Milwaukee entrepreneur Marko Knezic is developing a digital platform that could add efficiency to the 11 million meetings that happen everyday, on average, in corporate America.
Weetings, the name of the platform, is an asynchronous communication platform that is input-driven for company meetings, Knezic said. Rather than having various department leaders sit in on, or dial into, an hours-long planned meeting, individuals can submit their input for the meeting in advance, freeing up time to work on other tasks.
Through the system, a department leader or meeting organizer records questions, sets a deadline, and sends them to the team. The team receives an alert that their input is needed. The team records their input when and where it’s convenient and the meeting organizer receives the input via video or word document.
“Would you rather spend your time accomplishing your life’s work and your tasks, or spend your time in meetings talking about how to do that?" Knezic asked.
With companies relying on virtual meetings to discuss operations because offices are closed or at limited capacity due to Covid-19, Knezic sees value for his idea in the current market. Research shows that the cost of failed, unproductive meetings for companies in the U.S. was $399 billion in 2019.
Weetings is still in the early stages of development. Knezic, who works full-time as a public relations manager in Milwaukee, recently took Weetings through FOR-M, a free 10-week incubator that’s part of the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition.
Through the platform, a person can organize input from team members by topic. It is also designed to include a voice-to-text feature and create a transcript of the audio. It can also integrate with existing communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Office, and offers file sharing, Knezic said.
Weetings, Knezic said, could also assist in operating with teams in different time zones. It can also be used for new hire interviews, who can submit video responses that can be received by hiring managers and team members, and viewed on a flexible schedule, without interrupting the workday.
Weetings aren't an end all, be all for every kind of meeting, Knezic said. Creative meetings, for example, where collaborative brainstorming is encouraged, isn’t ideal for the platform. But in another setting, where a company is seeking progress reports from various units that do not interact with each other, rather than having each representative of that unit participate in a joint meeting, they can submit their input when it is convenient for them, allowing workers to spend more time doing other tasks.
