The year 2020 started with COVID-19 outbreak which encouraged social distancing to avoid contagions and break the chain. Social distancing kicked off the concept of work from home and online meetings. The online meetings are not popular in India especially in non-metros. This article is just a small effort to educate the set of audience about how to conduct successful online meetings.

1. Use online meeting platforms: There are ample numbers of cloud meeting platforms available. Few popular platforms are #zoom, #microsoft, #gotomeeting, #ciscowebex etc. Select the platform based on your requirement and budget. These platforms are easy to operate and there is enough online tutorial available to make a layman understand its operation. It is advisable that host should run through the demo and make himself familiar with the platform.
2. Send Invitations for the meeting with clear agenda and plan of action. Plan in advance to avoid last minute rush. Seek an acknowledgement from the attendees to maximise utilization of time and resources.
3. If you are hosting from home then use some designated place for you to present. Use clear, light background, should have noise-free room/space and comfortable seating arrangement to ensure that host and attendees focus on the agenda and plan of action.
4. Make yourself ready for exigency: make sure that you have backup power supply/UPS/batteries for your laptop and video conference equipment. If possible, have second source of internet ready in case of outage of main internet source. In nutshell, make your mind free from any technical difficulties and focus yourself on the meeting agenda.