WisLine Web - Meeting Etiquette and Protocol
To help your conference run smoothly, you should take a few moments at the beginning of your meeting to let your attendees know what is expected of them. You will want to cover any etiquette and protocol issues that are particular to your group. Here are some general tips that you may also want consider for your meeting.
Help Numbers
Be certain to let your attendees know the help numbers so that they can get help from a trained ICS technician if they need it. The helpdesk numbers for ICS are:
In the Madison calling area - 608-262-3399
Outside Madison - 800-442-4614
Muting Phones
Make sure that attendees mute their phones when they do not have a question or comment they wish to share with the group. If they do not have mute buttons, make sure that they know the proper codes needed to mute and unmute themselves. Keeping phones muted will help to greatly reduce the amount of background noise in the meeting.
If you have had your meeting set up with host mute and unmute, let the participants know when you are going to mute and unmute them.
Self Identification
When taking questions or comments over the audio line, ask attendees and other presenters to identify themselves by name and location. This will help to build a sense of community within the meeting and help everyone to know who is speaking.
Questions and Comments
You can either let attendees jump in at any time with a question or comment, or you can make them wait until a specified time. Decide which of these will work best before the meeting and inform your attendees.
Pyle Center Presenters or Attendees
If you are going to have presenters or attendees in The Pyle Center, make certain that they turn on their microphones when they have a question or comment. This will ensure that everyone can hear them. Otherwise, they should leave their microphones off to cut down on background noise.
Text Questions and Answers
If the text questions and answers feature is to be used, people should be notified that each computer can only have one active question in the queue at any given time.
Questions After the Fact
You should prepare a slide with the contact information for at least one of the presenters in the meeting. Let attendees know that they can contact this person if they have questions after the meeting has ended.
Exiting the Meeting
Tell attendees to make sure to close the meeting console and to hang up their phones when they are done with the meeting. This will help to ensure that you are only paying for time that attendees are meeting, and it will insure that phone lines and web licenses are freed up for other conferences.
