Let’s talk about meetings. They’re impossible to avoid, they can quickly clog up our busy diaries and they leave many of us feeling frustrated due to the amount of time they steal in a working week.
When you look at the stats, it’s not hard to see why. The Wall Street Journal found that CEOs spend an average of 27 hours per week in meetings while a further study found, out of the companies they surveyed, the average employee has 62 meetings a month – and half of them said they thought meetings were the biggest time waster in the office.
We all have a lot of meetings in our schedule and it seems that, rather than inspiring us and turbocharging our productivity, many of the meetings we attend leave us feeling frustrated and with a bitter taste in the mouth.
There’s a huge number of great articles out there (like this one) showing you how to hold effective meetings, but we want to show you the simple ways you can make your meetings fun – all of which you can do with the push of a button.
1. Keep things running on time
The curse of bad meetings centers on time being wasted. That’s why it’s so important to keep things on track, on schedule, and on time. You can use Flic to start a timer or a countdown and trigger a siren sound (or even an air horn!) when the time is up.
2. Keep the caffeine (or other refreshments) coming
Board meetings, strategy sessions, and workshops all take up large chunks of time. We’ve all been in the place where we slowly feel ourselves drifting out of the room and tuning out to what’s being said, thinking about when the next coffee break is or wondering what we’re going to have for lunch. A great way to stop the drift is making sure there’s a constant supply of coffee and other refreshments, but no one wants to be getting up all the time to keep them topped up. With Flic and a simple push, the office manager can be alerted that a resupply is needed and, with minimum interruption, fresh coffee can magically arrive.
3. Power up your presentations
Great presentations help make meetings more memorable and keep the people attending engaged. Flic has become an integral part of delivering great presentations thanks to its popularity as a ‘Keynote clicker.’ We’re delighted to announce it’s just got even better with the latest update to our Mac App which you can download here.
4. Be creative
Flic boats endless possibilities. Want to run a quiz at your meeting? Flic is your ready-made buzzer for answering questions. Want to count the number of times someone deviates from the agenda? Count them with a push of Flic. Want to use your smart lights to help emphasize a point you’re trying to make with some dramatic effects? Flic’s got you covered. You can even integrate Flic with Google Analytics and start using data and insight to revolutionize your meetings. The only limit is the scope of your imagination.
5. Sometimes you need a ‘strategic interruption’
It might be a pitch you’re listening to or simply a meeting that’s gone on for far too long and you need to discreetly bring to a close – this is where a well-planned ‘cry for help’ or ‘strategic interruption’ can come into play. You can use Flic to notify a team member not in the meeting that they need to come and ‘rescue’ you or even to trigger an ‘urgent’ phone call that you simply have to take. We hope situations like this are rare but it always helps to prepare for all eventualities!
In an age where life and business hacks are all the rage and we’re always looking for ways to refine and enhance any experience, isn’t it time we did the same for meetings and turned them into a force for a good rather than them being met with a groan and a sigh?
Why not try out Flic for yourself and see how you can transform your meetings with the push of a button?