We’ve been talking about video conferencing and how it can benefit you and your business but there is one important point we were missing. Videoconferencing has taken the business world by storm. The uses for your business are obvious-the ability to hold meetings at anytime regardless of physical location. The ability to train employees through this technology as well as educate customers about your products/services.

One may be excited to begin but proper planning is necessary to be successful. Of course it is also important to make once everything is set up that you conduct everything properly. There are several points that must be kept in mind while conducting a videoconference meeting. The most important is the quality of audio and video, especially if the videoconference has participants sitting across several remote sites.

Very often the conference organizers pay more attention to video than audio. This may prove counterproductive because a loss of audio can kill a videoconference. The participants can only watch images but are clueless as to what the key speaker is saying or what questions are being asked.

You must also pay attention to connectivity and transmission speeds. A slow speed will reduce the quality of both audio and video, and participants will find it difficult to understand what is happening. This is especially true of multi-point meetings.

It is equally important to have “chair control” meaning that the lead speaker should be allowed to run the meeting. Otherwise, the conference may be drowned in a cacophony of voices with all speakers trying to speak simultaneously. It is also important to let participants based at one location be able to see participants seated at other locations. This gives one the sense of belonging and involvement which in turn will make the videoconference more productive.

Another thing to consider is to go for a lecture-style conference where the key speaker can be seen and heard by all. This speaker can enable or disable other sites from being heard or seen. This kind of videoconferencing is particularly useful in education settings.

You also need to pay attention to items like microphones. They should be of good quality, and should pick up the speaker’s voice effortlessly. Microphones that pick up too much of background noise can be a distraction, and should be removed at the testing stage.

Camera positioning is equally important. If possible, the speakers should be allowed to adjust the camera to project clear images. The same applies to room lighting. There should be sufficient light at all sites for participants to view each other clearly.

It is important that all these “technicalities” be resolved before the start of the conference. This can only happen if a test run is done at least 24 hours before the actual conference. It may seem like a hassle but organizations that do not do a test run may find the going very rough.

In order for a more professional feel, organizers should also consider that they have a moderator to conduct the videoconference. The moderator can be a staff member or hired from outside, and should be briefed in detail about the purpose of the conference, the key speakers, the time allotted to different speakers etc.

It seems like a lot of work to plan a videoconferencing meeting, however the advantages far outweigh this and think of this…it should only get easier the more meetings you conduct. Organizers who don’t pay attention to these details often end up in big trouble and defeat all the benefits of videoconferencing.