How to Plan a Professional Conference Call the Right Way

If you're an office professional who's just been asked (okay, ordered) by your boss to organize the company's first high-tech phone or internet conference call, you're probably shaking in your boots. You have no clue how to go about. What if you screw up, lose the big account, and totally flush the future of your employer's company down the toilet?

Well, we're here to make sure you don't. Read on to learn how to set up a conference call that will be the envy of every other admin in your office building. And don't worry, it won't hurt a bit.

Get a Game Plan It's always important to know what you're doing and when. First, make sure you have a set date, time and number of participants laid out. Also, take into account any time zone differences if you're doing some international conference calling or making a long distance conference call. Don't try to schedule a meeting with a supplier in Asia for 2:00 AM their time. Unless, of course, they really want your company's contract.

Now Tell Everyone Else A month's notice gives busy people the opportunity to pencil you into their datebook. Provide them with the date, basic instructions on accessing the phone conference, their dial-in number, and PIN. Also include the name of the organizer (you) and contact info, proposed start and end time, and topic. And, of course, give them a copy of the proposed agenda. Don't know how to make one? Breath deep and calm down - we'll get to that.

Extras Be sure to include any incidental necessities with your notification email; spreadsheets, visual aides, charts and graphs fall under this category. If you don't have all this material ready when your email goes out, or want your group to have updated info, send it out two weeks in advance.

How to Make Up an Agenda If you don't want your teleconference to descend into anarchy, provide your meeting-goers with a complete and organized agenda. No blaming your mistakes on a hapless temp, either, because that's just mean.

Make sure your agenda covers the following points:

.Topics (Advance notice will allow your conference buddies to propose their own if necessary.) .Who's Speaking on Each Topic (Make them do some talking too.) .How Much Time each Person Has (Recycled toilet paper in the company bathrooms is an important issue, but you shouldn't allow 40 minutes for it.)

If you send out your notification far enough in advance, you can take requests. Just like a good DJ, you can choose whether to play the HR discrimination complaints with the fiscal breakdown. If something just won't fit, time-wise, suggest that the contributor send a memo to all participants requesting that it be brought up at a later date.

Also Keep In Mind... Teleconferencing has come a long way, but it still has challenges and potential pitfalls. The new, high-tech conference call lines have an annoying tendency to pick up every little comment and sound. In other words, don't bad mouth your boss, or mutter any swear words under your breath. To avoid disaster, it's important to be organized and know what you're doing, or at the very least, how to troubleshoot. And remember, a little preparation goes a long way.

Huzaili Aris is the webmaster of http://www.conferencecall101.com Starting a conference call is not as complex as some people think. Find out more on how to plan telephone conference calls by visiting our website

How to Choose a Conference Call Service that's Right for Your Business

For businesses and organizations that use conference calls frequently, it is important to choose the right conference call service. Today, businesses are going global. Deals are made via conference calls; employees and employees who work off-site communicate through conference calls; meetings or seminars are held using conference calls.

Conference calling offers several options. Thus, when you are looking several conference call services, you should o have a criteria and a clear idea of what your company's or organization's needs are.

Would you like the option of an operator-assisted call or instant conferencing? If your company regularly conduct formal meetings, an operator-assisted call may be the best option. However, if your organization tends to be informal even during meetings or have spontaneous conferences, an instant conferencing option may be the ideal choice. A third option you can consider is web conferencing. Although this kind of conference call is gaining popularity, it will only work for your organization if the people who participate in your calls have the necessary software needed for the call as well as networking capabilities and reliable Internet connection.

You also need to consider if you want additional options such as roll-calls of participants wherein the names of individuals are announced as they join. You also need to consider if you need a conference call option that will let you conduct a moderated question-and-answer session after the conference. If you decide to go with web conferencing, would you want an option that will allow you to show presentations such as slides or movies?

After each conference call, do you want a recording of the call so that other people can listen to it? This conference call feature is particularly useful if some people missed the call. A recording of the conference can also help those who were present to listen to it again and refresh their memory.

Lastly, you also need to consider how much the different conference call services are charging. If your call is long and you used several sophisticated options for the call, the fees could be high. Thus, before you sign up for a conference call service, make sure that the company gives you a complete or comprehensive pricing structure.

Timothy Gorman is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Best Conference Calling Services.com where he provides more information on finding the best deals on audio, web and video conference calling that you can research in your pajamas on his website http://www.bestconferencecallingservices.com

International Conference Calls

When you are in business, you realize that keeping the lines of communication open are critical. When you conduct your business worldwide, it is even more important. Your business relies on sales people, clients, and colleagues, and if that are scattered all over the world, holding weekly meetings can be difficult.

This is where international conference calling can be critical to your business. It is imperative that you keep in contact with your staff and clients. With international conference calling, you can hold meetings anytime, and with anyone even if they are on opposite sides of the world. If you have a client in another country, by using international conference calling, you can still give a presentation as if they were sitting right next to you in the conference room.

With international conference calling, you can provide training to new employees that reside in different countries just as efficiently as if they were right in front of you. The world today offers new and innovation methods of conducting business. Conference calling has been around for years. But with the Internet came global trade, making it necessary for business and website owners to make themselves available virtually twenty-four hours a day.

In the past, weekly meeting meant the staff would have to go through the process of booking airline tickets, securing a hotel room, travel thousands of miles to attend the meeting and then return to their country, just to do it over again the next month. With technology developing everyday, there is no need to travel. International conference calling eliminates all that, giving the employees more time to be productive.

Even if your company is not on the Forbes 500 list, international conference calling is an affordable option for saving time and money. Setting up a time and date for the international conference call is fast and easy. Create an email with the time and date of the conference call and send. That?s it. The Internet is evolving everyday, and with it, new business tools are being developed. An alternative to international conference calling is one of these tools.

Internet conference calling is a service where a company acquires a ?conference room? by telephone. They then dial into the conference room using a telephone number and a special pin number. The company is considered the ?host?. Those who are involved in the conference call are also given a telephone number and a special pin number. All numbers are pre-assigned and can be used again. A special recording notifies the host when all parties are present on the phone line. There is also an option to record the conference for those who require a transcript.

Although international conference calling has been around since the 1950?s, many businesses of that era did not take advantage of it because of the time and expense it took to set up the call. Email was not available, and neither was fax machines. In order to set up a call, the notifications would have to go out by mail. The operators had to connect the calls, one in each country; there was also the dilemma of time zone differences.

International conference calling started to become popular and more versatile in the late 1980?s and with the rise of the Internet, International conference calling was taken to a whole new level. Today, the Internet contains many tools that can assist you to succeed in business; it is necessary to avail yourself of all of them.

Depending on the service that you use, the basic rate for international conference calling is anywhere for 1.2 cents to 12 cents per minute. If there are multiple people on the line, certain companies will charge an additional per person fee. Nevertheless, the use of International conference calling has become a vital part of communication worldwide and has evolved into something that even the average person can afford to use.

John Furnem is a dot com veteran, specializing in human resources and work psychology he has written articles about stress management and business themes. John currently writes Conference Calling tips and advice articles for http://conferencecallit.com

Conference Call

A conference is an arranged meeting, consultation or discussion. A conference call is a call wherein three or more parties interact simultaneously. Modes of communication not only include telephones, but also video and web communication. Conference calls are widely used by companies to facilitate meetings or to distribute information. It?s a cost-effective way to reduce travel expenses and stay connected to one?s counterparts all over the globe.

There are two basic types of conferencing: MeetMe conferencing, in which each participant dials one number, and Ad Hoc conferencing, in which a moderator calls each participant. In recent times, conference calls have become very advanced and user-friendly. The conference call can be designed to allow the dialed party to talk during the call, or the call may be set up so that the called party can listen into the call but cannot speak.

Conference calls connect people through a conference bridge, which is basically a server that acts like a telephone and can answer multiple calls at the same time. Companies using Voice over IP (VoIP) telephones can also host conference calls themselves if the VoIP software supports them.

Businesses use conference calls the most. Banks and brokerages frequently use conference calls for the mass distribution of status reports. Conference calls are used by many businesses to facilitate communication between coworkers. Conference calls are also used to report quarterly results.

Conference calls can also be used for entertainment or recreational purposes, such as the party line in which people can call in to a specified telephone number to talk to others and perhaps subsequently meet new people.

Thus, conference calls not only help businesses network without any constraints, but are also cost-effective. Conference calling is now utilized regularly by millions of businesses for a variety of reasons. It?s made life easier by enabling meetings without the constraints of distance and time.

Conference Call provides detailed information on Conference Call, Conference Call Services, Audio Conference Call, Conference Call Providers and more. Conference Call is affiliated with Cheap Conference Calling.

Conference Call Services For Today's Business

Today?s business world is very diverse and many companies have employees as well as customers located all over the world. As you can imagine meeting with coworkers and clients can be time consuming and expensive if you are not located in the same area. Luckily, there are several types of conference call services options that you can use in order to effectively communicate without having to jump on a plane every time you want to meet.

Audio conferencing has been widely used for quite some time and is a cost effective way to hold a meeting with folks from around the globe. This type of conference call service uses the telephone and enables all the attendees of a meeting to hear each other in real time. People dial in to an open line and have a meeting much like they wood if they were physically located in the same room.

Video conferencing has been around for over a decade but has been mostly used by big companies due to the costs of the equipment. Today, however, costs have come down and this type of conferencing is available to even small business owners. A step up from audio conferencing, video conferencing involves the use of a camera and large television or monitor so not only can you hear each other, you can see each other as well. This works well for sharing visual info via a white board and is nice as it gives the team a more cohesive feel if they can see one another. Years ago I worked for a company that had two offices located about 1 hours drive away. We were in one office and our ?sister? team in another. We had weekly meetings via video conference and it was a huge time saver not to have to drive for two hours just to attend a 1 hour meeting!

Web conferencing is a newer technology and makes use of the internet. People simply surf to a web site and the conference is held online. This is a great way to share files or visual aids and can be used in a power point presentation type of style. It can work well for training as well as for troubleshooting problems in software. Web conferencing has audio as well as visual and another technology that the others don?t have - text messaging. In a web conference, attendees have the ability to send a text message - be it a question or comment and you can hold the text for later rather than interrupt your presentation.

While these new technologies open up doors for different ways of meeting, the age old business etiquette of holding a meeting still holds true - with a few new requirements. Here?s some tips on how to hold a successful teleconference.

1. With teleconferencing, you need to be aware that your attendees might not all be in the same time zone. Therefore, you want to schedule the meeting for a time that is convenient for all. Whether you are holding an audio conference, video conference or web conference, you will need to schedule the media for the time you want the conference held. it?s a good idea to give yourself some leeway and schedule extra time before and after the meeting. This gives you time to iron out any technical issues before hand and allows for some wiggle room if the meeting runs overtime.

2. Once you have scheduled the room, be sure to send an invite to the attendees with the appropriate information. For a video conference it might be the channel or just the room if you have a video conference room. For an audio conference you will need the phone number and password. For a web conference, you will need the web url and password and, depending on the type of conference call service you are using, perhaps a phone number to dial in to as well.

3. Be sure to try out the call ahead of time. Dial or surf in to be sure everything is working. You want to be there first so you can ?greet? your attendees and make sure everyone is online before you start the meeting.

4. Audio conferences and web conferences have another factor - the noise factor. With people dialing in from all over the place you can get a lot of background noise. It?s a good idea to ask everyone to mute the phone so the noise does not detract from the meeting. When it is their turn to speak, the can turn off the mute button.

Lee Dobbins writes for http://www.conference-call.minding-your-business.com where you can learn more about making a conference call and conference call etiquette.

The internet has brought with it endless possibilities and many advantages for internet users.

Conference calling is no exception. This method of calling means that conversations can be held between more than just two people which makes conference calling very attractive for businesses.

Conference calling isn't only beneficial to businesses though, but also to those that would like to speak to family and friends.

There are so many conference call service providers that it is essential to take the opportunity of free trials before you go ahead and sign up with any particular provider. The internet has made this possibility easier than ever. One very important point to remember though is that many free trial registrations will require you to place a credit card on record with them, so remember to cancel the subscription if you do intend on staying with the provider before the trial period ends.

Conference calling possesses the opportunity to save both time and money, especially for business customers. A huge saving can be made solely on travel and accommodation expenses. Instead, meetings can be held online instantaneously, which also saves a lot of time usually taken up when traveling. Communicating with a company's offices in many locations for regular staff meetings can be carried out with ease thanks to conference calling.

Conference calls allow the message to be much more professional than other methods that could be used over the internet. Message boards is an example of one technique that could be used, however they lack the personal touch that conference calls can give. With conference calls, we can hear what employees, employers or business associates have to say in real time. We can also provide or listen to the emphasis on different parts of the call, which can convey the importance of a point for a example or the enthusiasm or disappointment of another point. It is sometimes difficult to get a point across using purely text, so a conference call is certainly beneficial in this way.

As mentioned earlier, taking the opportunity of a trial with conference call service providers is very important if you are to find a service that will suit what you are after. Ensure that the service has high sound quality so that the call can take place uninterrupted, and also research into which provider can offer what you need within your budget.

We highly recommend you visit http://www.conference-callservices.net for information on many conference call services related topics.

SumTotal? Systems Announces Third Quarter 2006 Earnings Release Date and Conference Call

SumTotal? Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT), the largest provider of talent, learning and business performance solutions, will host its third quarter 2006 earnings conference call on Tuesday, October 31, 2006. A news release outlining SumTotal's third quarter financial results will be released after the market closes on Tuesday, October 31, 2006. The conference call will take place at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Hosting the call will be SumTotal's CEO Don Fowler, COO Dave Crussell and CFO Neil Laird.

SumTotal plans to make a live, audio webcast available to investors and the public at www.sumtotalsystems.com/company/investors. Along with the webcast, SumTotal plans to make available a telephone replay of the call on Tuesday, October 31, 2006, beginning at approximately 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time through the close of business on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. Interested parties can access the replay by dialing 877-519-4471 within the US or 973-341-3080 outside the US and entering the access code 7930097.

SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the largest provider of talent, learning and business performance technologies and services. For more information about SumTotal's products and services, visit www.sumtotalsystems.com

Conference Calling ? Saving Time And Money

The Internet has brought all of us a variety of great benefits. It has become a new form of media that rivals television. Advertising on the Internet is now a must for business owners who want to run successful advertising campaigns.

The opportunities for doing business with people all over the world in ways no one thought was possible is one of the greatest benefits. It brings people closer together. The Internet allows us to connect to people in other countries as if they were our next door neighbors.

In this article, I am going to help you explore the many ways in which we are able to connect to other people on the web and how that interconnectivity can be used to help your business save time and money.

Early communication on the web was mostly by email. People sent emails back and forth with people around the world. Then along came the chatrooms where people could chat in real-time. The instant messengers also came along to offer real-time chat and millions of people began chatting to each other daily across the world.

However, instant messengers, chatrooms, and email are not exactly the communications solutions business owners needed. Conference calling over the Internet provides that solution like nothing else can.

Conference calling is a very broad term though. It is used to describe a variety of services that all qualify as conference calling, but not all are equal. There are a lot of different options and choices to make when choosing conference calling for your business.

This can save your company a fortune in travel and accommodations for meetings that can be held online instead of the more expensive method of traveling to destinations and holding meetings in person. Also time is a huge factor. Your need for a meeting may be urgent. You may have no time to make travel arrangements to hold that meeting. Conference call meetings can be set up on the fly.

There are monthly services that range from connecting a few people several times per month for as low as $30 per month, to medium range services that connect more people for $80 to $100 per month, to services that connect a lot of people for regular meetings for $150 per month and above.

It all depends on your needs. The best conference call services offer a variety of plans to help you choose the one that is right for your business. Some have live operators to facilitate calls. Some guarantee your sound quality, some don?t.

Some conference calling plans include the ability to schedule regular meetings each week or each month, where it automatically calls all of the participants at the right time to join them into the meeting.

Many companies hold daily staff meetings by conference call. If your business has many locations across the country or worldwide, then you need to consider how much time and money conference calling can save your company.

Do not just consider price as the deciding factor for choosing a conference calling service. Remember how much conference calling is saving you and your company. I am not saying you must get the most expensive service out there, but you need to consider all of the options the different services have to offer.

For instance, a live operator to connect the calls can save you a lot of time and hassle. If there are problems connecting or with the audio or video feed, there is someone that can fix the problem without you having to cancel an important meeting.

Audio and video quality are huge items to consider. The better your audio and/or video feed will be the difference between a successful meeting or a miserable one.

The ability to set up a conference call meeting on the fly is another important option to consider. It is very convenient to be able to call a meeting wheneve3r you think one is needed VS using a conference calling service that only allows you a set schedule you give them each month.

The bottom line is this; Decide what your needs are. Decide which meetings can be held online VS being there in person. Once you establish your needs, then shop around and look at the various options that are available from conference call providers, before you make your decision.

For more information about conference calling and conference calling services visit http://www.ccallinfo.com , a site dedicated to providing the best conference calling information as well as conference call pricing and company information.