It’s no different from any other meeting except there is more information
that can be made available to you.
One thing to remember is that most of the people at the meeting are Attendees,
but one person can be assigned to be a Host. The Host attendee can control
communal information, such as recording minutes and action points, as well as
loading the agenda and setting up votes.
The first thing to do is log in to the MeetingPod. You do this by typing
your name at the ‘Welcome’ screen and pressing ‘Enter’. Or
the venue might have set your MeetingPod for you, in which case there will be
a MeetingPod with your name on it - log in to it by pressing ‘Enter’ or
the red function button (see figure below).
Next, you will see some information about the venue. Just follow the
instructions at the bottom of the screen.
The first person to log on will be given an opportunity to be the meeting’s
Host. If the first person passes on the host role, it will be offered to
the next person to log in until a Host is assigned. Don’t worry if
you forget to assign a Host, someone can be assigned this role later on.
You will then get to a screen that looks a bit like this:
This is your meeting space. It has different pages from which you can
navigate through all the important information about your meeting.
The picture above is the People page. It is a good idea to fill in your
contact details so you can share them with others in the meeting. It is
important to complete your e-mail address as this will ensure you receive all
the meeting’s information at the end of the event.
Once the information has been added, you can highlight other attendees’ names
and you will see their details.
The MeetingPod’s meeting space lets you do lots more too. You can:
Take personal notes (on the Notes page)
Send and receive messages (on the Msgs page)
View the Agenda (on the Agenda page)
Approve any minutes or action points (on the Mins page)
See papers on the Papers page
Vote electronically (on the Vote page)
View presentations (on the View screen)
You can examples of the rest of the MeetingPod’s pages here.
At the end of the meeting, press the ‘Leave’ key and follow the
on-screen instructions.
When you’re fully logged out, the system will automatically e-mail you
all the relevant information from the meeting.
You don’t need to bring anything with you to a MeetingPod meeting, although
it will help you get more out of the meeting if you consider bringing a USB
memory stick with you. You can use this to:
Download any relevant papers for the meeting (save them in a .doc or .txt
format
on the memory stick and insert it into one of the USB slots on the right
hand side of the unit)
Download your pre-saved contact details (save this as a vCard format file
called me.vcf – see ‘How do I pre-load my contact details onto
a memory stick?’ for more information)
Save the meeting’s information (insert the memory stick into one
of the slots on the right hand side of the unit when logging out)
The top panel keys are used to navigate the MeetingPod’s meeting space. They
do the following:
The Red, Green and Blue buttons have different functions depending on the
screen you’re on.
Page Left and Page Right move between the different meeting space pages.
The circular Navigation key moves between areas within each page. Press
the middle of the key for ‘OK’.
The ‘Help’ button gives help depending on what page you’re
on.
The ‘Tools’ button gives extra functions, such as a calendar,
calculator and unit converter.
The ‘Lock’ button locks the unit with a password if you want
some privacy for your notes while you are away from the meeting room.
The ‘Leave’ button logs you out of the meeting. Always
press this when you want to leave the meeting.
The On/Off key turns the unit on and off. When it’s on, a quick
press of the button puts the unit into sleep mode. Press the button
again, and it wakes up.
The pull-out QWERTY keyboard is for typing, just like on a computer.
The great thing about the MeetingPod is that you will get out what you put
in. Instead of most meetings where you often don’t get much out,
and even then it’s often sent late.
Communication
Like all meetings, it’s a good idea to have a good understanding of the
agenda. Don’t worry if you haven’t prepared one before hand,
just assign someone to be a Host and they can type in the agenda items in the ‘Agenda’ page. If
one has been prepared, it can be pre-loaded by the venue before the meeting,
or loaded from a USB memory stick at the start of the meeting.
Clarity of Decisions
Some meetings aren’t too clear about what’s been decided. The
MeetingPod lets the Host record all key decision point in the ‘Mins’ page
for everyone to see. If there is an ambiguous decision or an action has
been assigned to the wrong person, this can be picked up during the meeting.
You can record any notes in your ‘Notes’ page. These are private
to your and will be sent in a separate private e-mail.
The electronic vote facility gives an audit trail to any decisions taken. The
Host initiates votes, which can be pre-prepared or set up during the meeting.
Contacts
You’ll be able to remember people’s names much more easily at your
meeting. At the end, you don’t have to worry about picking up someone’s
business card, as you will receive everyone’s electronic business card
via e-mail. If someone hasn’t filled in all their information, you
can, of course, ask them for their business card.
When you insert a USB memory stick into the MeetingPod it automatically looks
for a vCard file called ‘Me’.
To create your ‘Me’ vCard,
follow these steps:
Go to Microsoft Outlook’s contacts section
Create a new entry with your details in it
Go to ‘File’
Choose ‘Save As’
Navigate to your memory stick in the ‘Save As’ browser
At the end of your meeting you will get the following information e-mailed
to you:
vCard contact files of everyone in the meeting. Just drag and drop
this from your e-mail to Microsoft Outlook to add the contacts to your Outlook
database.
vCal file containing a full record of the meeting. It includes attendees,
agenda, minutes and votes. Again, this can be dragged from the e-mail
into Outlook for a permanent record of the meeting in a searchable calendar.
Agenda and Minutes files.
Draft formatted minutes with all the key details required in a final set
of minutes, including attendees, agenda, minutes taken during the meeting,
and any votes taken.
Personal notes taken and any messages sent.
Any papers and presentations displayed during the meeting.
