LessMeeting – Make Meetings More Efficient

Disorganized meetings tend to run long and waste time. LessMeeting is a tool that busy professionals can use to expedite their work meetings and make better use of their colleagues’ time. The web-app can be used to create detailed agendas, send automated meeting reminders, take notes, and conduct meetings that run on schedule.

In addition to registering for an account, you’ll want to install the Microsoft Outlook plugin to begin using LessMeeting to its full capabilities. When you set up a new meeting, you’ll want to type in a subject, a location, a start and end time, and a list of the people who need to attend. You can set up a comprehensive agenda that lists all the topics you need to discuss, and how long you plan to spend on each item, before you meet with colleagues. You can also upload any files or documents that colleagues should download prior to the meeting on the agenda page, as well as any instructions for where to park or meet when a meeting is being held at an off-site location. LessMeeting will track the timing of your meetings while they’re going on and notify you when the time is up. The web-app also offers a number of useful keyboard shortcuts for note taking purposes, and lets you record who attended and which decisions were made. Before wrapping things up, take one last look at the LessMeeting page to make sure you’ve met the meeting goals and objectives.

When a meeting is over, you can use LessMeeting to automatically send the minutes to everyone who attended. You can also track which actions certain colleagues need to complete, based on what was assigned during the meeting, and integrate those tasks with whichever project management program your company uses. LessMeeting is a secure and efficient way to run meetings and keep everyone on track.

Practical Uses:

• Make sure your weekly planning meeting doesn’t run over on time
• Send an agenda to everyone who is expected to attend an upcoming event
• Post documents on a meeting page for people to download and read ahead of time
• Quickly invite colleagues to a last minute conference

Insider Tips:

• Employees can collaborate on the meeting minutes in real-time
• LessMeeting syncs with Outlook calendar
• “Instant Minutes” can be immediately sent to all attendees when a meeting is over
• Team dashboards show everything that’s coming up for a work team that week

What we liked:

• Timing tools help prevent meetings from running long
• Pre-existing templates help people create agendas quickly
• Users can upload files for their colleagues to read before a meeting begins
• People can sign up to receive notes from a meeting they didn’t attend

What we didn’t like:

• LessMeeting isn’t integrated with Google as thoroughly as it is with Outlook

Alternatives:

• Meetifyr – http://www.meetifyr.com
• Meetin.gs – http://www.meetin.gs
• TimeBridge – http://www.timebridge.com

Company Info:

• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia
• Founded by: Rick Makerson, Brett Cooper, Blake Brynes, and Jeff Steinke
• Web site: http://www.lessmeeting.com

Costs:

• Monthly costs are $8 to $12 per user, depending on the number of users at a company