Remote Meetings

Last year we looked at the possibility to integrate Microsoft Teams meetings with the Hubspot meeting scheduling tool. At that time, it was possible to automatically have a meeting that was booked through the Hubspot automatic meetings scheduler sent to your Microsoft Office365 Calendar, but it was not possible to automatically include a link to a Microsoft Teams meeting. 

We have been keeping an eye on this feature ever since we first wrote about it because we have heard that many people are looking for this integration. Spoiler alert, there is still no native integration that allows us to use the Hubspot meeting scheduler tool to send out invitations with automatically generated Meeting links for Microsoft links. But we expect that this will become available very soon because Hubspot has confirmed that they have been working on a solution for some time. So, let’s explore where things stand one year on.

How do you make your online meetings, training or events work best for all your attendees?

It is very important to ask yourself this question before diving in and selecting this tools. If you don't give this enough consideration before you make the switch to online meetings, prepare that webcast or create that online training, you might find it very hard to satisfy your attendees and reach your goals. It could mean the difference between a temporary experiment where your efforts are only appreciated because there are no other in person alternatives and then quickly abandoned when it becomes possible to replace all of the technology by in person meetings and the chance to really embrace the possibilities that all the technologies we have access to bring and move you and your organisation forward.

I am not advocating that we should replace all our personal interactions with online events and training when you don't have to but merely to combine these ways of connecting so that you can create a diverse and comfortable set of channels to connect with people in many situations and make the best use of everyone's valuable time. 

This is part 2 of a 3 part series where we try to ask and answer the higher level questions  about how approach meetings, training and webinars using online tools.  In part 1 we had a look at what the major features of connecting online are and what there benefits are. In this part we will look into how to optimise these advantages so they enable you to be as successful as possible from the start. 

Now that the world is moving largely online as a temporary replacement for in person contact during the Covid19 pandemic, there are questions popping up about how to adopt the tools needed and how to use this way of connecting effectively. I noticed that there is a large amount of practical content being written about how to use online tools at the moment but its harder to find information about what makes an effective strategy is to conduct high quality meetings or training online. Information on how to minimise the disadvantages of online training and meetings versus in person  meetings is also a lot harder to come by. In this  3 part series about online meetings, training's and events, I will try to address some of these deeper questions. We'll start with the defining the key features and look at their advantages in this post. In the second post we will look at how you can make the best use out of the advantages so you can get the maximum value possible out of moving  your events online and in the final post I will discuss some of the disadvantages and how to deal with them