Online meetings can be an anxiety-inducing activity if done regularly. Compared to face-to-face meetings, you have to work harder to interpret signals and nonverbal cues in online meetings. That makes processing information in online meetings a lot more difficult than the traditional physical setup.
So to ease this process, here are some tools that will help you understand the person on the other end of the line a lot better. Collaboration and transcription tools help you wring as much information as you need during the meeting. Plus, they help you fulfill the task afterward.
These are are some tools to ease your online meetings:
1. Google Docs
If you’re looking for a free but efficient collaboration tool during online meetings, then Google Document should be top of that list.
Google Docs is a word processing software developed and maintained by Google. You can access this tool upon creating a Google Drive account. And since it’s part of the Google Drive ecosystem, you can write, edit, and collaborate in real-time.
Google Docs is a perfect collaboration tool during online meetings because anyone who has access to the file can see changes in real-time. So they can respond immediately. Perfect for brainstorming ideas or revisioning of content.
2. MeetFox
MeetFox is an automated meeting scheduling to ease your online meeting process. The behind-the-scenes of scheduling a meeting are quite complicated. You need to ask for their available time. Then you need to ask for their contact information. Finally, you will have to send Google Meet, Zoom, or other video meeting technologies’ links to get them on board.
MeetFox simplifies this process. It is a cloud-based meeting and scheduling platform. Anyone can schedule meetings, host video calls, charge for their meetings, bill with clients, and so much more. You can also integrate this tool with Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
Much of what you can do with MeetFox, you can also do on Google Meet and Zoom. But MeetFox is a lot different in the way that it seamlessly integrates the whole process of online meetings — from the scheduling to payments (if there’s any).
3. Lucid Spark
Online meetings can be made better with Lucidspark. How? Lucidspark is a simple yet creative collaboration tool. Its drag and drop features are intuitive and it allows anyone to maneuver the platform with ease.
You can do so many things with Lucidspark. You can create notepads that anyone can access and provide their inputs. You can categorize these notes into organized information using tables and graphs. You can start a poll and vote. Because of their intuitive design, you can create any mind mapping strategies using their tools.
Lucidspark is a great option for high-performing teams where videoconferencing and google documents are not enough. It’s best suitable for teams who love to get their ideas visualized into tables, graphs, etc.
4. Mural
Mural lets you invite and collaborate with your teammates in real-time. They can input suggestions and create content that you can immediately share, edit, or revise.
It’s a handy and helpful tool when you’re planning the next big thing in your business or you’re planning a font or icon logo to be used in your rebrand or in your small startup.
With the Mural platform, you can work with your team in a shared and dynamic virtual environment. You can add sticky notes and text boxes easily. Then you can add shape and lines to build and connect ideas and thoughts together. Then to further visualize your ideas, search and paste icons and symbols to get your points across. Finally, you can upload links, pictures, and videos and you can draw images too.
Mural is an all-in-one collaboration platform that can transform your vague ideas into communicable nuggets of information that anyone can understand and probably critique or deconstruct.
5. Weje
Weje is a team collaboration tool for tasks of any difficulty. Manage your personal or company projects without any hassles. Weje gallery provides ready-made templates for organizing knowledge data with various schemas, drawing associations and prototypes, and using ready-made templates.
You can communicate with your team through boards, add comments, draw and use in-built chat to stay on the same page. Use the special publishing features to share boards with people beyond your team. Create presentations to showcase results from boards.
You can improve your performance by managing all tasks on a simple project with flexible whiteboards. Do you want to make Kanban, Fishbone, or any other diagram or scheme? Get free templates and visualize any approach and discuss it with your team.
6. Klaxoon
Klaxoon is your best friend when it comes to online meetings’ collaboration. It has all the visual markers you need to carefully design a collaborative environment. While you’re on a call with your colleagues using a videoconferencing tool, you can juggle your ideas with Klaxoon.
In fact, you could use Klaxoon’s very own video conferencing tool. So you might just do away with Zoom and Google Meet when you want a more efficient collaboration. At least with Klaxoon, you can altogether design and share ideas while still seeing each other on camera.
The best part is that Klaxoon has hundreds of design templates to organize your minutes of the meeting with ease.
7. Otter
As for the minutes of the meeting, it is quite difficult to take notes while the meeting is ongoing. So it’s vital that we maximize some cutting-edge tools designed for this task. Otter is an AI-assisted voice technology that transcribes spoken words in online and physical meetings.
This eliminates wrong and incomplete information when doing it manually. But Otter not only transcribes it, it takes the step a notch higher. Otter organizes the ideas into sizable information for easily understanding later on.
Otter also lets you record the audio in meetings. Then you can send audio clips to collaborators and teammates.
8. Flow by Zoi Meet
Flow is an intuitive voice-recording and notes-organizing tool. It’s an AI-backed technology that can organize the recorded voice into a sizable and understandable form of information.
Once it hears trigger words, then it can do a specific string of action. For example, when the speaker says the words summarize, then Flow will automatically summarize the next group of words about to be said. When the speaker says, what is the product feedback, then Flow can organize the words as Q&As.
Flow is always learning and can be trained to recognize voices, learn specific terminology, and understand better what to detect during meetings. Its Ambient Voice Intelligence will adjust to your communication and workflows.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have all the essential tools to ease your online meetings, then hopefully #zoomfatigue will be gone. The anxiety that comes with online meetings is due to the complicated process and thought exchanges that happen during videoconferencing.
With these tools, you have a better chance to manage the team, get your point across, and even review the information days after the meeting has passed. All while not exerting extra effort than your usual online meeting energy, because these tools are capable of making your ideas come alive through visuals and helping you streamline the content of the meeting.
About The Author
Marvin Espino is a writer from the Philippines. A marketing specialist from DesignCrowd and BrandCrowd, he has written several pieces on branding, marketing, and design. When not working, Marvin hoards well-written short pieces of writing. He's also an avid fan of baking and singing.
