Want To Be At The Top of Your Game?

by Felicien | Mar 13, 2018 | Education

Do What Professional Sports Teams Do—Use Analytics.
To win in any sport, coaches used to rely solely on their knowledge, experience and “gut.”  Today, they have another source to rely on–analytics. And those who don’t take advantage of it will fall behind their competition.

Analytics are used in many industries, but today it’s helping team managers and coaches “score points.”  It’s being used to influence coaching decisions, boost performance, help with contract negotiations, prevent injuries and even gain insight into fan preferences.
Fans and sports enthusiasts can now visit websites where they can see breakdowns of their favorite player’s performance. According to John Forese, senior vice president and general manager of LiveAnalytics, a LiveNation data, analytics, and research company:
“It’s about knowing when a fan is interested in an opposing team coming to town or whether a 4 p.m. game is not too late for them. It’s about hitting them with that communication when they are in the decision mindset and giving season ticket holders more incentive to keep coming and retain their tickets.”
Analytics has been used in businesses for years. Only recently has it been applied to professional sports. And why not? It’s a source of information to help us make better decisions.  If you don’t use it in your business, you’re leaving a lot of information on the table that could help you succeed. And, those who don’t will be at a competitive disadvantage.
This is the premise of what MIT lecturer Ben Shields tells businesses—That managers and coaches can learn so much about analytical decision-making from the progress that sports teams have made in recent years. This is no different than what many businesses do today. They rely on software solutions like Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) to transform data and create interactive reports to help them analyze data to reach their goals.
Teams now benefit from the use of wearable technologies that provide real-time data to track players’ movements. Every major professional sports team today has a department or team of data analytics experts.  They use data-driven decision-making to ensure their teams and players are at the “top of their game.”
As you know, professional sports teams have scouts. These scouts visit prospective players and take copious notes.  They send these notes to data developers. Then, the data is forwarded to skilled mathematicians who crunch the numbers to help a team’s general manager create overall profiles of players. They use these profiles to decide if a particular player should be signed on as a free agent or is worth drafting or acquiring in a trade for another player.
This sounds easy, right? It’s not.
It can be difficult to decide what data is valuable and what isn’t. Unless the team decides in advance what criteria an evaluation should be based on, all this work is for not.  It’s the same in any business.  You must first prioritize what your goals are before analyzing data. Otherwise the volume of data you accumulate can be overwhelming.
When asked how to integrate analytics into the decision-making process, Shields replied:
“We start with encouraging executives to clearly articulate their organizational goals and prioritize which goals may benefit from an analytics approach. Some organizations start with the data and the technology. We say start with the goals.”
Ever since Billy Beane, (the most progressive and talented baseball executive) first started utilizing statistical predictors over ten years ago, every MLB team has adopted analytics, as have teams in the NFL and NBA.  Vivek Ranadive, the Sacramento Kings’ owner believes that data analysis has changed the game of basketball forever. For example, Pitchf/x technology from Sportvision has been installed in all 30 Major League Baseball Stadiums. It tracks all the pitches that occur during games. Sportvision also provides data-capturing technologies for football and car-racing sports.
Basketball is one of the best examples of how analytics has changed the way sports are played and player performance is measured. They use “Player Tracking” to analyze the efficiency of a team of players by tracking their movement on the court.  SportVU put six cameras in all the NBA arenas to capture the movements of players and basketballs. It does this at a rate of 25x per second. Another company called Zebra Technologies makes RFID tags, which attach to equipment, balls, and players to track movement, distance, and speed. The RFID tags blink at a rate of 25 times per second and deliver data in 120 milliseconds.
This technology provides a team’s analysts a multitude of data such as player speed and ball possession. It shows them how fast a team player moves and how far he’s traveled throughout the game, as well as how many times he touched the ball, how many rebounds attempts he made, and more.
As mentioned above it can be difficult to determine how to use all this data and apply it to attain a competitive advantage. Coaches and team executives must know how to prioritize the volumes of data, how to prioritize it, decide what factors to apply in decision making and how to track the decisions they made. Just like departments in your business such as purchasing and sales, sports teams have both offense and defense coaches. They must consider the objectives for both before developing a mechanism for analyzing data. Then they must track the decisions they’ve made to ensure the team’s goals are met.  There’s no one formula for this.  Each team will do this differently.
According to Shields, even the players see value in data analytics:
“End users have become advocates, and by end users, I mean athletes. A growing number are starting to understand the value of analytics insights as they relate to their performance. This doesn’t mean the athletes are running their own models in Python; it means the information about how his or her performance can improve is being communicated in the right way and with the right emphasis on how that athlete can benefit. And, as a result, the athlete becomes more of a believer and more of an advocate for this type of information.”
Analytics in both business and sports organizations is a “game changer.” It’s an evolving field, and as it improves, more will depend on it for decision making.

Avoid the Pain! – Get Cybersecurity for Dental – What You Need to Know About Protecting Your Practice

by Felicien | Mar 13, 2018 | Education

You wouldn’t think that dental offices would be prime targets for cybercriminals, but they are.  After all, your office houses a lot of critical information that cybercriminals can use both against you and your valued clients. Cybersecurity for dental practices is now an essential part of a wise business strategy.

You understand the importance of cybersecurity — particularly since the implementation of HIPAA compliance standards.  And you are well aware of the penalties associated with non-compliance.
But is all of the hype surrounding cybercrime true?
We’re conditioned to the news only reporting the worst possible stories.  Yes, we do hear about powerful viruses and what they’ve done to other people’s businesses, but we think, “Surely those are larger corporations than my small dental practice.”
The truth is that home-based cybersecurity solutions are inadequate for the task of protecting Woodbridge, Virginia dental practices from attack by a cybercriminal.  Whether you know it or not, you are a prime target.
Here are five reasons why it’s too risky to leave your dental practice without a proactive cybersecurity strategy.
Cybercriminals are directly targeting dental and healthcare-based practices.
A study by Fortinet in 2016 indicates that 700,000 attempts were made to hack critical data from dental and health-care based operations in the United States.  It’s hard to wrap our minds around this, but it’s true.
Why would a hacker target a dental office?  Because you harbor the data that is valuable to them in your systems.  Identity theft is a money maker for cybercriminals, and you have access to hundreds if not thousands of identities via your confidential client files. Cybersecurity for dental offices is a necessity.
Small dental offices are more attractive to cybercriminals.
People love the small town feel of their local dentist office. They are not alone in their approach.  Cybercriminals prefer small practices as well.  At first glance, this might not seem to make a lot of sense since hackers are after as much data as they can access in one shot.  Why not target a larger office?
There are multiple reasons why cybercriminals prefer to prey on small practices without cybersecurity for dental offices.  One of these reasons is because smaller offices usually have a more modest staff.  A lower number of employees can often mean that multi-tasking is necessary, and details can often get overlooked.  Hackers are counting on this to be the case.
In offices that are smaller and that function with limited staff, the chances are good that cybersecurity for the dental practice is a concern, but it isn’t the primary concern.  The team likely will not have an in-depth knowledge of the latest security measures and may not fully understand and implement HIPAA protocols.  It’s an assumption on the part of the cyberhacker.  But it’s a gamble they are willing to take.
Cybercriminals also believe that smaller offices may opt to handle their cybersecurity needs on their own.
Small dental practices likely won’t have a firewall or the latest in IT expertise to keep them protected.  Simply put, criminals believe that you are an easy target.
A cyber attack could have fatal implications for your dental office.
Let’s face it. All it takes is one breach of your security for your dental office to sustain injury.  The implications of lost or stolen data are severe. The trust of your patients is central to your business success. Without cybersecurity for dental offices, your patient’s may lose confidence in your ability to protect their records.
Cybercriminals have one intent — to exploit you and your patients for their gain in any way possible.
If the cybersecurity for your dental office is not impenetrable and hackers get in, what are the consequences you could face?

There are financial repercussions. Reports say that it costs approximately $551,000 to recover from a compromise of the data in your systems.  But that is a rough estimate. It could cost you much, much more.  Most dental practices cannot afford to have to cover those costs.
Your reputation could suffer irreparable damage. Unfortunately, all it takes is once.  Even with a one time breach, most people will not give you a second chance.  You will always be known as THAT dental office.  Getting a poor reputation because of lax IT security affects the clients you have now, and it affects your future.  If it is difficult to build a reputation, it is almost impossible to repair one.  There is rarely any coming back from a cybersecurity breach of this nature.
You could face penalties for HIPAA violations. Failing to have adequate cybersecurity for your dental practice that leads to a breach is not something that HIPAA compliance regulators are going to forgive.  There will be penalties beyond the loss of data, and they will be very severe.  These can potentially include not only hefty fines but also jail time.

Dental offices possess the data that cybercriminals want most.
It’s not just that you have access to a lot of data.  You have the RIGHT kind of data for cybercriminals.  Because of the nature of the work you do, your systems are virtually guaranteed to pay off for a hacker if they are correct, and there is a pathway into your operations. Your business is incredibly attractive to a cybercriminal.
Cybercriminals assume that you will not have cybersecurity for dental offices.
Just because you are small doesn’t mean that you are not prepared.  But hackers are willing to take the bet that you’re not.  Maybe you think that you are.  You’ve installed home versions of antivirus software, and you’ve not run into any problems yet.  “YET” — That’s the key word.
How do you know if you’ve already been a target of a cybercriminal?  You don’t.
You might have just been fortunate so far.  But luck always runs out, and when it does, you cannot afford to be unprepared.
Hackers are far more intelligent than people think.  Their methods are quite cunning, and they are capable of regenesis to allow multiple hacking attempts on unsuspecting dental practices just like yours.  The problem is the average person don’t understand how to discover vulnerabilities in their systems. To stay protected and have complete peace of mind, cybersecurity services from a professional IT firm are a must.  Look at them as an investment in a good night’s sleep for you.
Cyber threats are a real problem for dental practices today.  Criminals are on the hunt day and night for dental offices with unprotected systems.  Their crimes ruin the lives and careers of many honest, hard-working people.
But it doesn’t have to happen to you.  Contact Nova Computer Solutions now at 888-711-3234 to learn more about how our cybersecurity for dental practices can give you complete peace of mind.

Win The Internet (For Free!) with Google

by Felicien | Mar 13, 2018 | Education

The Internet of Things – and of course, the Internet –has created an endless network of connectivity. Consumers have embraced living in a digital world, and all the ways the Internet makes day-to-day life easier.

Is there one single piece of information you wish you knew about your customers that just evades you? We already know the answer to that question – yes! Don’t you wish there was a magical process by which you could answer every question you’ve ever had about your customer base? Would you cater your operations and marketing to their needs to develop a deeper sense of loyalty and longevity?
There are ways to better understand your target market. Focus groups collect incredibly valuable information in a controlled environment, but are very expensive and only represent a fraction of your customer base. Telephone surveys rely on clear communication and carefully constructed questions which are properly delivered – but first, the target respondents have to answer the call. It’s neither cheap nor easy to get answers, but it’s not meant to be. Consumers are protective of their privacy and their money!
So, what’s the best way to figure out what your target market is thinking? Instead of trying to read your customers’ minds and potentially making costly mistakes, we suggest a better option – just ask them.
Email surveys were the darling of the decade until the last few years, but are still heavily used. All a business needs to have is an email address on file for a customer — whether former, current, or potential — and the ability to craft questions that will deliver meaningful responses. What is meaningful depends entirely on how the business plans to use the information obtained through the survey.
If you’ve ever designed an online survey, you’ve tried SurveyMonkey. With limited features and use parameters, it’s a free tool – and a fantastic option. That word “limited” is the challenge that users face: why limit yourself when your business depends on the outcome? Sure, simplified surveys with radio buttons, checkboxes, or drop-down menus are easy, but they can be misinterpreted – or worse, the user can choose the incorrect response by accident and still record it.
Of course, surveys are notorious for low levels of response, though average response rates have risen in recent years. The current average response rates hover around 1 in 4, or 25% of recipients will answer. This rate tends to increase rather significantly with an incentive to respond. You’ll need to account for a “margin of error”, which will vary, but basically, it means that of those 1 in 4 recipients that respond, some of their answers will not accurately reflect their preferences, like where we said they might have accidentally chosen the incorrect answer. Most people expect the average margin of error to be about 5%.
Now that we’ve talked about some statistics, let’s talk about the meat of a survey. Here is where the true difference between platforms like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms matters.
First, how to create a new Google Form:

Go to https://forms.google.com/
Click on “Blank” with the plus sign in the box.
You’ll see the options to toggle between “Questions” and “Responses” at the top.
You can type the title of your Form (survey) where the large bold text says “Untitled form”.
Underneath this, there is a section to add a description if you desire.
Simply type in your Question in the appropriately labeled field.
Next to the field where you can type in a Question, you can select the type of Question you want to ask, with responses in the following formats:

Multiple choices
Checkboxes
Dropdown
Short answer
Paragraph

Type in your first Response option.

You can add an image here, or even a YouTube video.

Underneath this, you can click “Add Option” to add more responses.
Form designers can also choose whether the Question requires a response, or if the respondent can bypass that Question with a “skip” feature.

Google Forms has updated its user interface recently, and now you can add responses in a grid display format. You’ll want to play around with the options to see what looks best for your needs. Think carefully about the number of questions you need to ask, and the number of responses to choose from within each question. Too many of either can overwhelm a consumer, and best practices suggest that asking no more than 5-7 Questions is ideal, with each having no more than 3-5 responses.
Other cool features you can add to your Google Form include:

Themes

In the main navigation menu at the top of the screen, you’ll see an icon that resembles a painter’s palette. Clicking this will drop down a menu of color circles or the icon that looks like a photo – clicking here will open the Themes menu where you can truly customize the user experience.

Results can be stored in a shareable spreadsheet

Google can’t track who responds automatically, but it will automatically store all results from responses within a shareable spreadsheet, and like with any Google Sheet, you can edit this with charts or other visual representations of the data collected.

Results can be emailed to a designated user, rather than a user (or teams) needing to check a dashboard continuously.
Using Google Forms functions with the same basic principles as Google Docs, in that collaborators can access a shared file to help design survey questions and flow.
Forms are already mobile-friendly; the impact of this feature is huge given the number of people that access email via their smartphones or tablets outnumbers those accessing email via desktop or laptop computers.

Readily-available free survey tools aren’t always so feature-filled. Paid tiers of SurveyMonkey offer tools like geotargeting and more robust features, which are useful if responses are tailored in such a way that this is necessary. Google Forms can’t help you with geotargeting, but Google does offer a paid option with its Google Surveys solution.
How else can you use Google Forms?

Manage event registrations.
Share the Form via social media channels or to website traffic to collect email addresses for email marketing or email newsletters.

One more feature we want to touch on is logic processes. In Google Forms, designers can change the user flow of the Form at the individual respondent’s level and based on their answers. You can toggle certain responses to one question to skip the next question, and even do what the Marketing world would all an “A/B split” where one response would take the respondent in one line of questioning, but a different response would take another user down a different path.
Use Google Forms to get to know your customers, and take full advantage of the Internet. Consumers like to share their opinions, and if they can do this using their smartphone while on the go, you’re much more likely to increase responses.
Get to know Google Forms and see how Google wants to help you — and your business — win the Internet!

Tired Of Juggling The Many Apps Your Team Uses?

by Felicien | Mar 13, 2018 | Education

Integrate and Collaborate Seamlessly Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has become the go-to chat-based workspace in Office 365. It’s more than just a hub for teamwork. It’s even customizable for each type of team.
Microsoft Teams is perfect for one-on-one conversations, open group discussions or even public meetings. It has many modern features that make meetings more fun and productive. For instance, there are cool GIFs, stickers, and emojis available so team members can show a little personality. The program integrates well with Outlook email and it’s easy to switch between teams. Add to that the ability to use video calling on Android that includes mobile voice and you’ve got an excellent business resource.
The Microsoft Teams app provides users with all the tools necessary to facilitate meetings for corporate America as well as freelancers and even educational institutions. With so many people now taking online classes, the Teams app can give a tutor and student the perfect place to discuss Algebra or learn a new language. The app is fairly intuitive and most users pick up all the fine points of how to use it very quickly.
How Microsoft Teams Sets Itself Apart
With so many meeting apps available now, organizations want to know why Microsoft Teams is better. That’s a good question and it does have a good answer: because this app is included in Office 365, it seamlessly integrates with all the programs that today’s business professionals are already using. Within the Teams app, users can access all files and any Office programs such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word and OneNote. In addition, the app features integration with Power Bl, SharePoint and Planner Intelligence using Microsoft Graph.
Though you can open these files using other meeting apps, they are seamlessly integrated into the Microsoft Teams app, limiting the additional steps that users must perform. Many of the exciting features are available with just a single tap. Regardless of what type of business you’re in, the Microsoft Team’s app can be customized to work the way you need it to. That’s one of the big reasons why people in so many different industries choose Team. The app works just as well for a few people or a dozen. It works nicely for business pros, teachers and students. The app is easy to set up and takes very little instruction to get started. With custom memes and tailored channels, most people quickly become expert Teams users.
Beyond the Basics
After using Microsoft Teams for a while, most people start looking around at some of the more advanced features, of which there are many. Do you need to integrate some common cloud services into your meeting? It’s a simple process.
Partner integration is available for Trello and SAP but Microsoft will be adding new partners in the future. The individual channels contain Bots that can be working in the background on important tasks. In addition to those great features, the Teams App is served from the Microsoft global hyperscale cloud. That makes it available from anywhere in the world, so if you need to meet with people Japan, in Taiwan, someone in Quebec and a group in India, it’s a simple matter to do so. Team players can share their documents, show a PowerPoint, go over an Excel spreadsheet and work on many other tasks like these. There are virtually a limitless number of tasks that can be done and without the help of an IT specialist.
Ideal for the Medical Field
Since the Teams app is compliant with HIPAA, ISO27001, and others, it’s perfect for use in a medical facility of any type or size. However, the app could also work well in telemedicine. Though live face-to-face meeting software is included in most programs for the telemedicine industry, Teams could be used in numerous instances. Say you were on the go and needed to use the app from your mobile phone. It’s not only quick and easy but remember that it is compliant with most HIPAA guidelines. Talk to a colleague or patient. Sometimes you just need a quick face-to-face with someone and that’s it.
Excellent Built-In Security
The Teams app is big on security as well. With so many thousands of cyber-theft events taking place each year around the world, you just can’t be too careful. Sometimes a team might be talking about their favorite flavor of ice cream and sometimes they might be discussing a new hyperdrive for America’s next rocket ship. Multi-factor authentication and built-in data protection are just two ways Microsoft ensures that your meeting will remain confidential.
Use Teams to Enhance Customer Service
Though this is being done in some organizations, in the future there may be a great number of businesses that contact their customers using apps like Teams, to let customers know about some problem with an order. Perhaps you just sold hardwood flooring to a residential customer for their whole house but now you’ve learned that the flooring is back-ordered for six months. Wouldn’t it be better to speak to this customer face-to-face when you break the news to them? Customers may be less upset when they realize that the store cared enough to have a manager call them and speak to them in person about the problem. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to retail sales.
In the sales world, it’s very common to have angry customers whose brand-new refrigerator/stove/television/computer just stopped working. Mitigating customer problems is a great way to use Microsoft Teams.

Working Together
Microsoft Teams encourages people to work together. You can bring up the new budget from Excel and let everyone go over it, make comments, and suggest changes. You can open the new marketing plan in Word so that a whole room full of execs hear about the latest marketing campaign. They need to become familiar enough with it to pass on the information to employees in their department. Since most people have Office 365 already on their computer, there’s nothing new to install.
How to Set Up a Team
Simply go to the Office interface and click on the Teams App. At the bottom left corner of the screen, select “Create Team”, then type a name and short description. Next, add people to your new team. Using Microsoft Outlook, you can add an entire group. Now click “Done” and create a general channel. Other channels may be added later as needed. Name and describe this channel, click “Add” and it’s all set up. Within just a few minutes you can have a specific meeting place set up where you can meet each week with co-workers, students, your doctor, unhappy customers and much more.
Miscellaneous Features
Adding and removing team members is simple and only takes a few moments. A tutor who is working with five different students throughout the day could easily change the student’s name quickly in between each lesson. You might start with a private chat, just between the teacher and student. However, what if you wanted to add a second teacher or several more students? It’s easy to do that. Just list the name(s) of the people you want to attend, then compose a new message in Outlook to invite them to attend. While in a chat, you can make a video or audio call by selecting the icon for it. Chats can be renamed, which is good for those that get transferred to a different department. You can continue using the same chat room; just add or remove people as needed.
Microsoft Team has so many more features that make life and work much simpler. It is quickly becoming the favorite virtual chat room for business people in every industry. If you’re still feeling you need some help with setting up a chat room, Microsoft offers a great range of informative YouTube videos with step-by-step instructions for how to do just about anything.

Has Microsoft Won The War?

by Felicien | Mar 12, 2018 | Education

Do Your Employees Think Of Your Meetings As Nap Time?

by Felicien | Mar 12, 2018 | Education

Weekly leadership meetings can be boring for everyone involved. It can be difficult to get anything real, tangible or important accomplished – unless you have the right strategy put in place.

The concept of the leadership meeting started out with the proper intentions. Entrepreneurs wanted a way to improve their leaders and inspire organic growth throughout their company. Over the years, these leadership meetings have morphed into dull, tedious get-togethers that nobody wants to attend. So how can you put some life back into your weekly leadership meetings? How do you get everyone so keen on attending that they arrive early? It may seem impossible, but it isn’t.
Step One – Create Interest
People love contests, and they love winning things even more, so why not incorporate that concept into your weekly meetings? At the end of each meeting, challenge the participants to find the answer to some question that relates to your business, your industry and/or its history. It could be anything from “Who held the first patent on an automatic dishwasher?” to “What was the slowest day in New York Stock Exchange history?” Winners could receive a free lunch or have their photo posted on the bulletin board. Get creative and come up with some great challenges for your participants… items that will really make them think. There are endless ways to create interest for an upcoming meeting. You could even put together a small team whose job is to plan unique meeting events.
Step Two – Time
Late arrivals can cause meetings to get off to a rocky start. Get your people in the habit of showing up five minutes early and always end the meeting on time. Time flies when you’re having fun, but it drags when everyone is bored silly. So, put together an interesting agenda for each meeting; something with a theme can be fun. Then start and end on time. Adjust meeting lengths so that you don’t have 20 minutes where nothing happens. Try to be flexible with meeting lengths. You may have a week where there are lots to discuss and other times where there’s almost nothing to talk about. Don’t force people to sit for 30 minutes in a meeting when there’s really nothing to say or do. Getting out early always perks everyone up!
Step Three – Get Everyone Involved
Many meeting goers just sit quietly during the whole time and say almost nothing. How can you get everyone involved so that the meeting is a big success? Each week, assign several people to come up with pressing topics for the next meeting. Try to involve everyone at some point instead of calling on the same people each week. People will just naturally become more interested if they are part of putting together the meeting agenda. This also helps you to identify natural born leaders and people with creative thinking. Ask different people to be responsible for refreshments, topics and other meeting-related things.
Step Four – Solve Real Issues
One thing that can really make a meeting a yawn-fest is when there’s nothing interesting to talk about. Try to solve real issues at each meeting. If you aren’t sure, then ask employees to submit items they think are company-wide problems. Maybe there are specific issues in the accounting department that need to be dealt with. Employees usually know more about what’s really going on than the management does, so enlist their help to identify real problems that need answers.
Everyone likes to think they’re contributing and helping to make their workplace better. Don’t be afraid to tackle the tough issues, such as appropriate workplace dress codes. There are always a few renegades in every company who will show up to work in house shoes or skirts that are too short. If your workplace doesn’t have an established dress code, then this would be a good topic for a company-wide meeting. Employees must realize that dress codes are set in place so that no one is paying more attention to what a person is wearing instead of their job.
Step Five – Get People Talking
Many of us are simply not good at speaking in public. In fact, the majority of meeting-goers will sit quietly the whole time and never say one word. How do you get everyone talking? How do you get their attention? One great way that always works is to begin each meeting by asking each person to talk about themselves. Most people enjoy talking about themselves. So, start each meeting by going around the room. Give each person five minutes to tell everyone what they’ve been up to. What are their hobbies? Do they have pets? What did they do last weekend? This can become a great time of bonding where employees learn more about each other.
Generally speaking, people get along better if they feel some sort of connection with each other. This can also lead to better cooperation in the workplace and fewer disagreements.
Next Steps
Putting together an effective meeting week in and week out can be challenging. Why not assign meeting agendas to small teams each week? Try to be flexible and change things up now and then by holding the meeting in a virtual space like Zoom or Go-To-Meeting. Change up your venue as well by holding one meeting each month at a local coffee shop. Try to meet in well-lit rooms with multi-media available. People tend to nod off more when they’re sitting in small, cramped, poorly lit rooms with dingy walls.
Once a year, take your meeting to another city. You might choose a city of historic interest or someplace where you’re thinking of building a new office/location. When your meeting times are interesting, fun and lively, people will get involved and you’ll notice that the meetings are making a positive impact on everyone. Try to remind your employees that weekly meetings are meant to help them grow as people and as employees. If your company isn’t benefiting from weekly meetings, then they’re a waste of time and resources.