Archive for the 'Enabling Technologies' Category

Lets Get everyone involved at the Board Meetings… anytime, anywhere with a Phone Bridge…

At issue seems to be that the board meetings are attended by a small minority of owners who purport to represent the entire community… I have an idea that will allow anyone with a phone to be able to participate in the HOA meetings at very low cost… there is nothing to buy… only a small bit of preparation…

The solution is in the use of a not so new piece of technology called a Phone Bridge… this works to temporarily tie together from 3 - 200 phone lines together in what amounts to a party line… the cool thing is that, there is no degradation in the quality of the phone connection… and, the party that is “moderating” the tele-meeting has control over muting the attendees, so that there is an orderly presentation of the meeting… the muting can be switched on and off on the fly as necessary.

Also, the session can be recorded by the bridge for later use. I’ve used this technique when I was president of a local assocation, and was spending a lot of time on the road… I was able to conduct meetings anytime, anywhere and keep everyone happy… they could call in from anywhere… even a conference room or a gathering at someone’s house… and yes… we even voted on the phone… with the votes being recorded. Guess what… we could then have minutes produced by anyone since they would have the recorded minutes available.

It’s inexpensive… the host (association) pays by the hour ($25 one time setup fee, then $20 per hour for the bridge, each caller pays their own long distance charges) . The time slots are reserved hour by hour… a phone number is reserved for that time slot and a PIN number
is issued. Callers simply dial the reserved number, key in the PIN number and like magic… they are then connected into the bridge, along with everyone else in the meeting…

With a bit of preparation, we can all be in attendance, and can vote real time, and hopefully, prevent future hard feelings due to misunderstandings. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to talk to you at length about how it works, and specific issues regarding its use for board meetings and/or training.

For more information on the telebridge service I’ve used in the past, see this website:

http://www.telebridge.com/faq.html

Here’s to you….

Brad Snyder
Lot #79