Putting the spark back in meetings

BUSINESS meetings? These are absolutely dreadful, if you ask me. I'm thinking, in particular, of those that take place in a stuffy conference room, start or finish late, demand that you be there in person, have no agenda set in advance, and the worst, make everyone wait for just one guy to show up before they begin.

So when Cisco, the San Jose-based technology company, said this week that they have a new and improved product that will make work meetings "truly digital" and fun again, I was somewhat curious.

Cisco's solution is Cisco Spark, a cloud-based, collaborative service that allows teams to do several things - meet, message, call and "whiteboard" - whether they are together or apart. It has combined communication solutions that have remained fragmented, into one platform.