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Jared Goralnick, president of Baltimore’s , said he doesn’t think they’re relevant anymore. At least, not in the traditionalo form — everyone lined up aroundx a table, with one person talkingt at the rest and sporadicallt getting a little feedback fromthe group. Eyes glazingb over. BlackBerries clicking. Time disappearing, neve r to be seen again. Instead, Goralnick said he limitws the attendance of meetings to only those peopledirectlyh involved. And he uses technology — think videoconferencing, only more high-tec and Web 2.0 — to make them fasterd and cheaper.
Many local businesspeople acknowledged that meetingas are still an important part of doing and face-to-face interactions are best for buildint relationships with employees and clients. But they are also finding ways to best usetheirr resources, including their time and theier people, more efficiently and effectively during the economic downturn. And that involves changing up thestandard “Meetings cost money — you’re shutting your company down,” said Alex Bloom, president of Velaro, a Columbiaw company that sells subscriptions to live chat technology often used in customer service.
“But if you don’g have meetings, it’ll also cost your company Meetingstake time, but their intent — to muster focus amonfg employees, or to create or massagew a sales relationship ­— is ultimately to either save moneu or make money. Executives at some of the nation’s largesyt companies said communication is key inboosting business, accordintg to a November survey by California-based humanb resources consulting firm . About half said communication is the best way to boos moraleamong employees, and a third said that a lack of communicationm is most detrimental to employees.
But Goralnicj said he thinks sometimes in meetingsat least, can be “People who are there are relevant for five minutews of an hourlong meeting,” he said. SET, whic h designs automated documents and systems for companiex usingMicrosoft Office, has staff meetings about once a month insteafd of forcing employees to sit througnh more frequent but unimportant “There must be something importany if we’re having a meeting,” Goralnick said. On the othe r hand, many companies try to bringy in as many relevant people as possiblw to a key planning meeting to avoid later said Carole Lyle presidentof , a Columbia managementg consulting firm.
Other companies said they try to shake up meetingx by changing their structureor setting. Stefamn Muirhead, president of Ignition72, a Baltimore Web desigbn firm, holds meetings in comfortable chairs around coffee all facing a giant computer screen anda wall-size whiteboard. Muirhead said the non-boardroom setting freexs employees tospeak up, and the monitor and whiteboarrd are vital in communicationm with one another about design projects. When far-flung employees or cliente are involved, companies are also findin g ways to cut down on the cost and efforyt involved but still include everyone theyneed to. Muirhead’xs company charges clients hourly, so if he has to travel to the D.C.
, area, for that’s an extra two or three hours in cost. So he uses services like , a videoconferencing or Skype, an online voice and video when only a short meetinh isin order. It’s an even bigger of course, with international At Velaro, Bloom said he also minimizez wasted time by sharing information and doing housekeeping that wouls otherwise take place in meetingsvia e-maipl or other technology.
And when he does use thingd likeconference calls, he encourages employees to avoid using the mute button so they can be doing other instead, he hopes they stay engaged to make the call more Shaw said many companies are simplyt condensing their meetings — what was once a out-of-town retreat is now only a day or two “Clients are much more focused on makingb sure that the time spenty away is very relevant and that the conversatione and activities are all focused on the business, its strategy, and solviny real problems,” Shaw said.