Source: saunderslog.com

27 Tips for Teleconferencing has the scoop on how to make the best of conference calls.  With advice on everything from “Get a headset” to “An audible toilet flush is never acceptable”, it’s the Miss Manners guide to conference calls. 

As organizations become more distributed, more and more meetings are taking place by phone. CIO Insight published a case study of CAP Gemini’s call patterns last September. At CAP Gemini, more than 4,000 minutes of conference calling per year per employee was the average, with some users spending as much as 20 hours per week on conference bridges.  The article observed that:

Scheduled audio conference calls are growing because they represent a way to be sure that the people you need to talk to will be available. Even though you can have three-way calling on a cell phone or desk phone, the availability problem (and a terrible “user interface” on most phones) means that people don’t use this feature as much as they could.

Conference calls are the new “meeting”.