Is Meeting in Second Life Necessary?
Fav Five Friday: 5 Tips on Social Media Tools for Virtual Meetings
Do you remember all the hype about virtual meetings in Second Life? Second Life is a free online virtual world. There still seems to be a little buzz about using Second Life for virtual meetings. I don’t see massive benefits of using this space. Seems like others are over the hype.
- The Reuters Second Life bureau is now closed
- The Second Life Hype Has Fizzled Is Twitter Next?
- The End of Second Life
How Presenters Can Take Advantage of Social Media Tools
Connecting Attendees With Your Presentation By Using Twitter
Twitter is a micro-blogging tool more attendees are using these days during meetings to post tweets, small messages. There are plenty of twitter tools and applications for mobile devices too. The presenter at the meeting can announce the hash tag for twitter users. A hash tag is a method of connecting tweets to your presentation by adding # (the pound symbol) to a key word. Attendees of Web 2.0 Expo used #w2e. The hash tag can also be used on other social media web sites to connect images, videos, slides, & conversations on Google’s YouTube, Yahoo’s Flkr, SlideShare, & Blogs.
Presenters can stay connected with their colleagues and get instant assistance for those difficult questions.
Presenters can harness the power of Collective Intelligence by capturing input, questions, answers, & comments with Twitter.
There is plenty of information available on the web on how presenters can take advantage of Twitter.
Blogging During Meetings
Presenters should be aware that more attendees are using social media tools like blogs to capture meeting information. Presenters can also harness the power of social media by using their own blog to connect with people and share information.
Presenters should remember to include links in their presentations. Bloggers could include links to your presentation, LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, Twitter account, blog, web site, and more. If the presentation is available online, then give that link early to give bloggers and other attendees enough time to access it so they can follow along. Twitter users love to tweet links too.
Some attendees are required to submit a report about attending your meeting. It’s easier and the report is more detailed when it can be created closer to real time. A blog seems to be the social media tool of choice for this task. Blogging about a presentation or during a meeting also creates a collaborative space for other to share relative information. Blogging has many more benefits than writing up some email or word document that may be read once or twice before it’s filled in the black hole. Presenters, please be kind to your bloggers and give them space, power, and connections to get online.
Sharing Your Presentation on SlideShare
Upload and share your PowerPoint presentations and Word documents on SlideShare. Share publicly or privately. Add audio to make a webinar. SlideShrare also has a simple API to allow users to embed presentations into Facebook, Blogs, and web sites. Learn more at SlideShare.
Running an Effective Teleconference or Virtual Meeting
Virtual teams are becoming commonplace, but the old rules for running a meeting don’t necessarily apply. Managers need to learn new skills to keep people engaged and to use the time (and technology) effectively. These tips will make your next remote meeting a success. Learn more here.
Using Bar Camp Event and Content Management System
Barcamp Event and Content Management System: This is a web-based-wordpress-powered system aimed at helping people running unconferences manage their event’s content in a more organized manner. Learn more here.
- What Social Media Tools do you use during meeting?
- What is your favorite Video Conference Service?
I’ve always hated when people pimped Second Life as “the” way to have virtual meetings. Yeah, it’s cool and I see the potential for it someday, but not now. Second Life wasn’t built to be a virtual meeting place – the fact that you can hold meetings there is an interesting proof of concept, but that’s all it is right now.
I love Laura’s Presenting while Twittering paper – really great advice that Toastmasters should think about incorporating it into their curriculum.
I’ve also found fewer and fewer people live-blogging at conferences. It seems so 2005. People are now tweeting and Yammering in real-time and then going back in and reviewing those as notes, and then writing a wrap-up blog post.
Great post Dan!
Hello Steve, Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Second Life and how people are using technology during meetings.
I usually use twitter during meetings too. I hope more presenters quickly learn more attendees are doing this. It would be nice for presenters to use a short link service like http://bit.ly so twitter users would have less to type and more reference material for blogging later. Presenters should think ahead about how their ideas will be shared in the social media space. Twitter, Blogging, & iPhone apps are common tools in meetings I attend.
Enjoy Hawaii!