Business meetings may be conducted formally or informally, depending on the company and the circumstances. The following guidelines are based on Robert’s Rules of Order.

Taking Minutes

Steps:

1.  Obtain the meeting agenda, minutes from the last meeting, and any background documents to be discussed. Consider using a tape recorder to ensure accuracy.  

2.  Sit beside the chairperson for convenient clarification or help as the meeting proceeds.  

3.  Write “Minutes of the meeting of (exact association name).”  

4.  Record the date, time and place of the meeting.  

5.  Circulate a sheet of paper for attendees to sign. (This sheet can also help identify speakers by seating arrangement later in the meeting.) If the meeting is an open one, write down only the names of the attendees who have voting rights.  

 6.  Note who arrives late or leaves early so that these people can be briefed on what they missed.  

7.  Write down items in the order in which they are discussed. If item 8 on the agenda is discussed before item 2, keep the old item number but write item 8 in second place.  

8.  Record the motions made and the names of people who originate them.  

9.  Record whether motions are adopted or rejected, how the vote is taken (by show of hands, voice or other method) and whether the vote is unanimous. For small meetings, write the names of the attendees who approve, oppose and abstain from each motion.  

10.  Focus on recording actions taken by the group. Avoid writing down the details of each discussion.    

Tips:You do not need to record topics irrelevant to the business at hand. Taking minutes is not the same as taking dictation.    

Consult only the chairperson or executive officer, not the attendees, if you have questions.    

The person taking minutes does not participate in the meeting.    

Transcribing Minutes

Steps:

1.  Transcribe minutes soon after the meeting, when your memory of the event is still fresh.  

2.  Follow the format used in previous minutes.  

3.  Preface resolutions with “RESOLVED, THAT…”  

4.  Consider attaching long resolutions, reports or other supplementary material to the minutes as an appendix.  

5.  Write “Submitted by” and then sign your name and the date.   6.  Place minutes chronologically in a record book.    

Tips:Write in a concise, accurate manner, taking care not to include any sort of subjective opinion.   No matter what type of minutes you take, focus on capturing and communicating all important actions that took place.    

Tips from eHow Users:Handout notes by eHow Friend
I find it very helpful to make notes on the back of my set of handouts. That way, what was discussed about the items on that particular handout is on the back of the actual sheet.    

Follow up by eHow Friend
Make sure action items are clearly marked on the notes. When they are disbursed they can serve as reminders for those in attendance.

A conference call lets you remain at your desk rather than trek off down the hall–or across the country–to a meeting. It also provides a great opportunity to get the opinions and concerns of the entire team heard as long as it doesn’t disintegrate into a wasteland of wandering discourse. Investing some time and effort up front will ensure that the call works for everyone.

1.  Volunteer to set up the call so you can assume the role of moderator. Confirm that everyone has both the dial-in and conference code numbers, as well as the correct time for their zone.  

2.  Poll the other participants in advance as to the items they want covered in the call. Develop a written agenda with a specific time allotment for each agenda item. Better yet, e-mail the agenda to all parties before the call.  

3.  Take charge of gathering and disseminating the printed background material, numbering pages clearly and prominently. Nothing creates conference-call chaos faster than a chorus of “Where are we?” or “I don’t seem to have that chart.”  

4.  Refuse to discuss major agenda items until everyone is on the line. Bringing latecomers up to speed on important issues wastes time and irritates those who were prompt.  

5.  Monitor the clock closely. Be prepared to intervene with “Excuse me, we have to move on–we’ve run out of time for this topic” or “Let’s discuss this topic at another time and report back to the group.” Stay polite but firm throughout.  

6.  End the call with a synopsis of conclusions reached and future actions required. Send out a written summary of these conclusions and action items to all participants promptly.    

Overall Tips:Use a handheld phone on a land line rather than a cellular phone or speakerphone. Your voice will be clearer, with minimal background noise. Use an office where you can close the door to further reduce noise.   If more than two other people are participating in the call, keep a written list of names beside your phone so you can be sure you are getting everyone’s input.    

Tips from eHow Users: Focus by eHow Friend
Do not do anything else but participate on the conference call. Answering e-mails, reading papers, etc., are counter-productive to the purpose of the call. And since many people forget to mute their phones, the noises you make will distract from the meeting.

Arrive early. Members often wish to speak to the chair prior to the meeting. Quite apart from this being a good opportunity to ‘network’, valuable information pertinent to the meeting can be picked up on an informal basis. A check can be made on the physical arrangements before commencing - thereby avoiding any risk of disruption to the start. 1. Start on time and, equally important, state when the meeting will finish.
2. Effect introductions. At the inaugural meeting, introduce yourself and ask each member to introduce themselves with a brief comment on their role and what they believe they can contribute to the meeting. At subsequent meetings, when there is anyone new attending, repeat the process.
3. Check that everyone has received a copy of the agenda and any papers for the meeting, including the notes of any previous relevant meeting. Make a note of anyone who claims not to have received the papers in time for them to be familiar with the issues – this will limit the contribution they can properly make.
4. Clarify the main aims of the meeting, priorities and intended outcomes.
5. Try to make the meeting an enjoyable experience. Business is likely to be conducted most effectively and efficiently when people feel relaxed and comfortable.
6. Listen carefully to all contributions so that you can ensure people do not wander off the topic; that you can effectively judge when it is appropriate to bring the item to a meaningful conclusion; and that you can accurately sum-up at any point.
7. Sum-up points made in discussions succinctly before closing a topic, so that members know what it is they are being asked to decide. Summarise at the close with particular emphasis upon what is to happen next and who will be responsible. Check with the Secretary, at different points, that they have been able to take an accurate record of key issues and decisions.
8. Facilitate a balanced discussion. Use appropriate questions to elucidate information or re-direct discussion. Recognise ’strong’ and ‘weak’ members of the meeting. Encourage and support the reticent, support the reasonable, suppress the overbearing and discourage ‘social loafing’. Prevent those without anything new to add repeating the same point.
9. Remain impartial and try not to talk too much. Appreciate that there will be less opportunity to voice your own opinions and certainly take care if it looks necessary for the Chair to use a casting vote.
10. Discourage ‘Any other business’ unless it is urgent and cannot wait until the next meeting. Disallow any significant item being introduced at the closing stages.
11. Finish on time or, if not on time, before. Respect the value of peoples’ time.
12. Clarify arrangements for the next meeting.
13. Invite feedback on the effectiveness of the meeting and the Chair.

By Sue Tinnish

SEAL Inc.

847.394.9857

stinnish@ameritech.net

Traditionally, medical and technical conferences have offered poster sessions. Poster sessions allow colleagues to share their expertise with large groups at conferences.  You can harness the positive power of posters to create innovative meeting formats.

In a traditional conference, participants are invited to create a poster depicting their research. Poster creators share that information with others during an informal period when people walk around viewing the posters. Poster creators may also be required to give short presentations on their research every ten or fifteen minutes. Poster sessions combine text and graphics to make a visually-pleasing presentation.

Beyond medical and research conferences, poster sessions offer 14 benefits for all types of meeting and events:

1.       Participants get to pick and choose - People can wander about and stop at topics that are of interest to them. It’s self-directed learning at its best.

2.       Participants can vote with their feet - People can stop and look a poster for as little time or as much time as they like. They can engage in conversation with the creator of the poster. It’s easy to move on during a poster session without insulting the speaker.

3.       The right pace - Many presentations do not provide the audience with enough time to assimilate the statistical data or link it with other information. A poster can allow for a clearer and more reflective process of presentation, especially of statistical or visual information. In addition, the narrative of every poster, including main points and conclusions, can be highlighted and therefore absorbed at every person’s own pace as they view the poster.

4.       My question - A presentation rarely affords enough time to adequately field all questions. Audience participation is sometimes limited to question and answer periods. Usually only a few people are able to ask questions, and the presenter may not cover the concerns of the entire audience. A poster session allows for dialogue and engaging interaction.

5.       Snippets may be the best - Speakers can drone on for interminable amounts of time. What if speakers were forced to encapsulate their comments into 10 minutes? That’s in essence what poster sessions do – they force the presenter to get their main points out quickly and clearly.

6.       A different way to learn - Poster sessions promote information through visual medium not just words. Ideally poster sessions are graphically interesting and display information visually. The creator may be present to supplement the poster with conversation by answering questions from the participants.

7.       Customized learning – Poster sessions give people to the opportunity customize their agenda in a way that is most value to them.

8.       Forget the common denominator - A common problem in presentations is that speakers must provide sufficient background so the entire audience will understand the presentation. Poster sessions allow the creator to meet the participant at their level of knowledge. And as a result, they each have the opportunity to discuss the full scope of the research or results and implications.

9.       Leading-edge issues covered - What if your agenda and speakers are determined months in advance? That’s good from a planning perspective but you lose something in being able to cover the newest information. Poster sessions offer you the flexibility to program to current issues.

10.    Variety at a quick pace - Often when I am planning meetings, it seems that there is so much I would love to cover but time on the agenda just doesn’t allow. Poster sessions create the opportunity to include a wide breadth of topics without overwhelming the audience with information overload.

11.    Responsive to the group - Poster sessions afford you the opportunity to be responsive to individual needs, interests and topics.

12.    Highlight the expertise of your group Poster sessions give lots of people the opportunity to highlight their expertise and knowledge. Imagine the great new connections that can be created when people discover each other during a poster session.

13.    Poster sessions are a consideration to foreign colleagues - The poster session allows foreign colleagues another format to present. If Asian, European, African or Latin American colleagues are less comfortable with a formal presentation in English, poster sessions offer them an alternative. Likewise, for Americans participating in an international conference.

14.    Feedback loop - Posters can provide the creator with much more feedback than she or he would receive during a traditional presentation.

With these benefits in mind, you can explore a more expansive use of poster sessions:

• Posters as a source for additional resources – Supplement an existing presentation with posters.  This offers people something to look at, adds color to the walls and gives people the opportunity to explore a topic in more detail if they are interested.
• Posters as a review technique – During training session, rather than lead participants through the review and repeat information that already covered, create posters that review the relevant material.   Invite participants to spend as much or as little time as they want at each visual display. This technique doesn’t force anyone to review material that they felt they knew cold.   It also allowed people to reflect and remember what they learned. Often our meeting agendas are so crammed with information, there is little time for the participants to stop and think about what they learned.
• Posters at a trade show – Rather than a traditional trade show, invited venders to prepare poster displaying their expertise in a specific area. Rather than beginning conversations about whether there is interest in doing business together, the participants will have the opportunity to learn something of value from the vendors. From that relationship, both parties can explore other avenues.
• Best Practices Showcase - Learn from peers by using a poster session to showcase best practices, great ideas, or other examples that can benefit the entire group. This type of session can be motivating to the creators of the poster and create some great suggestions for everyone.
• Virtual Poster Sessions - The fastest growing variation of the poster session is the Internet session. Creators prepare posters about their work and post them on the Web. Instead of walking around viewing others’ posters at a conference, participants of the virtual poster session view others’ posters online. Electronic forums then allow participants to ask questions of the poster authors.

Be positive on posters! Everyone benefits from poster sessions - the participants, the planners and the creators of posters.   Add a bit of innovation to a meeting through poster sessions.

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an immeasurably important tool for a number of reasons. But before you can manufacturer full use of this tool, you must understand how to interpret the data.

Top web hosting companies will provide you with fundamental web traffic data that you then have to interpret and make appropriate use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be imposing if you don’t grasp how to supplicate it to your particular undertaking and website. Let’s start by examining the most fundamental data - the general visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These statistics are the most genuine allowance of your website’s performance. It would appear on the surface that the more visitors you see documented, the better you can figure your website is performing, but this is an inaccurate understanding. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they get to your website to accurately assess the effectiveness of your site.

There is usually a great delusion about what is ordinarily known as “hits” and what is really competent, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply mean the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the actuality that a hit can readily equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an impression of how exaggerated the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in truth we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your location. As you can see, hits are not worthwhile in analyzing your website traffic. The more visitors that turn up to your website, the more genuine your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your evaluation will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The lesser the number of visitors, the more a few unorthodox visitors can misrepresent the assessment.

The aim is to use the web traffic information to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to ascertain this is to discover how long, on average, your visitors run through your site. If the time spent is comparatively brief, it usually indicates an elementary problem. Then the challenge is to evaluate what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are guiding the wrong variety of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are disorganized or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit quickly. Use the experience of how much time visitors are spending on your site to identify specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as an estimate of how effective your fix has been.

Furthermore, web traffic stats can help you establish effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you consider as important, but visitors are exiting it swiftly, that page needs work. You could, for example, evaluate improving the link to this page by making the link more substantial and attractive, or you could reform the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you maintain are less essential, you might want to move some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that specific page. As you can see, these statistics will broadcast vital knowledge about the profitability of distinct pages, and visitor habits and stimulus. This is essential information to any effectual Internet marketing campaign.

Your website unequivocally has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to leave quickly. Nonetheless, not every visitor to your site is going to locate exactly what he or she is looking for, so observations may show you a number of other exit pages. This is customary unless you notice an exit trend on a specific page that is not designed as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not intended for that purpose, you must closely contemplate that particular page to figure out what the difficulty is. Once you identify potential weaknesses on that page, tiny modifications in content or graphics may have a consequential impact on the visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Take notice if selective keywords are directing a specific variety of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - implicating that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more profitable that keyword is.

However, if you find a great number of visitors are being directed - or should I say, misdirected - to your site by a specific keyword or phrase, that keyword demands modification. Keywords are essential to bringing quality visitors to your site who are open to do business with you. Close evaluation of the keywords your visitors are using to locate your site will give you a fundamental understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are discovering your website by typing in your company name, break out the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant focus of brand recognition, and this is certainly an indication of burgeoning success.

About the Author: Mike Tansey has been online since early 2004. He can set you up with your own profit-unlimited pulling website within the next 24 hours. Duplication is the crux to Network Marketing, Mike has the Answer. Affiliate Marketing Opportunity.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are two important ways to promote your business to online customers.

I read this great article on search engine optimization and wanted to share with you. One thing to note is that you can be found on search engines by doing a little work on your website. You don’t need a ton of money to be next to your competitor online. I have been trying to tell the world about how important it is to do a little work on your website and then seek out some low cost solutions to be found. One low cost solution is to find “portals” that aggregate and build community like Hereschicago.com.

Hereschicago.com provides a “doorway” into your business from visitors from Google, Yahoo and MSN in addition to a host of other “niche” search engines. Oh yes, there are over 300 “other” search engines out there delivering targeted traffic to Hereschicago.com and ultimately your business. Ok, I am off my high horse for now. Take a good look at the following article. This is exactly what I recommmend doing to make your website be found on the internet.

SEO requires making your site search-engine-friendly, and SEM involves targeting potential customers by purchasing relevant keyword ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Alta Vista.

SEO: There are many ways to optimize your site so that search engines will list your site higher in their rankings. Start with the following:

• Links from other sites: Search engine spiders move from site to site across the Internet by following hyperlinks. The more high-quality and high-trafficked sites you have pointing to your site, the more important the search engine will think you are. Make sure to register your site with directories such as Yahoo, (Hereschicago.com) and the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org).
• Internal links: Make sure your site is well-organized and easy to navigate. A site map will help visitors – and spiders – nawigate your site.
• Metatags: Metatags are hidden HTML directions for Web browsers or search engines. They include important information such as the title of each page, relevant keywords describing site content and the description of the site that shows up when a search engine returns a search. Make sure your metatags accurately describe your content.
• Keywords:Spider likely words or phrases that users might type into search engines to find your site. Make sure your content contains those!words or phrases, and include them in the title portions of your site and in relevant content.
• Search engine optimizers: Businesses often enlist the help of optimizers who specialize in improving the visibility of their clients’ sites. Among other things, they’ll register your site with major search engines, list it in the appropriate directory, write optimized content for your site and recommend changes to your site architecture.

SEM: The more targeted your advertising, the higher your ’’conversion rate.’’ Conversion rate refers to the percentage of ads that actually convert to sales or some other desired action (such as registration). One way to ensure that your prospective customers are qualified is to buy ads according to specific search engine keywords that a user might submit. For example, if you’re selling a Minolta 60X digital camera, buying the keyword ad ’’Minolta 60X digital camera’’ will most likely give you better results than buying the keyword ’’camera.’‘

Some terms get bid up quickly – for instance, you’ll pay a lot more for a technology keyword than a knitting keyword. SEM, however, has a higher conversion rate than other online marketing methods, so it can still be a cost-effective route to take.

Make sure you have compelling ad copy luring people to your site. Provide a call to action to prospective customers to encourage them to click on your link. Also, make sure that you send prospective customers to a targeted page on your site. Your home page will convert fewer customers than a page describing the exact service that you promote in your keyword ad.

You generally pay for keyword ads on a cost per click (CPC) basis. Review the keywords you’ve purchased to ensure you’re getting a good return on your investment. If not, try a different word or phrase. You can also try different ad copy or landing pages on your site to see what’s more attractive to prospective customers.

Companies offering CPC programs include Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, FindWhat, Kanoodle, Entireweb, Industry Brains and LookSmart.

Once you’ve exhausted your SEO and SEM options, there are a couple of other routes that will produce results. You can put together an online ad campaign by either buying advertising on sites that appeal to your demographic. In addition, you can send out e-mail newsletters. Encourage customers to provide their e-mail addresses so you can contact them with useful information and promotions.

By:Bernard Peh

 Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the buzz word you will see everywhere in the internet nowsadays. Designing a website today is no longer about aesthetics. It must not only look good, it must be visible to the search engines as well. What should a web designer take note when designing a search engine friendly website? This article attempts to discuss some important pointers for web designers in creating SEO friendly web pages.

 (Note: We are not talking about boosting search engine rankings as that would require a separate article.)

 From a search engine point of view, the perfect webpage has no graphics, no scripting, no tables…etc but just alot of normal, plain readable text. You can just take it that plain text is the food for search engine spiders. Therefore, the more text you have, the more you will keep the spiders happy. However, from the design point of view, such pages are very boring but the fact is that everyone is more interested in keeping the spiders rather than us happy. The argument is that if search engine spiders cannot find your site, no one will. Based on this philosophy, we witnessed the fall of flash and sites with strong graphics over the years. Many sites that utilized heavy graphics where no longer found. Web developers become happy because they have an excuse to create less impressive websites…

The question is can we make both the saerch engine spiders and us happy? The answer is definitely a “Yes” provided that web designers can follow certain rules when designing web pages. They need to step out of their comfort zone and learn abit more about new web technologies.

 Domain Name and URL Naming Convention Having a proper domain and url name is quite often neglected. Many search engines actually put some weightage in the way you name your domain or url files. You will definitely want to include some juicy words in your naming convention. For example, if you site is about website critics and your url is http://www.sitecritic.com, this will definitely be better than a domain like http://www.bluecatfish.com. The same principle goes for hyperlinks. If you have 2 words as key words, you can use an underscore “_” or dash “-” to separate them.

Title

Do not fool around when writing the title. From my experience, this is the most important part of your webpage. Many designers like to put special characters such as ” * “,” | “, ” : ” or ” [ ] ” in the title to make it look unique. If you really want to make your webpage special, I advise you to do it else where such as in the body of the HTML document. You should include your keywords in your title. Like the previous example, if your web site focuses on website reviews, make sure you have the words “Website Reviews” somewhere in the title. Noticed that “WebsiteReviews” is not the same as “Website Reviews”. Spacing is important. When writing the title, try not to write more than 8 words. There are no hard and fast rules on that but the fact is that more does not mean good. In fact, the more you write, the more your keyword density will be diminished. If you keep repeating the same keyword in the title, search engines will see your site as spam and you will be dead in no time. For example, a title like “Sitecritic Web Reviews” is much better than “Sitecritic Web Reviews, Internet Marketing, Web Design Ideas, Internet Directories, Budget Web Hosting, Melbourne”. I will have to stress again, do not fool around with your title.

Meta-Description

After the title tag is the meta description tag. Many people argued that meta description is no longer important. Based on my experience, they are still relevant in SEO rankings especially if your website is new. The principle in writing the meta description tag is the same as the title. The only difference is that you want explain abit more about the services that you provide in a friendlier format. You will also want to include your keywords in the meta description. Menu, Content and Links You should not use any javascript menus that hid the urls. Many javascript menus are fancy but actually not SEO friendly. What ever technique you are using to create the menus, make sure that the tag is visible. You might also want to include a variation of the keywords in the menus, links or text. Like the previous example, if your keyword is “Web Site Reviews”, you might not want to use the same word over and over again. You can vary it by using “Professional Web Reviews, Reviews of Websites, Site Reviews…etc”. Varying the keywords makes your content more interesting and is good for SEO as well. When writing the contents, try to put the keywords in different areas of the document. Use tags like or to make the keywords stand out. Avoid urls that say “click here” or “view”. Though often used, they are not advisable for SEO purposes. Text links are stonger than image links. It is therefore not advisable to use images as the main navigation menu throughout the website. If you would like to incorporate images in the user navigation experience, you might want to consider separating the text from the images. This can be achieved easily using CSS or the background image option in the or tag.

Images

Unlike many Search Engine Experts, I strongly encourage the use of graphics because I am passion about Web Design and is sad to see so many websites that are well optimized for search engines but look crap on screen. You need to balance between the amount of graphics used and downloading speed. Like I mentioned before, if your header banner or important images contains text , you could split up the text and use the images as a separate background or floating layer. That way, you can make the image size smaller and also make the text visible to the search engines. Transparent gifs are very useful for laying over other content or images. Appropriate use of jpegs and gifs can also cut down loading time by alot.

CSS Technology CSS helps you to cut down your tag and gives more room for the spiders to read your content. The problem with CSS is that it is not as straight forward as tables. At the moment, CSS is also inconsistent in different browsers, so before you publish your web page, you need to check the layout in different browsers. I am actually not against designers using tables especially if they find the time spend in creating a full CSS site not justifiable. The fact is that there are still cases when using CSS is not advisable. An example is when displaying tabular data; Tables still excel in displaying tabular data at the moment. Unless you are using complex nested tables, the , or tags should not pose too much of a problem for the search engine spiders.

Conclusion

Web pages should not be boring and web designers should not bow down to the Google revolution. A well designed site combines both form and function and yet, still able to be search engine friendly. I strongly believe that this can be easily achieved if website designers are able to follow very basic rules in designing their web sites

New content! In order for any search engine to provide relevant results to their visitors (so their visitors will repeatedly use them)   they must provide the best results possible for every search performed on their site.

The best website gets more traffic and more traffic means more   business - so websites have to be up to date to stay competitive in  their market.

The big sites on the net, like www.hereschicago.com, who have pagerankings of 5 upwards, obviously serve a ton of visitors per day,  provide search engines with a mass of links to follow and index.

That’s why search engines go back to the big sites like  www.hereschicago.com more often than the little ones.

High traffic, very popular sites are visited by the search engine   robots more often than sites with little traffic. Some large sites are visited by search engines as much as 2-4 times per month to scan theircontent which makes these sites more visible and higher in the ranks of search engines.

How can article marketing increase your search engine traffic?

By submitting articles you can get links from these high traffic sites. Furthermore you can optimize your articles with your searchterms to get high rankings for that particular page. This wouldotherwise take weeks on a new site as oppose to a well established onesuch as this.

Each of these sites will have its own resource area, at the end of the article, writers include a bit of Author information on where to findout more about them. Place your website link in here and bob’syour uncle the search engines will find your site through that link.

The more articles you submit with your website link in them, the more pages on the net you have pointing to you from high traffic sites and the better your ranking and link popularity.

Start submitting your meetings and events related articles today toour blog. You will be amazed at the results they yield.

If you are interested in submitting an article, please email your article to info@hereschicago.com for consideration.

A myriad of risks threaten the success of events and meetings, including lack of rehearsal time, itinerary changes, equipment failures, and other factors. Here are eight proven tips to make your next event or meeting a great one.

Before the event

1. Conduct several pre-meeting planning sessions. During these planning sessions, take the time to prepare a concise agenda of issues that need to be discussed and an action plan regarding who needs to make what decisions. For example, what is the complete itinerary of the event; how many rooms will be needed for the general session and the workshops; what is the layout of each room; will there be a stage play or entertainment during the opening of the meeting; will there be an awards ceremony; what are the needs for sound, video projection, lighting, Internet access, and so forth. In addition, these planning sessions are the best time to determine the size of the technical staff and production crew needed to properly operate all of the audio and visual equipment for the event. This will help avoid unnecessary labor costs later on in the process.

These planning sessions are also the best time to discuss the need for equipment and backups in the case of equipment failure, which unfortunately seems to happen at the most inopportune times. For equipment backups, companies should require that the bare minimum of a backup computer, data projector, and microphones are available in case of a problem. Determining a precise equipment checklist during the planning sessions helps avoid renting unnecessary equipment and keeps costs down.

Overall, the pre-meeting planning process helps make sure that the meeting accomplishes the company’s vision and expectations, while keeping equipment and labor costs inline with requirements. The process requires discipline and, if done properly, provides the greatest return on investment from reviewing even the minutest details.

2. Negotiate audio/visual equipment rental costs. It is a good idea to use the equipment supplied by in-house audio/visual (A/V) department for the hotel or resort, or another local equipment supplier whenever possible. With that said, however, company meeting planners should carefully negotiate equipment rental costs. At times, in-house A/V departments charge fees that provide hotels with lucrative gross margins on rentals. This does not mean that one should demand price slashing, although it does mean there is likely room to reduce rental costs.

Success depends on asking a lot of questions and referring to the equipment checklist developed during the planning sessions, in order to avoid any unnecessary items, while ensuring to not compromise equipment redundancy. Also, remain cognizant of unnecessary labor charges during the setup of equipment at the event, especially if company personnel will be onsite. There is no need for duplication of effort and this can provide cost savings.

3. Promote and communicate with attendees. Aside from increasing event attendance, promoting the event or meeting will help build excitement and interest among attendees. It is easy to overlook the importance of pre-event promotion, especially if attendance is mandatory. Effective promotion helps ensure that the attendees are on the same page regarding the objectives and expectations of the event.

4. Hire a professional to develop the presentation support materials. It is difficult to financially justify an executive of a company investing many hours into the development of PowerPoint® presentation(s) or other support materials. This is, however, often the case. Instead, it is important to recognize that PowerPoint is a presentation support tool, not the presentation. It is much more logical, and fiscally responsible, for executives and/or presenters to define the content of their presentation and then turn it over to a capable designer for implementation. This frees up more rehearsal time for the presenter, and the designer will likely deliver a higher-quality PowerPoint in less time. This process leads to a more effective delivery of the presentation because more rehearsal time was available.

5. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! The importance of presenter rehearsal is impossible to understate. The timing of the rehearsal is also critical. Once presenters are onsite, there is very little time available for rehearsal. Because of this time constraint, rehearsal must take place well in advance of the presenter’s arrival. Aside from the lack of time, on-site rehearsal adds costs to the event. For example, if a presenter decides to make changes to a PowerPoint during equipment setup, this could potentially slow down the process or, even worse, affect room configurations. With that said, time needs to be allocated to test the presentations from a technical standpoint to ensure that all of the video, PowerPoint, Flash™ animations, Web links, and so forth, work properly.

6. Produce an energizing opening. An effective opening video, stage play, or live entertainment engages attendees and separates them from their daily distractions and demands at the office. The opening of the meeting gets them focused on the objectives for the event or meeting. It is also critical to get all of the attendees on the same page so they know what to expect over the next several days. The opening of the meeting is the proper time for this to happen. A well-produced opening is effective at energizing attendees to participate and getting them ready to contribute toward the success of the meeting.

During the event

7. Thoroughly inspect the location and supervise equipment setup. The planning team from the company needs to inspect the meeting rooms and develop a precise understanding of the power and lighting layouts and existing A/V (audio visual) capabilities, and to test the equipment that was selected for the event. This is true for the general session and any workshops, leaving no detail to chance. This inspection is not micro-managing the setup performed by the A/V team. Instead, it is the last opportunity to ensure that the selected equipment will achieve the expectations of the event. After the event

8. Give survivability to the message! This can include producing a closing wrap video and distributing VHS, DVD, or streamed versions of the content to audience members, and to those who could not attend, following the event. This helps the good karma established during the meeting to live on and transfer the message to a broader audience. Survivability of the message adds value to the meeting.

In closing, the more experienced one becomes, the easier it is to overlook the core aspects of what is truly important during event or meeting planning. Incorporating these proven tips into a concise event or meeting planning process can make the difference between a great meeting and mediocrity!

The AVS Group is a marketing, training, and communications company in La Crosse, Wisconsin. AVS helps clients communicate and market effectively. AVS can be found online at http://www.avsgroup.com.