A new beginning for Amazemeet.

new beginnings new amazemeet logo

Things at Amazemeet are certainly about to change as we embark on a new beginning. The next few weeks will see us launch a new brand, a new dashboard and a host of new features.

So let’s start by saying we love new beginnings. No we’re not pivoting to a haggis street food offer. We’re levelling up Amazemeet and in light of the new features we’re launching, including our AI meeting facilitator, we’re updating our brand and the entire look and feel of the platform.

Why I hear you say? We’ll since launch Amazemeet has amassed tens of thousands of users around the world, but that’s just a drop in the ocean. We’re laser focussed on changing meeting culture across the business world and to do this we need a tool that really makes better meetings a reality. Oh and we wanted a new logo 😉

What drives our brand?

The beating heart of Amazemeet is about helping people do things better. We know that all the time wasted in bad meetings could be put to much better use, whether that’s getting work done or spending more time with family. Money, profit time and mostly importantly well-being all take a hit in our bad meeting culture and sadly that’s a universal challenge virtually all businesses need to solve and we want to help.

Since the first meeting canvas concept was created by Amazemeet founder Mike Sutton the company has been on it’s mission to solve the problem with meetings. It’s one of the biggest problems businesses face but it’s often overlooked and even more often misunderstood. We love the new wrapper we’ve created for our product but it’s what’s really under the hood that will define us. A vastly improved dashboard and a host of connectivity options ensure your entire meeting can take place within the platform. This is hugely important as it ensure the meeting AI really comes into it’s own helping the meeting organiser start run and end the meeting process assisting along the way.

Share your thoughts with us on the new brand, tweet below and add your comments.

I think the new @Amazemeet branding is.. Click To Tweet

What’s the plan?

Over the coming weeks we’ll gradually be introducing the new features and switching users over to the new platform. You’ll instantly be able to start using the new features including the meeting facilitator.

We believe this will be the key driver to having better meetings. The facilitator is like having a PA, secretary and meeting note taker all in one. The facilitator is there to invite users, chase contribution, keep meetings on track and make sure tasks are followed up. It’s super useful and something we know our users will love to use.

We’ll also be going live with a whole host of new onboarding videos, live presentations and Q&A sessions to help you get the most from Amazemeet. Did we mention a new logo and colour scheme, purple rules!!

Wherever there’s a bad meeting Amazemeet will be there to fix it.

All that’s left to say

Well if it’s not obvious we’re super excited about version 3 of Amazemeet. But more than that we hope this is the next step for all of us to fix meeting culture.

Be the first to see Amazemeet version 3.

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Lockdown meetings gone wrong

meetings gone wrong

We love meetings but we also love a laugh, here’s our favourite Lockdown meetings gone wrong.

From no trousers to impromptu bathroom breaks for many of us Lockdown has meant getting to grips with virtual meetings, and a fair few meetings have gone wrong! We’ve trawled the web to find some of the best examples. What always amazes us is how eager people are to share them, particularly when it’s their boss who’s messed up. I’d love to be on a fly on the wall at the next pay raise conversation.

Suffice to say the team at Amazemeet very rarely have these problems. Aside from the odd five year old getting in on the action, camera fails and a penchant for hats. I admit it that’s mainly me but hey getting a haircut during lockdown has been tricky and there’s no way my wife’s doing it!

Exit the meeting turn camera off!

This is a lesson for all of us, make sure you exit the meeting properly.

Kids are great at comic timing.

This is something I’m very familiar with. My daughter, who’s five, is more than capable of going to the bathroom on her own. However, when she see’s I’m working in my home office she has a great habit of shouting “Dad I’m doing a poo” at the top of her voice, invariably when I’m on a call.

Here’s another great one.

We’re pretty much all there now.

I can totally relate. Most of us probably started as we meant to go on. However, that probably lasted all of a few days and we realised that shorts, t-shirts and the general clothes we wear to lounge around in were good enough. My excuse, the weathers been warm in the UK, shorts are a must.

Classic.

She handled it well. I think he just wanted to hang around and see what was happening!

Great compilation of classic moments.

It’s amazing how many people forget their camera and mic might still be turned on.

We’ll get there.

Whilst we can’t stop the kids and pets getting in on the calls. We have been working hard during lockdown to launch our version 3 of Amazemeet. With version 3 you’ll be able to manage all your meetings in one place from start to finish. That means managing who you invite, what outcomes you want, how you’ll allot time in the meeting, the meeting itself via video call and then the post meeting follow up. All your notes will be available to everyone and you’ll have a cool AI meeting facilitator there to keep all the attendees on track.

The road to better meetings is simple, click below.

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We want everyone to have #BetterMeetings

bettermeetings

#BetterMeetings, buzz word or important mission?

Image, Channel 4

It would be really easy for us to just throw around comments like #BetterMeetings, after all you’ll see it on all our social. But why? Firstly it perfectly encapsulates the mission at Amazemeet, we want to help people have better meetings. By doing that we know we’ll help them save time, money and improve their wellbeing but it’s more than that. Secondly is what we should all be aspiring too because meeting culture is frankly broken.

The crazy meeting juxtaposition

It’s universally accepted that most meetings lack focus, are unproductive and do little to motivate the participants. In fact it’s almost impossible to find any study that argues the opposite, however our business culture continues to increase the amount of meetings we have. If your unsure about how much of a problem this reallis then check out our post “The Hidden Cost of Crappy Meetings“. It seems more and more this is on the agenda, certainly if the amount of new blog posts is any indication. Hopefully our current predicament of lockdown induced limbo will bring the issue into sharper focus.

Should we stop meeting altogether?

Let’s get one thing straight, we do need to have meetings. It’s just that we have far to many and the ones we have tend to be pretty unproductive on the whole. #BetterMeetings isn’t about no meetings. In fact it’s squarely centred on a quality over quantity message. We’ve built Amazemeet to focus heavily on meeting efficiency, ensuring when we do meet it’s productive. Amazemeet focuses in on supporting what makes a meeting run well:

  • Ensuring the agenda is thought out and the people invited will contribute
  • Managing the meeting, time allocation and ensuring everyone gets a voice
  • Keeping track of follow-up and assigning tasks accordingly

What will #BetterMeetings mean?

To put this into context executives, when surveyed, think that roughly 70% of their meetings are unproductive, read a waste of time. They also suggest that they spend anywhere up to 50% of their time in meetings. So a bit of simple maths that roughly a third of the time they spend at work is a waste of time and unproductive and meetings are the main culprit.

Rather than write a nice list of things you could do with that time. Just ponder that for a minute. What would you do if you suddenly had a third of your working week back?

Are #BetterMeetings realistic?

We think so. That’s why we created Amazemeet and we’ve got 10,000 plus users who agree. But, to really change a culture something big has to happen. Much like the world is now coming to terms with flexible working and major corporations are starting to question the need for expensive office, that currently remain empty, we think a big change is on the horizon. Like most things is nearly always about the money. Smart organisations are starting to realise that this is a key area to boost productivity and stop wasting huge piles of cash. That’s the kind of motivation that really affects change.

The road to better meetings is simple, click below.

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Best and worst of working from home

When I first started thinking about a best and worst of working from home post I thought about a roundup of what’s good and a name and shame. So i’ve written the exact opposite!

Let’s face it a guide on best and worst of working from home isn’t really an Amazemeet blog, we can do better than that so I thought I’d share my personal experience of working from home on Amazemeet during lockdown.

The background.

Ok so confession time. I work from home 4 days a week and have done for some time. Amazemeet are a distributed company with team members all over the world helping people have better meetings. so we are used to it. But this time has been very different. Like most humans we invariably don’t like to be forced to do things and I am certainly no exception. And of course we do have Amazemeet for meetings and communication, in fact we’ve used real meetings for our internal testing of v3 for sometime, more on that later.

The best.

Like most people working from home presents an opportunity for a much better work-life balance but to get that you need to be organised. A desk space, away from distractions, coffee, technology are all important factors as is keeping a schedule. It’s been amazing to spend more time with family, my daughters been off school, and connecting with so many people. As a team I think we’ve come much closer together and really aligned around our goals, not that we weren’t before. As you’ll have read previously though in our blog launching a new product in lockdown we haven’t had the luxury of sitting back and having some nice conversations with long lost friends. Although the odd one has taken place! The focus we’ve had though will be coming to life for everyone in the next few weeks as we launch v3.

Like a lot of people I’ve embarked on a few things I wouldn’t normally do. I now have a love of constructing cardboard structures and my daughter and I are seriously thinking about turning pro when it comes to lego builds. That’s been awesome.

The worst.

Where to start. Virgin media’s intermittent internet has been a real pain, Vodafone haven’t been great either, minor inconveniences I know but especially painful when you’re trying to work. Above the practical side not having the freedoms we take for granted has been a real grind. It’s very true that you don’t miss something until it’s gone but I count my self lucky to be able to go where I want and do pretty much what I want and when. Lockdown took that all away and whilst I was 100% supportive it still pains that these things aren’t available.

I’ve also had to see many businesses and people I know really struggle. Myself and the team are lucky in that respect as we’ve found ourselves in a business and sector that somewhat thrived with the world working from the kitchen table. Others haven’t faired so well. Many friends in the entertainment sector have had businesses close and dreams evaporate over the last three months. That’s hard to watch, especially when you can’t do much to help.

What I’ll take from this.

I think number one is never to take anything for granted. Six months ago we all merrily went along in our world we felt so secure. Fast forward to now and a construct that once seemed solid fell apart with alarming speed. Companies supposedly making healthy profits went bust in weeks, panic buying, food shortages. It’s funny how it all fell apart, perhaps that fragility is telling us something? I’ve also learnt more about my colleagues, we all get each other better. That’s been a happy byproduct of the lines between work and personal life blurring. If I had one wish it would be for company to continue to be accommodating and embrace this even when things are back to normal.

Amazemeet v3 is nearly here, sign-up now for launch offers.

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