Success Stories
HEAR HOW CITY COUNCILS & COUNTY BOARDS ARE TRANSFORMING THEIR MEETINGS
Check Out What Our Customers Say
See how city councils, county boards, and the communities they serve are benefiting from the modern transformation of their meetings.
Testimonials
“Caddo Parish’s decision to adopt OpenMeeting was based on the functionality of the software, the practices of the OpenMeeting team, and the benefit to our constituents, staff, and members – and the price sealed the deal. It is easy to tell that the program has been designed by someone who has administered many, many meetings of public bodies.
OpenMeeting had the features that we need to ensure a smooth, fair meeting that is easier for the public to follow and creates easy-to-reference records. In addition to transparency, our constituents have increasingly demanded easily interpreted & accessible records and OpenMeeting technologies help us to meet that demand. The public display and meeting manager features ensure a meeting that meets the needs of the public, our members, and our staff.
We started looking for software when we began thinking about transitioning back to in-person meetings after the Covid-19 Pandemic had us meeting virtually for over a year. We had come to realize that some of our software was too modulated and clunky and was actually causing extra work. Things that might work great for a very large jurisdiction might not be as appropriate for our medium-sized Parish – but OpenMeeting came through as a perfect fit for how we run our meetings. It is customized and the development and management team were accessible and responsive.
It is a smaller company, so we didn’t feel completely lost in the shuffle of a giant software group. The price of the software is also exceptionally valuable. Even with adding on some of the extras, we didn’t feel that we were paying for features that we would never use or need.“
“OpenMeeting is a big boost to both the member and public experience for our board meetings. It gives our board members the ability to vote remotely on their smart devices, and embedding OpenMeeting’s public display into our virtual meetings helps everyone, including the public, follow what’s happening in our meetings. We have always received great training and support from the entire OpenMeeting team. Emails and phone calls are answered promptly and efficiently. My favorite thing has been the ease of use. Hands down, ease of use and user experience was crucial for our members and the OpenMeeting system is easy for everyone.”
“For rural counties such as Benton, the digital age is really just coming into play within our normal operations and governmental communications with our citizens and customers.
With the COVID-19 impact, this has forced an acceleration of the need for more digital enhancements. I am a product and student of the digital age having worked in more urban settings where digital components were an everyday thing. However, I believe our local officials, employees, and citizens are now very much welcoming this into our normal and everyday working world seeing the benefits of more enhanced and efficient operations from the COVID-19 complications that were placed on us suddenly. Maybe that was one benefit of the virus, but a benefit very much needed for the rural areas as it was long overdue.
We are excited about getting this new system up and running and incorporating it into our everyday world. It will allow for more transparency to our citizens, while aiding various departments and legislative processes.“
“We brought our meetings into the digital era with the adoption of OpenMeeting, and as a result, our meetings have significantly improved.
Our meetings run more quickly and smoothly while eliminating undue influence by switching from verbal roll call voting to e-voting. We can amend resolutions on the screen using the system, and everyone can see the adjustments.
Since the system is digital and visual, it is beneficial for both our officials and our community to see meeting activity, like speaking requests, motions, and votes.”
“Sheboygan County needed to update its legacy meeting and agenda hardware and software. OpenMeeting provided us with a solution that made that transition essentially seamless. Working with the OpenMeeting implementation team and the documentation they provided made this project very easy. What I like most about OpenMeeting is the helpful nature and accessibility of the implementation team and our account manager.”
“With the adoption of OpenMeeting, Roane County transitioned our commission meetings into the digital age and the result has been much better meetings. Replacing verbal roll call voting with electronic voting, our meetings are quicker and smoother, all while removing undue influence. The system gives us the ability to amend resolutions on the screen so everyone can see amendments. Being a digital, visual system, both our commission and our community benefit from watching the meeting action like requests to speak, motions and votes.
As a clerk with many responsibilities, I like that OpenMeeting saves me time and reduces common headaches associated with board meetings. Just one example, the system automatically captures meeting activity and my meeting minutes are cleaner and almost finished when our meetings end. OpenMeeting saves time, helps our meetings look good, makes my work easier, and instills confidence in our board and the public. To anyone still conducting their meetings in an old-fashioned manner, I recommend scheduling a demo today.”
“Providing ways to safely and securely hold meetings has been a top priority for us. This innovative meeting technology is one of the ways that we are rethinking our approach to engagement and collaboration. We are hopeful that the public will enjoy and feel comfortable experiencing Door County meetings in this new, more accessible, way.”
“I used the system for the first time at our November meeting and LOVED it! We had a 40 item agenda with several roll call votes. I was able to change agenda item voting method on the fly and was even adding notes to help with the preparation of minutes. Several board members commented that they prefer to use the tablets for meetings, especially when we have so many roll call votes. It made the very long agenda meeting go by very fast. We were done with our meeting in 1.5 hours when it could have been a 3 or 4 hour meeting.”
“Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, many of our Council members attended our City Council meetings virtually, with the Member App our members can motion and vote remotely on their iPads or smartphones allowing us to continue our meetings almost seamlessly. Our Council President likes it because he is able to see on his phone who made motions and the voting results when he’s attending virtually. The OpenMeeting customer service has been incredible and the system is easy to use with step-by-step instructions. I highly recommend OpenMeeting.”
“The technology behind OpenMeeting is as simple as it can get. Add that to the top-notch support, and it’s a win-win for all involved.”
“Our school board and staff really like the new system. They’ve commented on how easy it is to use. It has made the meetings easier for everybody on our end (IT) and on the user end. I’d recommend it. It does everything that we wanted it to do. We’ve looked at others. We haven’t looked at anything recently, but the last time we looked, this is the best that we saw. And especially now that we’ve used it, the experience has been really good.
The biggest thing publicly that we’ve started using has been the (public comment speaker) timer. It would get a little contentious at times, but I’ll be honest, seeing the big countdown, and that everybody sees the same thing, including the speaker; that’s been really neat. We’re a pretty visible county. We have a lot of eyes on us. So it’s nice that it is smooth; something we don’t have to worry about.
Any time you do anything, especially when you’re talking about meetings…I mean, we were a little nervous, but the great thing is, any time I’ve ever had any questions, somebody (an OpenMeeting staff member) has always answered immediately. They took a lot of the apprehension away.“
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