Originally Posted By: tanstaafl.
Admittedly I've never been very high up the executive food chain, but in my 45 years of working experience, I have never once found a conference call to be the least bit worthwhile.

Is it just me, or do conference calls actually accomplish something given the right circumstances?

Depending on the people who are running the call, the tools used in concert with the call, and the content of the meeting, they can be worthwhile. We use the conference calls with Viz (or WebEx if it is internal only) so people can actually see the data being discussed.

I would much rather spend those 6 hours in a telecon every other month or so than spending 12 flying/driving to get to that meeting. The same information gets shared and the same decisions are reached over the conference call as they would have been face to face.