5 Powerful Ideas for Using Tablets in Your Meeting

March 26, 2017


If your company hasn't integrated tablets into its meetings, it's missing out on opportunities to streamline those meetings and make them more productive. Giving every employee a note taking tablet is a start — emphasis on the word "start." Take those meetings to the next level with a few powerful ideas that help your company get the most out of its tablets, and its meetings.

Improve Communication

Are your meetings plagued with interruptions? Tablets are a powerful communication tool for meetings, as listeners can use them to ask questions and give their input without stopping the speaker. Simply link up the tablets before the meeting, and attendees can send in questions anytime for the speaker to select and answer at an appropriate moment. It also allows the speaker to conduct polls and get opinions from the audience without calling on people individually.

Taking Notes

If your hands are cramped from incessant note taking, it's time to explore other options. Using tablets for notes keeps all information electronic, allowing attendees to quickly transfer it from the tablet to another device or email it to themselves when the meeting is finished. Make sure to include keyboards for each tablet so attendees are able to enter information more quickly.

Collaborating Without Limitations

Instead of attendees straining to view a PowerPoint presentation or an Excel spreadsheet on a monitor at the end of the room, they can have it in the palms of their hands. Connecting into a shared workspace from individual tablets and other devices allows every meeting attendee to have access to the same content in real time. With a presentation application, multiple tablets can view the same presentation. The presenter can call attention to specific information and indicate that exact information on every attendee's tablet screen. Since every attendee has access to the presentation on their own personal tablets, they're also able to look back at previous slides or information on their own, so it doesn't disrupt the rest of the group. Collaborating through technology is also an excellent way to include attendees who aren't able to show up to the meeting in person, as they can conference in through a tablet and still get the same information.

Connecting to a Monitor for Presentations

When there are multiple speakers or visuals to present, don't waste time fumbling between computers and screens. Simplify the presentation process for your meetings by setting up monitors that can mirror tablet screens. That way, presentations are as simple as connecting the tablet to the monitor and proceeding through the presentation on the tablet. It's easy to switch the tablet that's connected to the monitor, which saves time if multiple people are making presentations. If a meeting requires a variety of different information, such as graphs, other visual aids and text, one way to make all that information available is by connecting multiple tablets and monitors and dedicating each screen to a certain type of information.

Creating Diagrams Without a Whiteboard

A whiteboard isn't the ideal surface to create anything other than the most basic of diagrams. With a tablet, however, your visual aids are as precise and pleasing to the eye as you want them to be. To make sketching even simpler, include a stylus with at least one of the tablets in each conference room. Replacing that whiteboard with a tablet means no more running out of space and no more time spent erasing afterwards.

One of the reasons tablets are so great for meetings is their design. Unlike the laptop, which creates a closed-off appearance, a tablet is a device with social use in mind. You can hold one while still appearing open to a conversation, and tablets are designed to handle one task at a time, so presenters don't have to worry about meeting attendees checking social media when they're supposed to be viewing a presentation. Start using tablets more during meetings to both involve everyone and promote an interactive atmosphere.