MeetingMix: Get Your Meetings in Gear

Managing meetings when you’re not actually in the same building as the folks you’re meeting with can be difficult. Not only do you have to determine a time that works for everyone, no matter what time zone they’re in, but you have to determine an agenda and figure out how you’re going to keep the meeting on track. MeetingMix speeds up the process of setting your agenda, as well as helping you keep the meeting flowing and managing minutes.

Setting up a meeting in MeetingMix is a matter of giving it a name and assigning it to a time and date. At that point, you can begin to set an agenda by adding topics, as well as subtopics as necessary. You can also assign presenters to speak about each point on the agenda. Once you’ve added everything you want on the agenda, you can send it out to those individuals you need to attend the meeting. You have the choice of using MeetingMix’s email tool or emailing each attendee a link to the agenda yourself. Once you’ve invited other attendees to see the meeting agenda, they can review it, suggest additional agenda topics and review any minutes that have already been added if your meeting has started. You can also upload relevant files, which meeting attendees can download and review.

When you’re ready to start the meeting, you can activate MeetingMix’s live meeting tool. It integrates your agenda with a timer and a minutes tool. Anyone attending the meeting can log into the minutes tool and add their own notes on what’s happening in the meeting, as well as details like next steps. Because you can easily tell who wrote which note, you can keep the meeting on track and revisit individual questions and concerns at a later time. (If necessary, you can disable your fellow attendees’ ability to add, edit or delete information.) The minutes tool is particularly easy to use — just enter text and hit “save.” You can add some rich text formatting as needed, as well.

During meetings, you can also create action items and assign them to attendees. You can also add “parking lot” items. At any time you can change topics, check the full agenda or stop the meeting timer. You can see at a glance how much time has been spent on a particular topic, as well, telling you whether you need to speed the meeting along. When the meeting is over, you can review minutes and send a copy to any attendees, as well as save it to PDF or print it. You can also check which of the individuals you invited actually made it to the meeting.

If you hold multiple meetings through MeetingMix, it’s easy to import information from past meetings, allowing continuity between meetings. Your minutes for past meetings are also available for review if you need to go back and check what was said during a past meeting.

MeetingMix offers a free 30-day trial, after which the web application costs $4.95 per month. For that price, you can have unlimited meeting pages, file uploads, attendees and customer support. Your meetings are also protected with SSL data encryption.

What meeting tools do you use to keep meetings on track?

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