Web 2.0 Tool Eases Pain of Scheduling Conference Calls

I’d like to consider myself fairly web-savvy. I subscribe to RSS feeds, use social bookmark sites, leverage Facebook and LinkedIn for professional purposes. And yet, attempting to send out a conference call meeting request from my Apple Mail program to clients with Microsoft Outlook proved maddening.

After banging my head against a wall for nearly an hour I thought that the issue was finally licked and my conference call request was executed. But when a few hours passed and I did not receive any confirmations there were two possible explanations: 1) proposing a call to discuss the rise and fall of Britney Spears was not generating much interest or, more likely, 2) the intended recipients never received the conference call invite.

It turned out that the latter was true. One person with Outlook indicated that the formatting was so messed up she could not even figure out how to reply. Others never received the invite altogether.

From executives at billion dollar firms to small business owners such as myself, there is hope when it comes to streamlining the process for scheduling conference calls. An emerging crop of platform agnostic, web 2.0 software applications that allow professionals to schedule calls with unlimited participants across multiple email programs. One such program that I’ve been testing out is Setup A Call.

Setup A Call takes an “evite” approach to scheduling with a social media twist. Once you register for a free account, you can use the service to send out conference call requests from any email client to any email client. The capabilities extend beyond the traditional programs, letting the scheduler send out requests for multiple dates, and the recipient can then provide his or her availability for each option.

Most compelling is the profile page that I can access once registering. On this page, I can view my pending calls and participants, view everyone in my network (i.e. - those who have participated in calls), and maintain a list of contacts for future calls. Early tests of the service have been flawless, and the user interface is simple and functional.

As Apple and open source platforms become more ubiquitous in the workplace, the need for platform agnostic tools like Setup A Call will become even more critical for effective collaboration with colleagues, partners and clients. And for professionals who have experienced similar pains to the ones I have endured with scheduling calls and meetings, innovation in this area is welcome news.

Tags: Setup A Call, Uncategorized
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