Web Worker Daily

I’ve just experienced the worst phone conference of my career. It was a complete shambles, which certainly didn’t inspire any confidence in me about the project the “team” is supposed to be working on.

I’d prepared detailed questions about the project, set a timer on my computer so I was ready to expect the call, and had my project notes handy. I was all ready to go. Unfortunately, the team wasn’t, and the meeting was almost a complete failure!

Here’s a quick refresher on the ingredients for a successful phone conference. Read the rest of this entry »

As organizations and businesses loosen their geographic borders, their teams will be composed of members from all over the globe. From a small web design group to an entire staff of offshore workers, we’ll soon find ourselves working with people from different time zones.

But working with such a team can be maddening. How do you tame the time zone madness and plan your meetings as efficiently as possible? Read the rest of this entry »

Scheduling a meeting can be a trying business with all the back and forth over email trying to find a time and date that suits everyone. Fortunately, there are a few scheduling web apps available that can help to streamline the process. What makes MeetingMade stand out from the options we’ve previously covered here on WebWorkerDaily (like WhenIsGood and TimeBridge) is that it has a nice, easy to use interface for participants to select the times that they are available and does a very good job of working out the best time for your meeting to occur.

Here’s a screencast showing MeetingMade being used to set up a meeting:

WWD Screencast: MeetingMade from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

The interface is very easy to use, which is important in a tool like this as there’s no point in sending out a meeting request using a scheduling tool only to get an email back when the recipient can’t figure out how to use it. Only the meeting organizer neds to have a MeetingMade account.

MeetingMade also distinguishes itself from the crowd of meeting scheduling apps by being able to handle partial availability and timezones. MeetingMade uses the iCalendar email standard so meeting requests from the app will work with most calendaring apps like Microsft Outlook, Google Calendar  and Apple iCal.

MeetingMade is free to use while it’s in beta (it will move to paid subscription at some point in the future), and is worth checking out if you’re looking for a meeting scheduler.

What meeting scheduling tool do you use?

As web workers, we probably have to endure meetings less often than our cube-dwelling counterparts. When you do hold a meeting with a client or with your teammates, either face-to-face or as a teleconference, you want to make it as effective as possible so you get the outcomes that you want, without wasting anyone’s time.

Here are some tips for making sure that your meetings are less of a chore, go smoothly and have outcomes that are favorable for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest post by Pete Johnson

As an IT teleworker for a large company over the past 10 years, I’ve spent my share of time on conference calls. The other day, in fact, I set a personal record with 11.5 hours of them in a single work day (and I had the sore headphone ear and hoarse voice that came along with that feat). Despite this meeting load, I still had to respond to IM’s, reply to a multitude of emails, prepare slides early in the day for a presentation later on, and a host of other tasks. That begs the question:

How do you effectively multitask in meetings in a way that lets you get work done?

Read the rest of this entry »