Ed Cohen

Ed Cohen, former chief learning officer at Booz Allen Hamilton, led multiple companies to the number-one spot on both the ATD BEST Awards and Training magazine Top 125 annual lists.

Whether you are working from home or an office, virtual meetings can often be a dreadful experience—but they don't have to be.

Do your virtual meetings drain your energy?

Do you multitask and lose focus during virtual meetings?

Is video exhaustion real for you?

Has this happened to you? You have a meeting. You log on. The host puts up a slide deck and talks continuously for 60 minutes. You log on to your next meeting and everyone is talking at the same time so you can't understand anybody. You sign up for a webinar. When you log into the session, the chat feature is disabled. There's no Q&A, just a one-way endless set of slides and lecture, so you open up your email and half listen. You log into your next meeting. The speakers are using cheap microphones, making it difficult to understand them. Another speaker has weak internet, so she keeps freezing. Someone takes a call without muting the microphone. The host doesn't know how to mute, so you're stuck listening to the call. You log into your next meeting and a presenter's child walks in demanding to be fed. You log into your next meeting and the meeting host gets a delivery, setting off their dog to bark protectively. You chat a suggestion to them to mute and he yells at his dog to be quiet. You ask for co-host responsibility and he declines. You log off and fall into bed.

Engaging Virtual Meetings shows you the key secrets to having your attendees say, “I have more energy, not less, after 60 minutes meeting with you!” When you read and apply the techniques found in Engaging Virtual Meetings, you will learn how to:

• Create a powerful virtual presence
• Create a smooth flow so attendees don't talk over each other
• Look great and convey professionalism
• Engage everyone even if only one person is talking
• Guarantee that everyone feels engaged and heard
• Powerfully close your meeting and take steps to make your next meeting even more effective

John Chen is the CEO of Geoteaming and the author of 50 Digital Team Building Games. He has been meeting virtually for over 35 years and he is not only expert in creating engaging virtual meetings, he's my go-to person when I want to be sure that my online meetings, webinars, and conferences are successful. Follow the steps in the ENGAGE method and your team will communicate more effectively, easily complete work, and morale will be raised, especially when you can't be in the same room. Take your meetings to the next level. Everyone will feel engaged and energized. Make better decisions and use more collaborative tools.

John has worked with more than 2,400 companies from Barcelona, Taiwan, Shanghai, Saudi Arabia, and America. From meetings with 2 people to over 2,000, he has helped virtual meetings become incredibly engaging. And, through his extraordinarily unique approach to team building, he has helped teams become the top 1% in the world at what they do.

When you read Engaging Virtual Meetings, you will notice that you and your team can meet virtually, comfortably, for hours. More importantly, your team gets things done. Your boss will notice your leadership and you will look forward to your next meeting.

Here's what others say:

I have more energy after virtually meeting you for 60 minutes than any other virtual meeting in my life!

Donna Cunningham, clinical research associate, Seattle Genetics

You got over 200 people around the world in every time zone engaged! That's incredible for our first major conference that moved from face-to-face to virtual. THANK YOU!

Charva Brown, Fortune 100 company

Read Engaging Virtual Meetings and get ready to learn openers, games, and activities for communication, morale, and trust … now!

In author John Chen’s words, for 80% of the value of this book, read Chapter 1 (“The ENGAGE Method for Leading Great Meetings”) and Chapter 2 (“Preparing for Virtual Meetings”).

The technology for virtual meetings is continuously changing and evolving. That's why I highly recommend you consider becoming part of the community of Engaging Virtual Meeting enthusiasts by joining the free Engaging Virtual Meeting Facebook group at fb.com/groups/EngagingVirtualMeetings.

If you have any questions that are not covered in the book or you need a current answer to your virtual meeting challenge, ask it there and you will have access to a community of people who want to help you. I hope to see you there.

Virtual meetings that actually don't suck! YES.