In an effort to curb expenses where training and meetings are concerned, more companies are turning to virtual/hosted/remote environments in order to connect with partners, customers and employees. Solutions offered by WebEx and GoToMeeting, for example, offer virtual environment sharing that is often better and more intimate than an on-site classroom environment or meeting room.
The most important part of these virtual environments is that they can be accessed by the participants through a regular web browser! No special software is needed! There is a link that is usually provided by the meeting host that the members navigate to, and after a minute or two of setup by the system, the meeting organizer or trainer and the participants are virtually in the same room.
The meeting leader usually has their choice of several methods for conducting the meeting: they can share a particular application, such as PowerPoint if they have a slide deck that needs to be reviewed; they can create a virtual whiteboard in order to diagram concepts and designs; or they can share their whole desktop into this virtual space so that the participants see everything that the leader is doing on their computer.
(This last option is very helpful in technical support when the engineer can’t reproduce the issue. By invoking a virtual meeting, they can be shown exactly what the problem is!)
Virtual training and meetings drastically reduce the need to travel for a half-day training or a three hour meeting that can not be missed. You won’t have to get short term loans for travel expenses and such. The technology itself has matured dramatically over the last decade and it can now offer advanced services such as being able to record the session for future playback if some of the participants could not join the meeting. Most meeting software now offers video capabilities as well so the human interaction is not lost even though no-one is in the same room.
