Imagine a distributed meeting using FacilitatePro. You need to have a meeting with colleagues from around the country. Because of your organization’s attention to cost control and the inconvenience of travel, you opt to combine a web conferencing service and FacilitatePro to conduct the discussion. On the day of the meeting, participants sign on to the designated web site and you share a Powerpoint presentation that sets the stage. Then you invite the group to click on the link to FacilitatePro’s interactive agenda. The first topic is a brainstorm about possible solutions to your problem. Everybody works in parallel adding ideas to a shared electronic flipchart. You’ve opted for anonymity so ideas flow freely. After a few minutes, you lead the group in a verbal discussion of the ideas and assign them to categories that are displayed in real time on everyone’s screen. Now you quickly change the flip chart into a voting ballot and ask the group to rank the ideas according to impact and feasibility. The results are immediately displayed in numeric and graphic form. The group moves through several topics, brainstorming ideas and categorizing and prioritizing as appropriate until a final set of key decisions emerges. At the end of the meeting, each participant receives a complete set of meeting notes..

In four hours, the group has collaborated to make key decisions without leaving their offices. The cost and time savings from eliminating travel have more than offset the cost of the technology – in a single meeting.

View an example of a distributed meeting agenda