Smart’s top tips!
Meetings are an essential part of any business and are important for effective communication with colleagues, teams, and stakeholders. The issue with meetings is if you’re not careful, they can be a bit dull. We all know the drill, hour-long meetings with bucket loads of information being thrown at you that can make it difficult to hold your audience’s attention and engagement. So, if you’re planning your monthly or weekly meeting with your staff or even an important meeting with stakeholders, here are our five top tips to keep everyone’s eyes on the agenda (and from shutting).
Tip no 1 – Be Prepared
Why does everything stop working when we really need it? Technology can be our best friend and worst enemy when it comes to meetings. Having a run through of your meeting and ensuring that everything is set up and working correctly is crucial to both the meeting running smoothly and keeping all involved from switching off.
Tip no 2 – Add visuals
Who doesn’t love a PowerPoint? This powerful tool can keep the eyes of your audience on the screen if you use it carefully. Using graphics, images and interesting slides will help to keep your audience engaged and focused. Smart offers flexible Office 365 packages that can be used amongst a range of devices and platforms. So, whether you’re working online or off, at home or at work, from a computer, tablet, or phone, from desktop to web and any devices in between our packages will help your business work smarter, increase productivity and make your meetings more effective.
Tip no 3 – Check the room set up
A crucial thing to consider when choosing a meeting location is, “will my IT work in this room?” Therefore, you need to ensure the room meets the demands of the IT equipment you are using. Here’s our checklist of things to consider when choosing your meeting venue:
- Screens
- Lighting
- Auxiliary output
- Computer
- Speakers
- Wifi Connection
If you rent your IT equipment from Smart, we can offer an additional service (at a separately quoted cost) to set it up. Contact us with your room requirements and we can advise on the best equipment for that room.
Tip no 5 – Ask for engagement
A brilliant way to increase audience involvement is by using iPads. Whether you need them for a mind mapping exercise, note taking or even an interactive activity, they can be a great way to help break up long meetings. However bear in mind, whilst iPads can make us more engaged and curious, ensure that they don’t drive attention away from the meeting agenda by picking and choosing the times in your meeting where the iPads are required. Smart offer short-term iPad rentals if you don’t want the cost of purchasing, so if you just need an iPad for one day, we can have them delivered to you as soon as the next day!
Tip no 5 – Go virtual
What’s better than arranging a virtual meeting? As long as you and your staff have the correct equipment, virtual meetings can make attendance from all employees even more viable especially if your business offers remote working. From Smart, you can have your employees participate from home with our range of laptops to rent. Our short and long-term rentals deals mean your business can stay connected wherever your employees are based.
Get in touch!
For information on our short and long-term IT Rentals, take a look at the rental pages on this here or contact us on 01242 580 654. You can also email us using orders@smart.uk.com and start your rental journey today.
