Online Meetings

          We discussed online town meetings in class. The ability to conduct a meeting online is very useful not only in a town meeting, but in a meeting where all of the administrative members cannot meet in person. Over winter break, the officers of my a cappella group had very important details to iron out for our upcoming ICCA competition in early February. We were all home for break but really needed to discuss some very important matters. So, we all joined Google plus and were able to have all 6 main officers "attend" the meeting, even though most of us were spread across the country at our homes. One of our members still could not be at a computer, but was still able to be a part of the meeting on his phone. 

          While in-person meetings are always preferable for a number of reasons, sometimes they simply cannot be done. In this case it is wonderful to have this technological resource at our disposal. The ability to still verbally talk to multiple people at once helps to keep transparency within the group and is key in avoiding any confusion that could arise had we simply done our meeting through and email chain. Responses are immediate, and everyone can hear them and the speaker can make sure that they are not misinterpreted.

          From a connectivity standpoint, a tool such as this is also great. For instance, I know a lot of people that use video tools like Skype to keep in touch with friends from high school.