Learn Today Co., Ltd., is producing content using digital transformation consulting and education for companies and educational institutions, and metaverse.

Recently, they took charge of the metaverse of Interspeech2022, the world’s largest speech conference held in Incheon, Korea, and successfully held it at the Metaverse Spot.

Learn Today CEO Joo and Banghyun said, “I was happy to sign an MOU with Sessions, a next-generation video conferencing platform, and I believe there is sufficient demand in Korea. I will do my best,” he said.

Sessions announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Learn Today, a Korean digital content company, and has already begun targeting the Korean and Asian corporate video conferencing market.

Sessions is a Bucharest-based communication and collaboration platform for customer-focused teams. It was founded in 2020, on the verge of a swift transition in the work environment that migrated towards remote and hybrid.

The startup raised an impressive $4.5 million seed round from Earlybird Digital East Fund, London-based Stride.VC, and Sofia-based LAUNCHub Ventures. Other than that, Sessions has won Product Hunt’s 2021 Golden Kitty Awards as Product of the Year in the Work from Anywhere category. The platform helped 2,000 marketing, sales, and customer success teams to level up their video conferencing game.

If you want to discover more about Sessions, feel free to book a short intro call with me.

New International Partnership between Learn Today and Sessions was originally published in Sessions.us on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meetings can be incredibly tedious, especially when run by people who enjoy them. The popular belief is that people who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything, and it isn’t hard to imagine why. All too often, meetings are clunky, inefficient, and long, and they aren’t just frustrating for participants — they create inefficiencies for the business. They slow down work, making you lose your productive mojo and start looking at your phone or giving in to distraction. They lead to workplace resentment or even hostility (the “not-so-gentle” reminders). And yet, you can’t do business without them. So what is it about meetings that keeps us coming back, even when they’re not always enjoyable?

Perhaps it’s the potential for productive conversations and the exchange of new ideas. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that they provide a chance for us to connect with other people. Whatever the reason, our relationship with meetings has always been complex and nuanced. And it doesn’t seem like that will be changing anytime soon. In this article, we’ll unearth the psychology behind why people get so frustrated with business meetings and how you can avoid these pitfalls to make sessions more productive using an all-in-one customer success platform for client-facing interactions, Sessions.

1. “Meetings lead NOWHERE”

The longer it takes to reach a consensus, the less likely it becomes that a person will remember and implement the final decision. In fact, consensus building is best done before or after meetings, not during. With Sessions, you can automatically send the meeting’s notes to clients after meetings, so they have enough time to ponder the offer and make up their minds.

2. “Meetings are for people who don’t have to do the work”

It is okay to attend a meeting as long as it directly impacts your job; however, if you belong to several committees, you should be selective when deciding which sessions to attend. With Breakout Rooms, you can facilitate group interactions while still allowing for focused attention on specific topic areas.

3. “Most meetings can be summarized in an e-mail”

They can be and should be, for people who are unable to attend, those who only attend relevant meeting sections, and those reviewing suitable materials beforehand. Sessions allow you to send the agenda prior to the session, so people can make thoughtful contributions to what is being discussed.

4. “Meetings suffer from poor communication”

There are a few primary reasons why communication often breaks down during meetings. Some people tend to multitask when they should focus on the discussion. Other people may not feel comfortable speaking up in front of a group, so they remain silent. By assigning moderators and roles in a session, you ensure that each contribution is valued and people are encouraged to speak up.

5. “Meetings are repetitive”

Some may say that not all meetings are created equal, but how true is this affirmation? With Sessions, repetition can be seen as an advantage in business rather than a burden. Sessions considerably reduces the time you spend preparing for a meeting and improves your chances of getting a sale by allowing you to create pre-built templates for your client-facing interactions.

Ultimately, meetings are less painful when they meet the needs of participants and provide value.

While a lot of valuable content can be discussed during sessions, keeping interactions short and focused is essential. To ensure you get the most out of your time, break up your sessions into shorter 30-minute segments.This allows clients to focus more effectively and retain more information. No matter how interested a client is, there’s no need for a session to last forever.

If you are interested in personalized session templates and other productivity tools for your clients, you can request a Demo of Sessions here. We may be meeting with you, but don’t worry–we’ll ensure it’s productive.

We need to reform, not remove, meetings was originally published in Sessions.us on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Without an agenda, meetings can run off the rails. Agendas take time to prepare but save time for all participants by defining the topics, objectives, and time frames of a session. It also shows attendees that their time matters to you.

Online, offline, and hybrid meetings are more likely to be successful when an agenda is used.

Here are five reasons why agendas make each type of meeting more productive:

1. It helps potential attendees decide whether they need to attend — when one has several meetings each day, sometimes guests might decide not to join. So it’s important to know if they are involved in a topic in that meeting or not
2. It helps attendees to prepare for the meeting — a time saver scenario in which a speaker presents what he/she has prepared and everyone knows what to expect; one no longer has to worry about wasting anyone’s time
3. Reduces wasted time and resources — agendas keep meetings focused, ensuring the topics are relevant and the meeting doesn’t drag on
4. Keeping everything on track — losing focus is easy, but with a clear agenda everyone knows how much time they should spend on specific topics in that session
5. Ensures the main topics of the meeting are covered — and there is no need for a second meeting

Sessions is a full-featured meeting management tool for your business and team which gives you the power to have flawless meetings, with or without an agenda (but we kindly recommend you to have one).

Sessions integrates the most used tools (Google Stack, Canva, Miro, Figma, YouTube) for building agendas. In addition to keeping people on schedule, Sessions has a built-in tool that allows you to write down the meeting’s notes as you go, and everyone receives them at the end, automatically.

Here are a few more tips in order to make your next session really stand out:

• be open to revising or adjusting your agenda when necessary. Sessions is the best tool for that, because you have the possibility to change the agenda real-time (before or during a meeting)
• share your agenda before the meeting, not only to have the attendees come more prepared but also to have them suggest possible topics. By using Sessions, this step will be done automatically when you set the session in Calendar.
• change the order of your agenda based on your attendees feedback. This will help you communicate more effectively and decrease interruptions.

Summing up, we can say that agendas are highly important factors in enabling people to prepare for meetings and to reach out the outcomes.

Sessions Agenda has been rebuilt from the ground up, making it more flexible, adaptable and customizable than ever.

It’s worth a try!

The secret ingredient of successful sessions: the Agenda was originally published in Sessions.us on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You did it! After months of extensive research, building connections, and going back and forth with VCs, you managed to land a meeting with a potential investor. This is the meeting that could launch your business into the mainstream if, of course, everything goes according to plan. You spent so many hours working on your pitch that you’ve learned it by heart. Everything has been checked and rechecked. Still, timing the presentation has proved harder than expected, and following the schedule accordingly is an entirely different story. Here’s how Sessions can help you upscale your investor pitch and secure funding for your startup.

Sessions itself is a start-up whose core mission is to improve meetings throughout their entire life cycle, from designing a logical flow and a more time-efficient agenda to making sure follow-ups are taken forward after the presentation.

So often, pitches fail not because the business model is flawed but because the presenter struggles to highlight the relevant information to the investor.

Keep in mind that a 15 minutes pitch deck should be simple, concise, and it should include the following information:

What questions should you ask yourself before approaching each topic?

Cover — Did you identify the objectives of your presentation? Does the opening statement sum up the essence of the proposal? Is the idea clear and easily understood?

Problem — What problem does your target audience experience? How prevalent/ relevant is the challenge for the general population?

Solution — What is your approach to solving this problem? How is it different from what your competitors offer?

Product — How would the product/service work? Is this a new field of interest? How much do people know about it? How do my target consumers currently use my product?

Demo — Can the core features of the products be tested/demonstrated with a short example/trial?

Features & Benefits — What is the marketability of this kind of product? What unique features does the product possess? How does it serve the customer?

Business Model — How does the product generate sales? Why is now the right moment to promote this kind of product?

Traction — What feedback have you received so far, and how was it implemented? What growth rate could be expected from this product?

Go-to-market — What is the timing for the market release? What are the priorities for market adoption?

Market Size — How scalable is your product or service? How accurate are the predictions, and what is the easiest way to showcase the impact of the product?

Competitors — Who will you compete with? What is their market share? What is their approach? What are some of their vulnerabilities/strong points?

Unique Advantages — Why is this solution impossible/hard to replicate? What is the added value to what is currently available?

Team — Who are the people responsible for the success of the business? What experience do the founders currently have in this industry?

Financials — What budget is required for making the product available to its target audience? How can this idea become profitable, and what is the financial goal distributed over time?

Fundraising — Who participated in earlier rounds of fundraising? How will the funds be allocated?

Now that you have all the critical components of a successful pitch planned out, you might ask yourself what is the best way to showcase each section without exceeding the allotted time with the investor.

Setting up a 15 minutes session for your pitch

Once you’ve successfully registered on Sessions, you will be able to connect to our platform. From here, you will be redirected to Sessions Home:

Next, you can select “From scratch” from the Planned Sessions menu. Of course, you could use the predefined template for a 15-min Pitch, but the beauty of Sessions is that you can also create your own. It is best to customize the agenda items according to your needs. After you select a blank agenda, you will land on this page:

You will be able to add subjects for the meeting in the left corner of the page by pressing “+ Add Agenda Items.” In the next section, we will explain how to interact with Sessions’ tools to get the most out of your gathering.

Understanding agenda tools

To provide a smooth user experience, Sessions provides a multitude of tools for your agenda. They are ready-to-use so you can include them in any meeting to improve time management and minimize distractions. These tools serve multiple purposes, from keeping the presentation interactive to preserving the information and documents used in Sessions over a long period of time, acting as a “virtual memory” for your past meetings. Efficiency is essential while discussing with someone whose time is usually scarce and expensive, so Sessions enables the centralization of resources for easier access and eliminates wasted time switching between apps.

When you decide upon the purpose of your presentation, you can start adding the preferred tools to the agenda. Be sure to add a description and a topic so that your audience understands the flow of the conversation. If everything adds up and the agenda is complete, you can proceed with inviting the participants.

What to include in a 15 minutes pitch

Having the liberty to be as inventive as you please with your pitch, we encourage you to experiment with different agendas until you find the one that’s most effective for your presentation. A 15 minutes pitch, apart from an elevator pitch, should account for more than a brief introduction of the business model. It can include a financial model, a prototype, or other resources that would prove the idea’s success. This section will provide an example of a plan for a 15 minutes pitch that you can quickly adapt.

Lobby — While the investor is in the Lobby, you can ensure there are no technical difficulties.

Icebreaker — 2 minutes: This section can be easily recreated in a meeting’s default state, a Conference. In the first 2 minutes of the call, the host should focus on greeting the participants, setting expectations about the structure of the agenda, and the time allotted for Q&A.

Overview Video — 2 minutes: If you have an overview video prepared, speaking over the visuals could help you convey the message and boost credibility for your presentation. Use the Videoshow tool to either insert a YouTube or Vimeo link, or upload a locally stored video. Either way, it will be seamlessly inserted in your meeting when the time comes, directly in the video conferencing platform.

Presentation — 5 minutes: A Slideshow is the perfect tool for storytelling since it allows a presenter to display the relevant information to an audience in a time-effective and dynamic manner. After you add your slides, participants will see the slideshow in a native experience. No share screen required. Interaction tools like “My Notes” can also be used by your investors to jot down thoughts or relevant info. They are entirely private.

Feedback & Q&A Session — 4 minutes: At this point in the discussion, you can designate a few minutes for feedback, discussions and answering the inquiries submitted by the participants in Questions during the presentation. You can also use the platform’s integration with Mentimeter and Slido to engage with your attendees.

Takeaways — 2 minutes: There is more than one way of working with Takeaways, the tool that helps you create the meeting’s minutes. You can be smart about it and prepare it in advance, with all the relevant links & resources for investors. Or you can complete them during the meeting. Either way, if the next steps have been arranged, you can check if the investor has fully understood the concept or schedule the following gathering. Takeaways will automatically be received via email by those participants who have a Sessions account.

After you’ve arranged the contents of your agenda, you might wish to save the pitch as a template to reuse it later. To do that, click on the meeting’s name and you will be taken to the meeting’s menu. The “Save as Template” option is available in the right corner of the screen. You can name your template, add a description, then click on the “Save template” button.

To continue setting up the current session, move to the left side of the screen, and down below, you will see the option for sending invitations as “Manage participants.” After selecting it, click on “Invite others” and add the emails of those you wish to attend the presentation. Or you can click on “Copy session link” and share it through other communication channels.

The last step is to schedule the meeting by adding the date, time frame and to hit the “Publish Session” button on the right side of the screen when everything is ready.

Be sure to connect on time and always rehearse your presentation in advance. A Sessions account is not mandatory for someone to take part in a meeting, but it’s beneficial: your audience will individually receive via email their private annotations from “My Notes” or the meeting’s Takeaways.

Now that you’ve created the perfect pitch for your start-up, all you need is a bit of confidence and luck to land you the opportunity of a lifetime. Sessions can help with the organization aspect, making sure that your pitch is structured and timed correctly so that there are fewers variables on your way to success.

• How I optimized the time I spend in meetings (and maybe you can do it too)
• How To Run A Flawless Online Session: An Overview

The Ultimate Guide to a Hyper-Optimized [15-min] Investor Pitch was originally published in Sessions.us on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Having an agenda is said to be the heartbeat of every productive workday.

As a growth marketer, I’ve learned to color code and organize my tasks by urgency and importance; I even tried to refurbish my working space for better results. Every productivity app and feature found its way on my laptop, and I thought I was getting on my way to perfect optimization.

Needless to say, I was wrong. As it turns out, having your calendar crammed with events, tasks, and deadlines only means that your time is accounted for, but it doesn’t necessarily help your productivity. When faced with back-to-back meetings and the implied stress that comes with them, errors are likely to occur. A microphone malfunction, some awkward dead-time spent switching between tabs, and now your carefully constructed meeting is running late. Besides, your eager-to-discuss client is now one annoyed client.

As I said earlier, using multiple tools for one job only extends the time spent checking tools and limits human connection during meetings — not a place you wish to be with potential clients or even coworkers.

Lately, I’ve tried to shift my approach from perfecting my scheduling skills to setting and maintaining a routine. It’s easy to do when most of the meetings you have in a day are recurring. From the town hall to qualitative interviews, there is a certain structure the conversation gravitates towards until it can effortlessly be turned into simple agenda items.

I do this with Sessions, a full-stack meeting platform that incorporates all the tools professionals use during the day, and that allows me to customize the agenda for all different kinds of meetings.

This way, I don’t have to open an additional tab for my Slides pitch deck and then open a doc for notes while simultaneously preparing follow ups. I already know that the meeting agenda is set and the follow up will be done automatically after the session is done.

Because of this, I can focus on the main topic of the meeting and pay more attention to our partners. It is vital in short update meetings when you only have a couple of minutes available to present your report that you make good use of the time and not exceed it.

Sessions incorporates the entire Google stack, Slides, Miro, whiteboards, it has video integration and other valuable tools, and it’s a real-lifesaver when it comes to retaining helpful information that can otherwise be lost during meetings.

I can work together with my coworkers on a document, and I can always go back to a particular session to view the notes, polls, and questions that I’ve received. For my daily activities, I switch between 5 or 6 templates in order to make virtual meetings more natural, engaging, and less tiring.

It usually takes seconds for new clients to get accustomed to Sessions’ design, so I don’t have to waste a lot of time explaining its functionality. Even now, when I’m conducting 10 to 20 market research interviews a week, the struggle of setting up these meetings has been reduced. All I have to do is send out an invitation and log in to the platform on time.

However, that’s not to say technology alone is going to solve all our problems. Automation works best for the recurring meetings we all have in a day, but it takes practice to master discipline during a meeting. For me, Sessions worked — it shifted the dynamic of meetings between working hard and working smart. But part of the change is due to my own shift in mindset. I remind myself that I am in control of my time and productivity, and that helps me adjust my priorities so I can get the most out of my day.

The mindset is the most underrated part of the process, when it comes to optimization and once I realized that, I was able to find my own pace in meetings. I hope you will find it too.

• Sessions Integrations: Tools that Could Really Make Your Online Meetings a Success
• 5 ways for conducting online job interviews that are actually successful

How I optimized the time I spend in meetings (and maybe you can do it too) was originally published in Sessions.us on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Surely, I am not the only one who wasted lots of hours in unproductive meetings. The last year has completely changed our way of working since things mainly happened online in Marketing & Advertising. Switching to online sessions instead of the physical ones wasn’t a big deal because we were already familiar with Zoom, Meet, Teams, and other online video conferencing tools. And at the very beginning, things went smoothly. But then, day by day, other meetings appeared, and our calendar had fewer available slots to accommodate the clients’ demands.

No one liked it. The more meetings we had, the more stressed we became, and more often than not, there were no takeaways afterward. With many missing documents and unshared resources, setting up these meetings meant wasting a lot of time. We were tired; we had many tasks that we couldn’t handle because of these unorganized meetings. Worse, we didn’t even realize how painful the situation was until some of us experienced burnout.

A solution was needed, and it was very obvious: becoming organized. There are many myths about how creative departments work — super chaotic — because creativity means having a lot of ideas, right? This is not true. Without an agenda, things are forgotten. The most inefficient departments are the ones in which chaos runs, and we couldn’t allow ourselves to become one of those departments. I have never been an unorganized person because I need clarity, and I need to simplify things.

A few months into these painful situations, the solution came to us — an all-in-one collaborative toolbox that gives me & my team the freedom back. This toolbox has everything in it — from agenda to every functionality I used in a meeting — slideshows, videos, polls, notes, whiteboard, voting section, and so on. It allows us to work smoothly and organized, no longer bound to the unpredictability of meetings. The solution is called Sessions.

Sessions itself is a startup whose core mission is to improve meetings throughout their entire life cycle, from designing a logical flow and a more time-efficient agenda to making sure follow-ups are taken forward after the presentation.

How does it do it?

Sessions uses “Artifacts,” ready-to-use agenda blocks that you can include in any meeting to improve time management and minimize distractions. The artifacts serve multiple purposes, from keeping the presentation interactive to preserving the information and documents used in Sessions over a long period of time, acting as a “virtual memory.” Efficiency is essential while discussing with someone whose time is usually scarce and expensive, so Sessions enables the centralization of resources for easier access and, in the process, eliminates wasted time switching between apps.

With Sessions, I get ownership over my time by setting the ground for a productive meeting and really following through with the agenda. No more off time during meetings also means more time off the computer which I view as a significant advantage of the platform.

Sessions is time-saving and, ultimately, life-saving. I could further elaborate on that, but for a limited time, you get to experience it for yourself. Sessions is providing free lifetime access to the premium plan if you are willing to test the tool and offer feedback (until 20th of July).

One thing is clear — we all get the same 24 hours in a day, and how we decide to use them really matters. My life has significantly improved once I got rid of deadbeat meetings, and I wouldn’t ever go back.

Find out more about Sessions here: https://sessions.flowos.com