Face-to-face vs. online meeting
Face-to-face
We recently attended a steering group meeting, due to be held in central London. In this case, six senior staff were due to travel from Southampton, Suffolk, London, Essex, the Midlands and Scotland - for a three hour meeting with no overnight costs. Even though half the meeting delegates were already in the London area, the estimated cost was £2,841 entailing 1330 miles of travel.
At our suggestion the meeting was moved online, primarily justified because key individuals were very busy and may not have been able to spare the time for the face-to-face meeting. We facilitated a combination of live voice conference backed up by live text chat and access to common resources. Additionally, we could have incorporated video links, desktop sharing and a communal whiteboard on which we could all collaborate.
Over half of the steering group members attended the meeting from their home offices and so had additional documents and other resources to hand. Not to mention refreshments of their choice whenever they were needed. What’s more they didn’t even need to dress specially for a business meeting!
The meeting cracked along at a good pace and was completed in under 2 hours. Members were immediately able to check the chat transcripts which formed the basis of the meeting minutes. A sub-group continued discussion to resolve specific action points while they were together. The others were able to resume other work immediately and had access to the ongoing conversations in an on-line discussion forum.
Online
Total cost of on-line meeting was £600 for member time. Saving £2,241 including 27 hours of travel time plus 1330 miles of carbon emissions.

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