The Meeting Coach
InterCall's Monthly Newsletter

Are Your Virtual Tools Creating Real Confusion?

Intended to cut business travel, virtual tools like conferencing have become a popular solution. However, many other practical tools to displace the business meetings have emerged in recent years, causing confusion amongst business executives.

While workers are familiar with a phone conference, they also now have web meetings, chat sessions, instant messaging and telepresence. Many companies are getting caught up in deciding which virtual tools to use for what types of meetings.

"Understanding when and how to use these tools has become the next challenge in reducing business travel costs," said Scott Etzler, InterCall’s president and CEO. "Both Gen-X and Gen-Y have some catching up to do in terms of knowing what to use the technology for."

Here’s an easy reference guide:

• Instant Messaging—When you need a quick response to a brief question, an instant message gets fast answers.
• Chat Sessions—These are best for informal group meetings that don’t require face-to-face interaction.
• Web Meetings—If you need to share a document or give a presentation, this is the preferred group work tool.
• Video Conferences—A virtual meeting that allows you to be face-to-face, but doesn’t have the collaboration tools of web meetings. Video conferences are a popular choice for virtual boardroom meetings.
• Telepresence—Called the next generation of video conferencing, telepresence uses a variety of technologies to simulate being in the same room.

InterCall offers you many of these capabilities so that you can start reducing your business travel. For more information about our audio, web and video conferencing services, visit our web site at www.intercall.com.