MEETINGZONE’S CONFERENCING AND COLLABORATION SOLUTIONS SUPPORT WORK WISE WEEK’S VIRTUAL MEETING DAY ON THURSDAY 14 MAY 2009

Published 11th May 2009

Work Wise UK’s 4th Work Wise Week (12-18 May, 2009) - Initiative Led by the TUC, CBI and British Chambers of Commerce

THAME, Oxon - 7 May, 2009: MeetingZone today announced its support for Work Wise Week 2009 (12-18 May). This is the fourth year that Work Wise Week has been run by Work Wise UK, an initiative led by the TUC, CBI and British Chambers of Commerce, which promotes smarter working practices, such as flexible, remote and mobile working, and working from home. Work Wise Week consists of a number of themed days including Virtual Meeting Day on Thursday 14 May which will encourage people to conduct meetings by audio or video conferencing or go online instead of travelling to meetings.

“This year’s Work Wise Week is especially relevant as the current tough economic climate makes it even more crucial for businesses to find ways in which their employees can work smarter regardless of their location,” explained Tim Duffy, CEO, MeetingZone, the UK’s largest independent audio and web conferencing service provider. “With recent Government legislation extending the right to request flexible working to parents of children up to 16 years of age, potentially leading to an extra 4.5 million people requesting the ability to become mobile workers, businesses must ensure that the technology is in place to enable remote workers to be as productive as if they were in the office.”

Business of all sizes, but perhaps more importantly SME’s, who may find it economically harder to grant flexible working requests, need to be aware of the role that today’s cost effective, reliable conferencing and collaboration solutions can play in helping to successfully accommodate the business communications needs of remote working in a virtual environment.

“Easy to use and reliable audio conferencing technology only requires remote workers to have access to our humblest of communication devices, the telephone, to enable them to meet, communicate and collaborate with who they want, when they want just as if everyone was in the same office. Remote workers can also share information by simply accessing a web conferencing solution via the Internet,” added Duffy.

Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, said: "Virtual meetings provide business with an opportunity to cut travel expenses, office overhead costs and the indirect cost of employees' time spent on journeys. This smarter working practice can only be welcomed in the current climate of
economic turmoil."

Among MeetingZone’s customers already deploying its audio and conferencing solutions to enable employees to work in a virtual environment is Success 121, one of the UK’s leading business coaching and mentoring companies.

“The key to working successfully in a virtual office environment is the deployment of business communications tools that allow employees to work as part of a team, regardless of their location. With a presence in the UK and Belgium, audio conferencing now allows Success 121 to quickly and easily bring together its team members for both scheduled or ad hoc meetings just as if they were all located in the same office,” commented John Niland, Business Coach & Mentor and Founder of Success 121.

About Work Wise UK
Work Wise UK is organised by the IT Forum Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation. Supporters of the Work Wise UK campaign include the CBI, TUC, the British Chambers of Commerce, BT, Transport for London, Equal Opportunities Commission, Scope, the RAC Foundation, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, Technology Means Business, Henley Management College and the Association for Commuter Transport.
A dedicated electronic media centre has been established for journalists to obtain further information, to download print-quality materials, and to register for media updates about Work Wise UK. This can be accessed either through the main website or directly at www.workwiseuk.pressrooms.net
Further information about Work Wise UK can be found on the website www.workwiseuk.org.•

About MeetingZone
MeetingZone is the UK’s largest independent conferencing service provider and offers customers a high performance, low-cost personalised audio and web conferencing service. Based near Oxford, MeetingZone was formed in 2002 by Steve Gandy and Tim Duffy, who collectively have over 30 years experience in the technology and telecoms sector. MeetingZone’s customers include many of the FTSE 500 companies in the financial, retail, IT, pharmaceutical and legal sectors. MeetingZone recently appeared (Sept 2008) in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 list of the fastest growing technology companies in the private sector. For more information please visit: www.meetingzone.com

Contact
Sarah Chidgey, PR Consultant: sarah.chidgey@hotmail.co.uk – Office: +44 (0) 1672 540996;
Mobile: +44 (0) 7795 288302
Jennie Leopard, MeetingZone Ltd: jennie.leopard@meetingzone.com - Office: +44 (0)1844 265500