When it comes to hosting virtual meetings, starting is often the most challenging hurdle. The questions loom large: What should be the meeting's focus? Which points carry the utmost importance? What essential elements should you include? These inquiries are just the beginning of running a truly successful meeting.
Even if you have these answers, how do you conduct the meeting? Not to worry, we have everything you need to know about running a flawless meeting with Sessions–from start to finish.
1. Prepare For Your Meeting
Preparation is critical before jumping to your meeting, as it sets the foundation for a smooth and effective session. One of the first steps is to choose a suitable time and date. It's crucial to consider the availability and time zones of all participants to ensure maximum attendance. Sessions provides the flexibility to select a time that works best for everyone, minimizing scheduling conflicts.
In case some attendees can't make the meeting, don't worry! Sessions has you covered with its recording feature. The host can record the meeting, allowing absent participants to catch up later at their convenience. A recording ensures that your attendees can access all important discussions and insights, fostering collaboration and inclusivity among team members.
2. Build Your Agenda
Building a well-structured agenda is vital for a successful virtual meeting, and Sessions provides the perfect tools to help you accomplish this seamlessly. Whether you're planning a session in advance or need to create an agenda on the fly, Sessions offers a shared or individual space where you can easily craft your agenda.
The real game-changer is the AI Copilot feature, which acts as your virtual assistant. It collaborates with you to build and edit your agenda, ensuring it aligns with your meeting objectives. AI Copilot assists in setting time limits, incorporating activities, and identifying key discussion points. With its intelligent suggestions and guidance, you can create an agenda that keeps your meeting focused and productive.
Additionally, Sessions allows you to customize your agenda based on the needs of your session. You can prioritize certain topics, allocate specific time slots, and add any necessary resources or materials. This flexibility ensures that your agenda reflects the unique requirements of your meeting.
3. Add Resources
With Sessions, adding resources to your virtual meetings becomes a breeze. Gone are the days of juggling multiple tabs or platforms. Sessions' integration features allow you to include various resources directly within the platform, making the meeting experience seamless and efficient.
Whether it's files, videos, images, or more, you can effortlessly incorporate them into your meeting—no need to switch between different apps or worry about compatibility issues. Simply upload the resources to Sessions, and they will be readily available for all participants to access and engage with. Participants can view and interact with the shared resources in real time, allowing you to streamline your video calls and foster a more engaging meeting environment.
With the share palette feature, users can share files, open links, embed tools, and add a new agenda seamlessly, even while the meeting is in progress. This dynamic functionality ensures that your virtual meetings remain fluid and adaptable, allowing you to incorporate additional resources and information within the Sessions platform as needed.
4. Start Presenting
Once you've prepared your agenda and added the necessary resources, it's time to start your presentation. Sessions allows you to add collaborators, assistants, and speakers, enabling a collaborative environment where multiple team members can contribute and participate actively. Whether it's colleagues, clients, or external stakeholders, you can easily invite them to join your session or event and collaborate in real time, whether for one activity or the entire meeting.
No one likes a meeting that goes over its time limit, so it's important to keep pace with your agenda. To stay on track and manage time effectively, Sessions provides a timer. You can set time limits for each agenda item to guarantee you stay on schedule. This helps you maintain a productive flow throughout the meeting and ensures that you cover all essential topics within the allocated time.
Flexibility is vital during a meeting, and Sessions allows you to adjust your agenda on the go. If the discussion veers off track or new points arise, you can easily modify your agenda to accommodate the evolving needs of the session. This adaptability ensures that your meeting remains focused and productive.
5. Get Interactive
If you want to keep your attendees engaged (you should be–that's the goal!), it's crucial to incorporate interactive elements into your meeting. Sessions allows you to include polls during your meetings, enabling you to gather instant feedback and opinions from participants. This interactive element encourages active engagement and participation.
Attendees can also "raise their hand" virtually to ask questions or seek clarification. This feature promotes a dynamic Q&A session where participants can contribute their thoughts and receive immediate responses.
In addition, Sessions provides a chat feature where attendees can communicate and exchange ideas during the meeting. This chat functionality facilitates collaboration and lets participants share insights, comments, or additional resources.
6. Conduct a Q&A
Conducting a Q&A session is a pivotal part of any successful virtual meeting, and Sessions provides the tools to make it seamless and efficient. As attendees pose their questions, you can address them in real time or refer to the inquiries submited in Chat or Questionswithin the session.
Sessions allows you to respond to questions as they arise, ensuring attendees feel heard and you answer all queries promptly. This immediate interaction fosters engagement and creates a collaborative atmosphere.
Alternatively, you can save questions for the end of the session. This approach enables you to address all the questions comprehensively and ensures that no query goes unanswered.
Sessions timer feature is particularly helpful for this part of the meeting, keeping attendees to a time limit, as well as yourself, to ensure the meeting doesn't go over.
7. Follow-Up with Attendees
Following up with attendees after your meeting is imperative, particularly when action items are involved. Sessions goes above and beyond by automating the follow-up process after your virtual meeting concludes. The AI Copilot feature takes charge, creating transcriptions, translations, summaries, and key takeaways from the meeting to automatically send to attendees' inboxes.
In addition to the meeting summary, attendees receive a copy of their personal meeting notes by email and access to the recording of the entire session in Memory. This ensures that participants have access to a comprehensive record of the meeting, allowing them to review important discussions and refer back to key points at their convenience. Alternatively, attendees can easily find all the resources and information in the Sessions' Memory feature, which is a centralized hub for post-meeting access.
By automating the follow-up process, Sessions ensures that valuable insights and information aren't lost after the meeting ends. This feature saves time, fosters transparency, and allows attendees to revisit and digest the content at their own pace.
Seamless Meetings, Powerful Results
From preparation to follow-up, Sessions offers a range of features that streamline the entire process. Its user-friendly interface, AI Copilot, and interactive tools empower you to create dynamic agendas, incorporate resources seamlessly, and foster participant collaboration. The ability to conduct Q&A sessions and automate follow-up ensures you address all valuable insights and questions.
So, say goodbye to dull and unproductive meetings and say hello to the world of efficient and interactive sessions with Sessions. Get ready to revolutionize how you collaborate and make your meetings truly impactful!
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