just take the responsibility (and blame) and not be held hostage to the committee. Unfortunately not all employers tolerate this.
My advice for those that don't like this: quit. Conference calls like this are a sign something is very, very wrong with your employer. Either coast until it eventaully explodes, or
Mute (Score:2)
It's a wonderful tool.
Hop on your conference call, put it on mute, then go about your business. If someone wants your input, they'll call you out by name.
Rules for Conference Calls (Score:1)
1. Don't be a whiny man-bitch like the author.
2. Dominate the call. I start calls by saying "Hi everyone. Jeff called this meeting. Jeff...what are we trying to accomplish with this call?" It reminds people to stay on track. Don't be afraid to interrupt and re-state the goal when someone wonders off track.
3. If the call descends into stupidity, be man enough to say "This is anon, I have a bunch of work I need to get done. Does anyone else have important or relevant input? No? Thanks. I'm off."
4. St
Yes (Score:2)
I've never been on a conference call that couldn't have been reduced to two people or an email exchange. Like the meme goes, "I survived another meeting that could have been an email."
Even a three person conference call is too many. The only time when it works is when everyone is muted by default and only one person is allowed to talk at a time. (a call-in shareholder's meeting, for example.) which is more of an audio broadcast call.
Conference calls are probably the single most horrible method of bus
I hang up on them all the time. (Score:4, Funny)
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Thanks for explaining the joke to everyone
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Conference calls as a method to shout down others. (Score:2)
I used to work in a place where I had some cross-departmental meetings with people that didn't like each other. I mean really didn't like each other. Management was either gutless or powerless to sit them down and say "children, you have to cooperate or you will both go to detention."
At some point people in this office started calling in to meetings even when they were in the building. Most of them were "I am too busy working to be in a meeting, so I will just listen in." Some of them would bang away on the
Careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
The author makes some valid points about conference calls but consider this...were it not for the conference call you might have to attend meetings in person and some of those meetings might occur very far from where you live. Do you really want to hop on a plane or take a long car ride to attend those meetings? In some cases, maybe, but for the majority of the time meeting on the phone is fine. Conference calls also allow you to work more easily from home, if that is a desire of yours.
Conference calls can
Don't forget to schedule time for... (Score:2)
... the inevitable foul-ups in getting the call set up. Skype isn't working on the organizer's laptop. The speaker phone in the conference room doesn't work worth a damn. People's headsets cause interference. External conversations from the open-office setting bleed into the call. The conference room where the manager is sitting has lousy acoustics and participants cannot understand what's being said. If the damned call gets to the first agenda item--assuming that there actually is an agenda--within the fir
Here's what I think (Score:2)
No! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I once accidentally put a meeting on hold when I got another call during a conference. No one knew how to mute me, so the entire call of about 15 people (including 2 high level execs) stopped for about 10 minutes while I worked on another problem. I heard secondhand that they kept saying "who is this! Mute your line!" (not realizing it was hold music) followed by attempting to talk over it. Some tried to rap their comments to the beat.
This must have happened frequently enough because the hold music was
/. seems to have really terrible meetings (Score:3)
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When the subject of meetings comes up here I am always baffled by the number of comments where people complain about meetings. Am I alone at working somewhere where meetings generally have point and result in important decisions being made? I can only think of one meeting I have attended in the past year I would call a waste of time (and that one was hosted by a client) The rest were by and large necessary in order to proceed on projects. Is this because I don't work in software development?
No, you're not alone. Most of our meetings are purposeful and useful.
In fact, I'd say the conference call meetings top the list of useful meetings. They are either a meeting with a client or partner, or else a meeting that is unavoidable despite people being out.
CCs are the worst, except for everything else (Score:1)
Contrary to Betteridge... (Score:2)
Just do what the boss ... (Score:2)
... says.
Time and place for everything (Score:2)
There's a time and place for everything. Like any other tool, it needs to be used properly.
Just because something can be abused or misused is not a good reason to abandon it completely.
What is the alternative? (Score:2)
For many workers actually doing nothing for an extended period is the biggest contribution they will make to the success or profitability of their employer. These people should not be prevented from doing what little they can
Panic "Stay On Until Fixed" conference calls (Score:2)
I worked for a company: different people, servers, functions, time zones, all that. But Production Control had a special group that everyone (EVERYONE) kowtowed to: the EEC (Emergency something Control.) PC had monitoring hooks into everything, and had change control info for outages. Anything that broke that wasn't on their list got people paged anytime of the day or night to fix it.
Depending on the type of outage or if the busted-item tech asked for assistance, E
What;\'s a conference call? (Score:2)
An 84" screen with live video remotes has been standard in these parts for a few years.The remotes get live video of the local speaking.
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Yup, same here.
Our conference calls are a complete disaster (Score:2)
As my company has transitioned to VOIP systems, the lag and / or voice quality or any given participant is anywhere from perfect to
abysmal depending on where they sit and / or how they're connected. ( Corporate office big pipe, remote worker via VPN, etc )
As a result, during any brief period of silence, everyone believes it's ok to start talking and the entire conference call devolves into
undecipherable gibberish as everyone begins talking over one another.
Then there are the givens: The crying baby or bar
Written by a wanker (Score:2)
Some meetings are productive- good managers make productive meetings.
Most meetings are shit - bad managers (at least 75% of all managers) have crap meetings.
Where's the news ?
Half-duplex (Score:2)
The most annoying issue about conference calls using Skype and/or a speakerphone: when you start speaking, audio from the other end is cut off, which leads to a lot of collisions and garbled words.
I found a solution for me (Score:2)
And it sure did draw the ire of those that go to meetings to pass time without having to do anything productive. When you have meetings with a large and heterogeneous group (from marketing to security), planning is everything. You do not need all of the people to be there for all topics. When you discuss database layout, marketing isn't required. When you discuss corporate identity and choice of color schemes, security isn't required. Plan accordingly. And yes, that also means planning the topics and puttin
The importance of a meeting (Score:2)
The importance of a meeting is inversely important to the number of participants.
Easy. Just mute everyone by default. (Score:2)
Calls i am on are productive (Score:1)
It sounds to me like your environment is the problem, not the meeting method.
If the calls are worthless then you have a culture at work that has decided that worthless is tolerated. If you are only a participant and the call is worthless, don't go. If someone tells you that you are needed, then get an agenda and find out why you are needed before accepting the call.
You are in charge of your day, so let others know if they are wasting your time. Don't blame the conference call as the culprit, it is the peopl
Our company requires webcams... (Score:1)
We require webcams be activated for conference calls. Exceptions need to be approved by the host or your manager, but it's an exception... not a rule. If you're not on the webcam, your manager gets an email about it..
Hello (Score:2)
This is Lenny.
Mulituser FaceTime... (Score:2)
...Will solve the "Who Arrived/Who's Talking?" questions. At least for meetings of up to 32 participants (which covers most practical meetings!)
That is, once it is actually WORKING... ;-)
Can we do conference chats instead? (Score:2)
I'm no longer in corporate life, but I had to undergo innumerable time-wasting conference calls back in the day. Usually we would have to wait for Laura from Accounting to unfutz her headset, wait for Chad from Marketing to finish his three-microbrew client lunch, and then work around the problem of Karl the Codemeister beaming in from the München affiliate and having trouble with the international connection. Typically it took about twenty minutes of "Can you hear me" in a variety of thick accents bef
Re: (Score:2)
So why is this discussion about conference calls?
When BS gets in, get out. (Score:1)
Had a blow hard on the phone recently. Invited myself and others and we had nothing to do with it as it turned out. I asked, then kicked other people off then myself. Dumbass tried to set up another meeting. I put the kabosh on that too.
What's 2+2? "well you see it depends on what two you are talking about ...bla bla bla bla..."
Me - It's 4. The answer is 4 you fool!
People still use conference calls? (Score:2)
We moved to BlueJeans some time ago, so all calls like this are now multi-participant video conference calls. When someone is talking, you can see them talking (or, where they elect to not share video, you can still see their name).
Yes, it likely still has some of the same issues that conference calls can have, but many are mitigated, and when you have people all around the world it can be the only way (apart from flying everyone in to one place, for a 1 hour meeting) to get everyone together.
So, yes, end