It’s a classic Dilbert moment. Summoned by the boss into yet another meeting to plan the work schedule or budget, you and your colleagues paste your eyelids open with glue sticks as the manager drones on and on.
By the time the coffee has crusted over and the meeting trickles to its sorry end, nobody really remembers why it was called, or who is taking responsibility for what. Even the boss may not have a clue, as his exhausted employees crawl back to their cubicles.
But for Nancy Knowlton, President and COO of SMART Technologies Inc., a bad meeting is opportunity knocking.
“These are all the problems we know about first-hand,” she says with a laugh. “This idea came from the frustration we experienced.”
The idea is called M-Path, and it’s a new kind of “meeting productivity” tool using software to help keep office meetings on time, on topic and task-oriented. Launched this past week at a trade show in Dallas, M-Path is the latest product showcased by this rapidly growing Calgary company probably best known for its SMART interactive whiteboards.
“The meeting problem is well-known within very large companies across North America and around the world,” says Knowlton. “The elements of meetings that distress (people) boil down to wasted time and money.”
There are four common meeting problems she wanted the M-Path software to address, including:
* Not having a goal for the meeting, leading employees to wonder why it was called in the first place;
* Not having a clearly outlined agenda which allows workers to assess ahead of time whether they’re actually required at the meeting;
* Participants not understanding what they are to do following the meeting;
* No adequate tracking of the decisions that were reached during the meeting.
“Misunderstandings and lack of clarity at the end of the meeting can cost a huge amount of money,” says Knowlton.
M-Path is a server-based product which runs on Windows NT and 2000 servers. It works by using Microsoft Outlook to create an online meeting work space, then e-mailing the meeting organizer who can organize the agenda, attach supporting files and focus the meeting goals.
The software provides a Topic Timer — which lets a windy manager know when he’s gone overtime — and space to record decisions and assign tasks, and then follows up by distributing meeting e-mail summaries later to the participants with their tasks personally assigned.
Clients or employees in far-flung places can sit in on the meetings online, while in-house participants can follow along on an overhead monitor, LCD projector or a SMART whiteboard.
With this new product, Knowlton hopes to bury the traditional concept of office get-togethers overflowing with pens, paper, and printed documents — and unproductive meetings that inevitably lead to more meetings.
“It’s really an old way of working together. The focus has to be on finding ways of working more productively when you’re face to face,” she says.
Launched in 1997, SMART was recently named Canada’s 2000 Exporter of the Year. About 95 per cent of its product is shipped outside of Canada, primarily to the U.S.
With an estimated 11 million meetings taking place in that business-frenzied country every day, Knowlton knows she has found a niche for M-Path.
“People need to get things done when they’re together face to face in that valuable meeting time,” she says. “They’re looking for a tool like this . . . or at least we hope they are.”
Web Watch:
www.smarttech.com/mpath
