Business Meetings

REPORT 03 by Katlen Allganer

A business meeting is a gathering of people for the group meetings, face-to-face or online, several experts
purpose of updating information, making decisions, suggest setting an agenda ahead of time, being clear
solving problems, sharing ideas, among others. When about the purpose and keeping the meetings as small
scheduling a meeting, it is highly important to know and short as possible in order to have fewer and at the
what it will accomplish; otherwise, it will probably be same time great business meetings.
unproductive. Whether one-on-one conversations or
 WEEKLY REPORT PRACTICE 03: Business Meetings
Watch the video class – part 1 available on the platform IntoLifework, it will help you understand the Practices 1 - 5.

1) Listening and Pronunciation Practice:

a) Listen to the report
b) Read it out loud as many times as possible, practicing connected speech.
c) Read the collocations out loud. Collocations are words frequently combined, as the underlined examples.

1 A business meeting is a gathering of people for the purpose of updating information, making decisions, solving
2 problems, sharing ideas, among others. When scheduling a meeting, it is highly important to know what it will
3 accomplish; otherwise, it will probably be unproductive. Whether one-on-one conversations or group
4 meetings, face-to-face or online, several experts suggest setting an agenda ahead of time, being clear about
5 the purpose and keeping the meetings as small and short as possible in order to have fewer and at the same
6 time great business meetings.

2) Grammar Practice:
a) Choose and write in the table 2 nouns, 2 verbs and 2 adjectives from this lesson.
b) Check their pronunciation and phonetics in the dictionary: https://www.wordreference.com/enpt/) .
c) Underline their stressed syllables.

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

1. the 1. to 1.
2. the 2. to 2.

1
3) Language Acquisition Practice: choose two words from the report or podcast and copy their definitions and
example sentences from the dictionary https://www.wordreference.com/enpt/) .
Listen to the pronunciation and pay attention to the phonetics.

Word 1: ______________________
Definition 1: __________________________________________________________________________________
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Example 1: __________________________________________________________________________________
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Word 2: ______________________
Definition 2: __________________________________________________________________________________
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Example 2: __________________________________________________________________________________
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4) Grammar Practice: go to the Grammar Module on English.intolifework.com and do one lesson and/or quiz
available.

5) Career Management Practice: what do you know about Career Development Meetings? Read this article
to find out more. Take notes of the 5 steps mentioned in the text.
 PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Listening time: 3 min 34 [from 0:00 to 3:34]. Complete episode: 19 min 22

Cvent’s Patrick Smith on Hybrid Meetings and Hope for the Future

1 Hello, and welcome to this Meetings Today podcast. I'm Tyler Davidson, vice president and chief comment
2 director of Meetings Today. Joining us today is Patrick Smith, a senior vice president and chief marketing
3 officer for Cvent. Thanks for joining us, Patrick.
4 Thanks for having me.
5 A lot of stuff is going on in the industry, in this year of years, 2020. The big news for you were your annual
6 Connect program, which you did virtually this year, and you actually unveiledi a new offering, a virtual
7 attendee hubii there. Why don't you let people know what that is about, what it offers? And any observations
8 from Connect you want to share?
9 Yeah, that's a great question. We had the ______ of putting oniii a huge user conference, and it was virtual.
10 We were going to be in person in Vegas in June, but like everyone, we were forced to move our conference
11 online. So, what's really interesting about Cvent is, every time we do one of these conferences, we're
12 essentially running a conference for people in the meetings and events business, which adds even more
13 pressure, because our audience knows something about the topic. But then to make it even more interesting,
14 we ran it on our own platform. So, our event was our product. It had to look good, it had to be good. It had to
15 be seamlessiv. And we were really proud of what we ended up doing.
16 It was a great rallying cryv for the industry. I think a lot of great speakers, CEOs from the top hoteliersvi and
17 obviously Reggie, our CEO, spoke and just good thought leadership content all about what's going on in the
18 industry, what's the future of events look like? So, really took a lot of ______ in just getting the industry
19 together. And we ran it on our own new product called our virtual attendee hub.
20 I think the virtual attendee hub is something that we're really proud of, because it's a platform for running a
21 very seamless virtual event, whether that's a couple hours or a couple days. And it allows you to watch great
22 sessions and showcasevii great sessions, from keynote speakers to ______, where you can see the speaker
23 and you can ask questions, and you can interact that way. It's a place where you can have exhibitors, and they
24 can showcase their waresviii. And they can post their content. And you can meet them and have meaningful
25 discussions, you can talk to sponsors, you can kick offix a one-on-one appointment and have a discussion if
26 you want.
27 But also, it’s a place that's really built around engagement overall. And we track you know, 25 or 30 different
28 engagement points in the virtual event platform. What's really fascinating there as for our event, which had
29 43,000 registrants, we were able to calculate 1.1 million engagement points. This is sessions people attended,
30 how long they stayed, did they ask a question, who did they visit from an exhibitor standpoint? So, from a
31 marketing perspective, it gave us astounding insight into the attendees, which we used for follow up
32 afterwards. So, it's really built on the concept of engagement and measuring those engagement points. So,
33 organizations can quickly learn what they can about their attendee online and quickly take action, whether
34 that's the next marketing action or that's even kicking off another meeting or if your association, you know,
35 learn more about the people that are giving you money, and are your big advocates. We're really excited
36 about how it can really give you that attendee profile that you want.
 PODCAST PRACTICE
Cvent’s Patrick Smith on Hybrid Meetings and Hope for the Future
Watch the video class – part 2 available on the platform IntoLifework, it will help you understand the Practices 6 - 10.

6) Iterative Comprehention Practice:

a) read the transcript and focus on the vocabulary you know (do not listen now).
b) listen to the audio (do not read now);
c) repeat tasks “a” and “b” at least 3 times;
d) listen again (do not read now) and write down some new words / new phrases with their definitions..
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7) Listening and Reading Practice:

a) Fill in the gaps while you listen and read the podcast. Check your answers as you submit your Practice
through the platform.

Gap 1: ___________________ line: _____

Gap 2: ___________________ line: _____
Gap 3: ___________________ line: _____

b) Find 2 inaccuracies in the transcript while you listen and read the podcast. Check your answers as you
submit your Practice through the platform.

Inaccuracy 1: ___________________ line: _____ correction: ___________________

Inaccuracy 2: ___________________ line: _____ correction: ___________________

8) Writing Practice: according to the podcast, describe in simple words some changes in meetings after 2020.
Use the full podcast and the sources on the next page to enrich your writing. Include vocabulary and phrases
that you have learned in this lesson and submit your writing for correction through the platform.

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9) Speaking Practice: Use your writing exercise above as a speaking training. Copy and paste your text here to
check the pronunciation. Focus on training your speaking out loud.

10) Spontaneous Speaking Practice: Go to the Learning Circle Module on English.intolifework.com platform
and do one lesson available. Slowly build your end-of-semester presentation, including vocabulary from this
lesson that you are not very familiar with.
Podcast Episodes:
Cvent's Patrick Smith on Hybrid Meetings and Hope for the Future

Videos:
The art of meetings - TEDx

Books:
HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter

Websites:
6 Most Common Types of Business Meetings

Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest news:

Business Meetings

_________________________
Meeting Vocab
_________________________

- To attend a meeting (to go to a meeting)

- To call off a meeting (to cancel a meeting)
- To schedule a meeting (to program a meeting)
- To reschedule a meeting (to move the meeting on the calendar)
- To move up a meeting (to move the meeting to an earlier hour)
- To push back a meeting (to move the meeting to a later hour)
- To wrap up a meeting (to complete or conclude a meeting)

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Vocab for this podcast episode

i
To unveil (show or announce publicly for the first time)
ii
Hub (the center of an activity)
iii
To put on (to cause to operate)
iv
Seamless (without stopping)
v
Rallying cry (make people join together to support an idea)
vi
Hoteliers (people who own or manage a hotel)
vii
Showcase (exhibit)
viii
Wares (goods)
ix
Kick off (start)