Tag: Conference call

How to Edit Audio from an Overseas Conference Call

If you used an agenda to conduct your overseas conference call, use it to help you decide which agenda item discussions are worth sharing and which ones need to be held in the strictest confidence.

edit audio recording

So, you’ve held an overseas conference call and made an MP3 recording of it, now what?

You could simply upload it to your intranet and share it with participants and employees. If your overseas conference call was relatively short, that may be the way to go.

Audio recording

If it went on for several hours, you may want to edit the audio recording. After all, few people will be willing to sit through several hours of audio content no matter how compelling the content may be.

Here’s what you need to know about editing an MP3 recording.

Plan Your Edits

Start by planning your edits. If you used an agenda to conduct your overseas conference call, use it to help you decide which agenda item discussions are worth sharing and which ones need to be held in the strictest confidence.

With the agenda in front of you, listen to the recording of your overseas conference call and jot down the start and stop times of each agenda item in hours, minutes, and seconds.

What you are doing right now is called a “paper edit.” Getting organized on paper will save you a great deal of time and frustration once you being editing the audio.

While you’re at it, decide if you will make one long edited audio file or break it up into individual audio files. Let’s say you conducted a two hour overseas conference call with the following components:

  • A motivational component
  • An analysis of consumer behaviors in Brazil
  • An analysis of consumer behaviors in Canada
  • An analysis of consumer behaviors in Switzerland
  • Guidelines for using social media
  • Questions and answers about the company’s upcoming expansion into South America

In this example, it may make sense to create individual recordings for each topic and allow your team to choose the most relevant ones to their job roles and regional interests. By splitting the contents of your overseas conference call into individual recordings, the information will be much easier to digest and potentially repurpose.

For example, once split up, you could later send a link to your social media guidelines recording to new hires or team members who will be responsible for using social media. Instead of having to listen to a motivational speech and several analyses of consumer behaviors, your team members can quickly hear what you need them to hear.

Determine How to Distribute the Edited Recordings

Next, figure out how you will be distributing the edited recordings of your overseas conference call as this may dictate the final format (and thus, the editing tool you may need to use). Options include:

  • Uploading your recordings to your intranet, website, a file sharing service such as Dropbox, a podcasting service, or your corporate repository
  • Sending recordings via email
  • Burning the recording to CD

Choose an Audio Editing Tool

Finally, you’ve completed the paper edit, decided on creating either a single edited recording or a series of shorter ones, and know exactly how you will distribute the finished recordings.

Now it’s time to start editing, but first, you’ll need an audio editing tool. A number of audio editing tools are readily available, many of which are free. Below are a few recommendations:

  • Audacity – Free, open source, and wildly popular, Audacity can import and export many audio formats including MP3, WAV, OGG, and AIFF. It’s loaded with features and is compatible with most operating systems.
  • TuneKitten Audio Editor – This Javascript-based app is very basic and designed primarily for cutting audio.
  • MP3 Cutter – With minimal features, creating short audio files from larger files is a simple matter of importing your MP3 recording, choosing the start and end positions, and clicking the “save” button.

Editing an overseas conference call can help ensure that the rest of your team actually hears your message. With a little planning and an audio cutter, you can create and distribute short snippets of your overseas conference calls.

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International Conference Calling – A Team Collaboration Tool

If a team leader would prefer to preschedule an international conference call, this is easy to do.

International Conference Calling - A Team Collaboration ToolWhen it comes to collaborating with international team members, you have a number of great choices including instant messaging, web conferencing, online file-sharing tools, interactive whiteboards, and more.

Teleconferencing has long been the gold standard for team collaboration, and it continues to deliver.

Teleconferencing is especially helpful when teams are geographically dispersed as the entire group can come together to brainstorm in a real-time, voice centric environment.

In a world filled with technological marvels and the latest apps, the humble international conference call may not have the wow factor of its competitors but it shines in its simplicity. For example:

  • Just about anyone can easily participate in an international conference call. All you need is a telephone, mobile or landline or even Skype. There’s no special software to download or equipment to buy.
  • With a voice call, you can hold dynamic group conversations and gain a deeper understanding based on verbal cues such as tone of voice, pauses, and pacing. With instant messaging, email, and threaded discussion boards, nuances are often difficult to catch and misunderstandings all too common.
  • You can call into the international conference call from virtually any location on earth. Whether you’re assigned to a remote outpost or traveling on business, a quick phone call immediately connects you to your team – even if you do not have Internet access or a computer.

As with other team collaboration tools, international conference calling is only effective if teams are empowered to use it.

With this in mind, many worldwide companies make it as easy as possible for team leaders to hold scheduled and impromptu global conference call. One way to do this is to set up easy-to-use international conference calling accounts for your teams.

Reservation-less conference calls can be held at the spur of the moment, allowing your team leaders to hold a group conference call any time the need arises. If a team leader would prefer to preschedule an international conference call, this is easy to do.

You can even set up the conference call so that the system automatically dials each participant if desired. Using automated dial-out is a great way to reduce the per minute cost of the call as well as help ensure that each participant is promptly connected. =

Many international conference call service plans are available including pay-as-you-go so no prepayment is required.

Help your team leaders choose the right collaborative tools for the task at hand by holding a basic collaboration training session. For example, your design team may find that using an online collaboration tool is best for task management and file sharing but cumbersome for requirements gathering, brainstorming, and problem-solving. You may find it helpful to create a matrix detailing the various collaboration tools available and when to use which one.

Finally, the golden rule of choosing a worldwide team collaboration tool for any given situation: When in doubt, you can’t go wrong with an international conference call!