TVM The Virtual Meeting

Visual Communications Software for Macintosh and Windows Computers

Multi User Conferencing Styles

Meeting Styles

The system supports two main styles of meetings. A moderated meeting and a self moderated meeting.

Moderated A moderated meeting is a more structured style of meeting and is more appropriate for larger groups or for presentations and lectures. The meeting is controlled by one or more moderators. A moderator acts as the chairman and facilitates the parliamentary procedure that is enforced by the system.
You can always look at a picture of the person who is speaking and has the floor in your Current Speaker Window. As the moderator recognizes different people and gives them the floor, the picture in your Current Speaker Window (Doug in the above screen shot) will change to display that persons photograph. When you want to ask a question or make a comment you can send a message to the moderator by raising your hand electronically. You will know when the moderator recognizes you and you have the floor because you will see your own picture appear in the current speaker window. That's your cue to speak. This helps to organize the conference and make sure that everybody gets a chance to speak. In a face to face meeting, this is usually facilitated by body language. Whenever someone is recognized by the moderator and gets the floor they are also empowered to broadcast anything they do to the rest of the conference attendees. For instance if you need to draw on the WhiteBoard as a visual aid to explain your question you can launch the WhiteBoard application and sketch. On everyone elses Computer the WhiteBoard application will be launched and they will see what you draw as you draw it. When you are done asking your question and the person replying to your question has the floor, you will no longer be able to broadcast to the group. The moderator or any designated broadcaster can also control the presentation of documents slides, movies, video etc.
Self Moderated A self moderated meeting is much less structured and works best in smaller or more familiar groups. In a self moderated meeting everyone's picture is displayed in the Conference Room window. When you want to speak you can raise your hand electronically. Everyone in the meeting will see that you have your hand raised because they will see a box around your picture (See Conference Room window in the above screen shot). Just as in a face to face meeting everyone who wants to say something will get a chance to and the meeting won't continue until everyone's issues have been expressed. Even though a self moderated meeting doesn't need a moderator to control who is empowered to broadcast to the group, one of the meeting participants should control who is broadcasting or presenting to the group, or control of the meeting can be passed from participant to participant to facilitate round table or circle style meetings. Everyone can be empowered to broadcast simultaneously if that's desired.