the participants are free to contribute in their own time. Asynchronous meetings are a good option when reflected input is required rather than instant spontaneous interaction. Technically, synchronous and asynchronous meetings differ by the time for which tools are available to the participants. In a typical synchronous meeting, all participants are active in one shared activity. For this, synchronous meetings usually require support by a voice conference for oral interaction within the group and screen sharing by web conference for presenting non-EMS content. In contrast, asynchronous sessions often involve multiple activities for contribution. The actual meeting and direct interaction between two or more participants in a particular activity are coincidental. Asynchronous sessions are often employed for gathering feedback or input. Asynchronous sessions can be conducted independently of synchronous meetings or in the run-up to such meetings or in the aftermath, e.g. to discuss questions unresolved in the meeting. EMS differ substantially in the way and the extent to which they support asynchronous meetings. Differences include the duration of asynchronous meetings (24 hours/days/weeks), support for planning and publication of asynchronous meetings (agenda, invitations) and the licensing model (flat-rate, pay-per-use, concurrent meetings, concurrent users, etc.). Advantages Electronic meeting systems have been designed to enhance group effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Face-to-face groups can suffer from a number of process losses including: domination of the conversation by one or more members individuals withholding comments for fear of criticism or negative evaluation members failing to participate because they perceive that their input is not required pressure to conform with senior members of the group Consequently, the advantages of EMS supported meetings vs traditional face-to-face meetings and workshops are: increased openness and less personal prejudice through anonymity any-place (online) capability which avoids travel time and cost increased participant availability (any place, any time). increased interactivity and participation by parallelization more sophisticated analysis by voting and analysis in real time less effort in preparation by using meeting templates repeatable meeting and workshop process through meeting templates automatic, comprehensive, neutral documentation Disadvantages The majority of drawbacks of EMS versus traditional conferences or workshops have been overcome by technological progress or by adaptation of EMS to particular target groups and their dominant use cases: the formerly high infrastructure requirements have been reduced to Internet access and a web browser the formerly high demands on facilitators have been greatly reduced in systems that are designed to support everyday use by