BERKELEY, CA--(Marketwire - May 12, 2010) - TimeBridge, the service that helps busy professionals schedule and run great meetings, today announced the abolishment of meeting time-suck with a movement to end the one-hour meeting and establish a more efficient "45-Minute Meeting" standard.
"I've consulted with hundreds of companies and provided meeting effectiveness training to over 200,000 professionals," said Mike Song, CEO of getcontrol.net and co-author of The Hamster Revolution for Meetings: How to Meet Less and Get More Done. "Our research indicates that 43% of meeting time is wasted. In most cases, this lost time can be recovered via improved meeting skills and the utilization of cutting edge technology like TimeBridge."
Most online calendar solutions default to one-hour meeting intervals. The result is a never-ending series of back-to-back meetings with no built-in transition time. Professionals rush madly from one event to the next, often arriving late, feeling frazzled, and in no mood to do their best work or use time efficiently. This combined with the fact that most meetings have an inefficient agenda, unprepared participants, and a lazy start mean that professionals are quickly coming to the conclusion that they are wasting an estimated 24 days a year in useless meeting time.
In its effort to improve the entire cycle of meeting efficacy, TimeBridge is championing a new benchmark, with a goal of saving workers 25% of meeting time, and redirecting untold hours toward other projects and generally improved productivity. To support the initiative, TimeBridge has established 45 minutes as the new default standard within the TimeBridge application, supported by five simple rules for attendees and organizers to effectively shift to the more efficient 45-Minute Meeting standard.
"Our half a million users look to TimeBridge to make meetings easier to schedule and more efficient to conduct," said Yori Nelken, CEO of TimeBridge. "While we have always led the industry with our suite of technology and service offerings that make the critical meeting process better, we also recognize our responsibility to help change fundamental behavior and attitudes to make meetings as effective as possible. Over the years, meeting lengths have increased and we frequently hear our users say they are stuck in 'meeting hell.' With the new 45-Minute Meeting standard we believe we can save people and businesses millions of lost hours and have a major impact on overall daily productivity."
TimeBridge's "5 Rules of the 45 Minute Meeting":
- Plan ahead: Develop a clear purpose and agenda with estimated minutes for each item. Deliver an agenda far ahead of the meeting so participants can prepare and participate. Let others contribute to the agenda.
- Cull the attendee list: If attendees do not have actions or direct oversight they don't need to attend the meeting. The bigger the meeting the more likely the time-suck. Send meeting notes to those who need to know about the meeting but don't need to be there.
- Stay tuned in: Phones off, laptops closed (except for the note-taker).
- Manage the clock: Call out, reign-in or punish the meeting jokesters, complainers and timewasters. Make sure you're not allowing the first agenda item to consume the entire meeting.
- Give ownership: Assign owners to all bullets or action items. Make sure to summarize the actions at the end of the meeting.
Join this movement! Make your next meeting 45-minutes instead of an hour. If you have other tips on how to make meetings more efficient we'd love to hear them here. The best tips will receive a free copy of The Hamster Revolution for Meetings: How to Meet Less and Get More Done by Mike Song.
In recent months, TimeBridge has added significant new features and functions to its service in addition to eclipsing the 500,000-user mark. These enhancements include partner integrations with Evernote, Box.net and LinkedIn, as well as the launch of TimeBridge's new Meeting Room, its Google Calendar Gadget and its new personal scheduling offering MeetWith.Me™.
Connect with TimeBridge for more information about how to schedule and run great meetings.
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About TimeBridge
TimeBridge provides an intuitive web app that helps busy professionals schedule and run great meetings. TimeBridge makes it easy to find a time to meet, set an agenda, coordinate logistics, conduct a phone or web conference, and document decisions and actions. TimeBridge syncs across time zones and most popular calendars, including Google, Outlook and Apple iCal. TimeBridge for iPhone is available for download in the Apple App Store. TimeBridge is based in Berkeley, California and is backed by blue-chip venture capital firms Mayfield Fund and Norwest Venture Partners.
Contact Information:
Contact
Peter Evers or Megan Soto
LaunchSquad
415/625.8555
timebridge (at) launchsquad (dot) com