Teleconferences

The Situation: I can not speak for other interns, but I have been asked to dial in to a couple teleconferences and take notes for my boss or supervisor who is at another meeting. I have really struggled with the conferences as I usually do not get a lot of information as to what they are about ahead of time. So sometimes other professionals use acronyms which everyone understands and I am furiously searching the internet and hoping that I get the right acronym. It is impossible to know who is talking and to whom they are talking and every time the floor is open to comments I one out of two is out of earshot for the speakers. Information is being thrown at you constantly while you are trying to take notes and decipher what information is important and what information is less relevant. After the conference is over I am just trying to not look like Spongebob in boating school when I try to write the final report.

What I learned in Boating School is.....

The Solution....sort of: So after a couple of calls I am starting to get the hang of what works best and what does not. Because of this, I have come up with a simple list, with the hope that it will help prepare future interns at tackling this early on in their internships.

1. Ask your boss/ supervisor to give you some information as to what the teleconference will be about. It doesn't need to be lengthy, but it should lead you down the right track for your own research.

2. If the conference is about a specific piece of legislation, make sure that you familiarize yourself with the legislation, its sponsors, and any major stakeholders. Create a cheat sheet for yourself with all of this information.

3. Print out the agenda. I like to print the agenda with a lot of space in between bullet points, then I can take notes in the agenda itself, and it is easy to see when the conversation has moved on to the next point.  Sometimes a moderator/ leader will give a small recap, so make sure you listen for that.

4. Try to rid yourself of any other distractions. Usually its easy to zone out and get distracted, especially when a conversation drags on a little longer than you would like it to.

5. Don't be a perfectionist. You will not hear everything that goes on at the actual conference. If you feel it is extremely important, you can always ask the speaker to repeat what he/she said, but otherwise, just let a couple unheard comments slide.

Hope this helps!

Johanna