There are a few things both meeting leaders and attendees should keep in mind to maximize the effectiveness of chat in a meeting. 

Meeting leaders:

• Consider whether you need a chat monitor to acknowledge and raise questions to the group.
• Set expectations as to how chat is used in your meeting and be prepared to rein in any off-topic chat conversations, if necessary. Provide this information in the meeting invite.
• Let people know if you want them to talk out loud instead of using chat for comments and questions.  It is your meeting, so don't be afraid to ask for the communication style you need to accomplish the meeting goals.  This information should also be in the meeting invite.
• Chat can be a good way to queue questions and speakers.  Especially in large meetings where people frequently talk over each other (because they can't see the "I'm about to speak" body language), chat can serve as the equivalent of a talking stick. Be sure to let attendees know how to get in line to speak (literally or textually). Options could be a predetermined emoticon or something as simple as typing “raising my hand.”

Attendees:

• Avoid IM-speak whenever possible.  While most people know the common chat acronyms such as LOL, many people may not be familiar with other acronyms.  Don't assume others in the chat know abbreviations, especially in meetings that include those outside of your team.  Clarity in communication is more important than brevity.
• Be cognizant of how others are using chat in a meeting.  If you are dominating the chat conversation or are the only one posting off-topic comments, you may be a distraction for others in the meeting.
• Use chat to react to the presenter just as you would in a face-to-face meeting.  Emoticons exist to express laughter, applause, confusion, questions, and most other things that may come up in a meeting.  Take a few minutes to review the Skype emoticons and use them to provide feedback.  Just make sure they don't become a distraction.
• Chat is a great alternative when your environment is too loud.  If you need to mute yourself and use chat, be sure to let everyone in the meeting know what you are doing and why.

Departmental culture informs how chat is used in meetings. In some departments the chat conversation may cover everything from the weather to the best kinds of pie, with occasional nods to the meeting topic.  In others, chat may stay focused to the discussion at hand.  In some departments, all questions and discussion takes place audibly, and in others the only person who ever speaks out loud is the presenter; everyone else uses chat for all communication.  The chat conversation may even vary considerably from meeting to meeting within a department.

Meeting leaders need to set expectations for chat, especially in large meetings.  If it is important to keep the chat conversation to the topic at hand, make sure that is communicated to the attendees and gently enforced throughout the meeting. Here are some things for meeting leaders and attendees to consider.

• Clearly communicate how chat is to be used in the meeting.
• Consider ways to differentiate questions and comments about the meeting topic in chat through different fonts, colors, bold, all caps, or emoticons.
• Be aware of how others in the meeting are using chat.  If the chat conversation is mostly on topic, don't start or continue a distracting chat thread between a few people. 
• Move one-on-one chats out of the meeting chat conversation by starting a separate chat with just the one person.
• Know your team and how they interact with each other.  Chat can be a great way for teams to socialize and catch up with each other, provided it doesn't distract from the meeting content.  Let people know how much socialization is OK.

Departmental Culture Clash:

It can be very jarring when members of different departments meet together.  What is common chat usage for one person may be not only foreign but insulting to someone in another department.  In meetings that cross departments, whether large or small, it is important for meeting leaders to set clear chat parameters and let attendees know if they can use chat to hold a conversation or whether conversations should be spoken.  Avoid assuming that others are intentionally being difficult or unresponsive; they may just be used to operating in a very different format.  Everyone in the meeting needs to be patient, gracious, and give each other the benefit of the doubt. 

As you know, hybrid meetings should be avoided whenever possible.  However, if you do have a hybrid meeting, there are some chat questions you need to answer as these meetings raise some unique situations.

• Who can see the chat?  If the chat conversation is being broadcast to the onsite attendees, the people using chat need to know that. 
• How should the audience interact with each other?  If the onsite attendees don't have access to chat, they have no way to interact with the offsite attendees.  This means the two groups can't see each other's reactions and responses, which may create confusion between the two groups, and depending on the meeting goals, may limit one group's ability to participate in the meeting.  Always strive for equal access and equal communication in a meeting.
• Do onsite attendees need a laptop?  If onsite attendees need to interact with the offsite attendees or the meeting material, they'll need a laptop.  Be sure to let people know that ahead of time, and be prepared for potential technology issues with putting a bunch of people on the wireless network.

Skype has both a chat feature and a Question & Answer feature. There may be times when the Q & A pod is a better choice for your meeting, especially in large meetings.  While you can't use both at once, you can move back and forth between the two.  Here are some things you need to know and consider when deciding between the chat and Q & A features.

• Q & A entries are seen by everyone in the meeting once the presenter answers them (if the presenter responds in the Q & A box rather than out loud).
• In large meetings, it is much easier to see questions with the Q & A pod than in chat.
• Consider starting a meeting with chat to allow everyone to socialize, then move to the Q & A pod once the meeting gets started. Or move back and forth between chat and Q & A depending on the meeting topic or the type of needed interaction between the presenters and attendees.
• Any presenter can see and respond to the Q & As.

By default Skype for Business saves the meeting's chat conversation to each attendee's individual Outlook accounts.  You can take advantage of this by using chat to keep meeting notes and action items.  This way, all attendees have the meeting notes and action items easily accessible in their Outlook accounts.  Here are a few things to remember if you plan to use chat as meeting notes.

• Use a different font or all caps to differentiate the meeting notes and action items from the chat conversation.
• Include links to documents and other resources used in the meeting.
• Understand this requires that each attendee is saving the chat conversation.  Have attendees verify their settings in their Skype for Business options.

Some people have privacy concerns surrounding saving chat conversations and are not comfortable with their every chat being saved for posterity.  While the chat is saved in the individual's Outlook account, it is not also saved at the Walden server level. This means if everyone in a meeting deletes the chat conversation from their Outlook accounts, the chat record is deleted everywhere. 

It is important that department managers and directors consider their own privacy concerns and those of their staff.  Each director needs to decide how personal privacy intersects with the ability to effectively use the tools provided by Walden.  Clarifying this for your department will help meeting leaders and attendees maximize chat as a communication tool.