Hosting a Teleconference

Prior to the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in 1984, hosting a conference call was the province of the big boys. Only large corporations routinely used teleconferencing as an alternative to live meetings. Since then, the advent of multiple service providers and competitive pricing has made conference calls a viable option for everything from a religious study class of six or seven locations to a mass meeting involving thousands of locations.

For some, this innovative means of holding meetings comes with a measure of anxiety. What type of preparation should be done in advance? What information about the technology should be conveyed to those who will attend the meeting? How does one reserve a conference call with a service provider?

The most important thing to remember is that a meeting held by teleconference is still just a meeting. The only difference is that not everyone is gathered into one conference room. What this means for the host of the conference is that all the usual preparation that goes into a "live" meeting will also go into preparing for the conference call.

First, address your agenda. What is the subject matter for the meeting? What aspects of the subject matter are to be addressed individually? Will there be time set aside for questions? How about discussion? Will there be time for the attendees to comment or critique the content of the meeting? What action items are to be completed or at least assigned by the end of the meeting?

With your agenda firmly in hand, the next step is to prepare any documents your attendees need before or during the meeting. As you normally would with a live meetings, make sure the documents are prepared, proofed, corrected if necessary and ready for distribution in a timely manner.

Next, determine the date and time of your meeting. If your attendees are located in several parts of the country or the world, be sure to take the varying time zones into account. As an example, right after lunch may be fine for New York City, but Chicago is just leaving for lunch and the London office has ended their day. As much as possible, be respectful of other's schedules.