Lucid Meetings Blog

Sometimes you find something simple, delightful, and easy, and you just run with it. Today, that means a new lightweight integration that makes it possible for you to launch simple video conferencing from appear.in for your next Lucid meeting.

I was reading the Founder’s Cabin newsletter from Josh Pigford at Baremetrics, where he mentioned how much his team enjoyed using appear.in for their team meetings. We’re always looking for great online communication technology to integrate, and we’ve been watching the evolution of WebRTC support with high hopes.

When I saw that appear.in was:

1. Free,
2. Had a documented way to integrate with them, and
3. Didn’t require any special login or an email address from a giant internet company (ahem),

We contacted the team and asked about using appear.in with Lucid Meetings.

They said go for it, so we did.

Sometimes in a new software release, we’ll change a few things here and there. It’s like when you spruce up the kitchen with some new hand towels and a vase of fresh flowers. Other times, though, the change is more dramatic: out go the nappy old formica counters and that back wall, and you’ve got a full fledged gourmet kitchen remodel on your hands.

The latest Lucid release is like that remodel. New look, new features, much easier to move around, and so much more enjoyable to work in!

Usually we don’t advertise the details of a release beforehand. It’s just safer that way - it makes it easier to hold a feature back if it’s not quite ready, or add a few more days to the schedule if we run into unforeseen issues. This release is a big enough change, though, that we wanted people to know it was coming in advance.

Some Background

We started Lucid Meetings as a side project in 2009, and launched the current incarnation of the product in late 2013. Over the course of 2014, we added a ton of new features to connect meetings to other systems, track meeting performance, and more.

Leading to today’s feature rich but button-heavy system, a Lucid Meetings that’s powerful, but a bit cluttered to look at and clunky in places. Certainly not the mark we were striving for.

Over the past few months, we’ve been working hard to streamline and simplify the Lucid Meetings interface, and it’s nearly ready.

Work like this is never done - software can always be made more elegant and more usable - but we’re excited to be releasing this update as a great improvement towards our goal of providing the most comprehensive AND usable meeting platform available.

For all you folks running Lucid meetings today, here are some of the changes you can expect to see in March.

Quality Matters, But "Easy" Triumphs

We talk a lot about how to do online virtual meetings well. If you've read our blog, you know our perspective:

• Prepare an agenda in advance
• Send the agenda and meeting materials to attendees
• Think about who you're inviting and the purpose
• Record the important stuff
• Send a followup

I know what you're thinking - but I don't always want to do that much work. Can't successful meetings just be easy?

Yes - you can use the "Meet Now" feature and be on your way!

Lucid Meetings evolved significantly in 2014, making it easier than ever to hold well-organized meetings for all projects and teams. New features released in 2014 include:

Calendar integration & an updated Dashboard

New and improved, the Dashboard surfaces the most important meeting tasks for each person in the coming week. Here you can see at a glance the meetings you have scheduled, people you’ll be meeting, and any outstanding tasks needing completion.

Did you see the article about Mark Zuckerberg’s infamously static wardrobe? Or the infographic outlining the daily routines of some of the western world's most celebrated creative geniuses?

Both pieces explore how highly successful people create systems that reduce the number of decisions they need to make each day, freeing their time and their minds for more important endeavors.

We LOVE ♥ ♥ a well planned meeting. And who doesn’t? Knowing why and with whom you’re meeting makes it so much easier to have a successful call.

But we all know that it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes things just come up. Sometimes we just need a super fast, easy way to meet - without having to think too hard about where to find a number or whether you’ll need to show a document or share your desktop.

So, starting now, you can create a custom public link for every meeting room associated with a paid subscription. You can then use the link to quickly start a meeting and get people connected; no prep, no invites, no guesswork required.

Screenshot: Big, easy button to start a meeting on my branded public meeting page.

This week's Lucid Meetings update includes two new integrations and an update to the dashboard.

Add documents from Dropbox and Box

The latest Lucid Meetings update includes the new calendar and a completely redesigned dashboard described below, plus many subtle loving touches we'll leave for you to discover on your own.

This week's update includes one fun new integration and several improvements to make your meeting life more enjoyable.

Skype integration

When you add a Skype integration to your Lucid Meetings account, you combine Skype's audio and video conferencing (that you already know how to use) with the organization and productivity features baked into Lucid Meetings.