How to Hold Conference Calls That Don't Suck

Think meetings are bad? Conference calls are worse. Half the time you can't hear what's being said or tell who's saying it, and it's impossible to keep everyone's attention (you know most folks are checking e-mail, playing Solitaire, or both).

If you're typically the host, do yourself and your attendees a favor: read Stop Wasting My Time! Conference Call Edition over at The Official Join.me Blog. It's a collection of tips from @MeetingBoy, who tweets (hilariously) about the dumb stuff he sees and hears in meetings.

In fact, the tips are sprinkled with some past tweets. Here's a sampling:

You have to earn my attention. When you hold a meeting, you can see me and I can see you, so I have to at least pretend to pay attention or I'll look bad, or you could make me look bad. And that's no matter how boring you are. But on a conference call, I don't have to pretend, so you better have something to say.

If it weren't for conference calls, I'd never catch up on my Words With Friends games.

What are your thoughts on conference calls? Have you learned any tricks for making them more bearable -- or, better yet, more productive?

More on BNET:

• Stop Unwanted Noise from Ruining Conference Calls
• Hold Free Conference Calls at FreeConference
• 7 Business-Savvy Twitter Feeds Worth Following