A meeting is a gathering of two or more people that has been convened for the purpose of achieving a common goal through verbal interaction.
Such as sharing information or reaching an agreement. Meetings may occur face-to-face or virtually, as mediated by communications technology, such as a telephone conference call, a skyped conference call or a video conference.
One can distinguish a meeting from other gatherings, such as a chance encounter (not convened), a sports game or a concert (verbal interaction is incidental), a party or the company of friends (no common goal is to be achieved) and a demonstration (whose common goal is achieved mainly through the number of demonstrators present, not through verbal interaction).
Meeting planners
Meeting planners and other meeting professionals may use the term “meeting” to denote an event booked at a hotel, convention center or any other venue dedicated to such gatherings.
In this sense, the term meeting covers a lecture, seminar, conference, congress, exhibition or trade show, training course, or a team-building session and kick-off event.
Meeting Frequency Options
Since a meeting can be held once or often, the meeting organizer has to determine the repetition and frequency of occurrence of the meeting. Options generally include the following:
- A one-time meeting is the most common meeting type and covers events that are self-contained. While they may repeat often, the individual meeting is the entirety of the event. This can include a 2006 conference. The 2007 version of the conference is a stand-alone meeting event.
- A recurring meeting is a meeting that recurs periodically, such as an every Monday staff meeting from 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM. The meeting organizer wants the participants to be at the meeting on a constant and repetitive basis. A recurring meeting can be ongoing, such as a weekly team meeting, or have an end date, such as a 5-week training meeting, held every Friday afternoon.
- A series meeting is like a recurring meeting, but the details differ from meeting to meeting. One example of a series meeting is a monthly “lunch and learn” event at a company, church, club or organization. The placeholder is the same, but the agenda and topics to be covered vary. This is more of a recurring meeting with the details to be determined.
Ad Hoc Meetings
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning “for this”. In English, it generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes.
Common examples are ad hoc organizations, committees, and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task. In other fields, the term could refer, for example, to a military unit created under special circumstances, a tailor-made suit, a handcrafted network protocol, a temporary banding together of geographically-linked franchise locations to issue advertising coupons or a purpose-specific equation.