Meetings are held to discuss various topics, from your next sales plan to your future marketing campaigns. It is also something that can go on for hours depending on the agenda and number of participants.
With so many important points to catch, it is counterproductive to get team members to take notes in the meeting. The best way to counter this is through meeting transcription.
Why Should You Transcribe Your Meetings?
1. It allows participants to pay attention
In the same way that The Verge’s post on the do’s and don’ts of conferencing advises you not to read references in the middle of someone’s speech, you should also minimize attempting to write either (unless you are tasked to take minutes).
A few key points are fine, but when you start noting down entire sentences, you will have a hard time paying attention to what is being said at the moment. By knowing that a full meeting transcription is going to be released post-meeting, your team can rest easy on the note-taking.
2. It saves time in the long run
A significant amount of time spent in meetings is for recaps and updates, just to get everyone on the same page. This is one of the reasons why productivity coach Alexis Haselberger notes that a 15-minute agenda recall can disrupt an entire meeting.
Team leaders can send everyone any relevant meeting transcriptions, allowing them to “recall” on their own time before the next meeting. It will also ensure that you are not accidentally discussing points that have already been decided.
3. You can create a digital version for efficiency
The ability to reference and share information is the foundation of all meetings, yet it can also be a hindrance to productivity if the leader is unorganized. In HP’s rundown of data organization tips, they highlight how digitizing documents and developing a better organizational system works wonders for business efficiency.
A meeting will be much more streamlined if the previous meeting’s transcript and documents are digitalized or available on a cloud sharing platform. After all, a meeting transcription is useless if you are still constantly searching through a physical document when looking up points.
Using a digital version will allow you to quickly search through different sections. A digital copy can also be shared over a company network, ensuring that all employees can easily access it.
4. It makes a good reference for minute takers
Being in charge of minutes is a vital job. You have to listen for the important parts in every meeting and quickly note them down. In fact, one of our ‘Tips for Taking Meeting Minutes Effectively’ is to listen more and just summarize the points after someone speaks.
However, it is easy to miss a lot in this regard, especially if the speaker has a lot to say. Meeting transcriptions will help minute takers review and refine their documents after the meeting, as they won’t just have to rely on their own notes.
There are many advantages to transcribing your meetings, from increasing focus during the discussions to creating clearer summaries. You do not need to hire someone to do it either. Fireflies is an AI that automatically records and transcribes your meetings, even on voice calls.
Submitted to Fireflies.ai by writer Lexi Davis
