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Low Cost Virtual AGMs
The more geography you have to cover in getting people together to hold Annual General Meetings-AGMs, the more costly this requirement is. When you consider the time=$ lost in travelling with the actual travel costs, and now the security issue of being in airports. After 911 share price in videoconferencing increased dramatically. However, for decent videoconferencing, usuall it is only in the budget ballpark of large corporations to use Tandberg videoconferencing hardward, coupled with very high-speed Internet connections. That is not what this short article is about, this article is designed with expense as the key driver, so much so that even Not-For-Profits and schools should be able to afford the approaches referenced in this article. Virtual AGM Search Results: So when you do a search of Virtual AGM, what do you find? One of the first relevant hits I got was the following article on "Best Practices for Investor Web Casts. http://www.fastmpr.com/WEBBSP.HTM in this article a Canadian web caster company was mentioned. Another source of electronic meeting software is: http://www.thefacilitator.com/htdocs/ems1.html the problem with the above approaches is that they can be expensive. Some technology that is compatible with Microsoft Outlook and Exhange Server is: http://www.smarttech.com/products/mpath/server.asp yet another software vendor is found at: http://www.facilitate.com/product.html Meeting Maker: http://www.meetingmaker.com/home.cfm North Dakota State Unversity This was an interesting find, a university that appears to offer electronic meeting services to both members of the university and the general public. http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/gdc/index.shtml Non Profit Info on Electronic Meetings: http://charitychannel.com/article_130.shtml from the above site: "The Ontario Business Corporations Act 126(13) says, “… a meeting of directors or of a committee of directors may be held by means of such telephone, electronic or other communication facilities as permit all persons participating in the meeting to communicate with each other simultaneously and instantaneously …" The above site is of interest to any NGO as it has other relevant support information. Effective Meetings.Com http://www.effectivemeetings.com/technology/mrtools/electronic_meetings.asp The World's Largest Electronic Meeting Resource: Quite the build up for this site. http://www.interactivemeetings.com/index.html Microsoft Approach NetMeeting Software: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/ PowerPoint NetMeeting combined with PowerPoint, is an option for Windows users: http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/
Mac & Windows Meeting Software: http://www.rtz.com/products/TheVirtualMeeting/ MeetingMaker has Mac, Windows, and Linux servers http://www.meetingmaker.com/products/meetingmaker/ Linux Approach: Suse has partnered with Lotus to provide a Linux version of Lotus Notes for Linux based groupware server: http://www.suse.de/us/company/press/press_releases/archive02/Groupware.html Somewhere in my memory is a vague recollection that there was a Zope addon developed to make it work as groupware and a community server. Web Based Approaches: WebEx 45 cents per minute per user First Virtual Meeting Software web based, with Mac and Windows clients: Last but not least is Ray Ozzie's Windows based Groove. Probably one of the most sophisticated offerings available, by one of the authors of Lotus Notes. Only problem, and it is not a big one, is that it does not have a Mac client. Ok, I am done for now, time to post this story.
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