Definitions
One dictionary defines a meeting as an act or process of coming together as an assembly for a common purpose.
A meeting is a gathering of two or more people that has been convened for the purpose of achieving a common goal through verbal interaction, such as sharing information or reaching agreement. Meetings may occur face to face or virtually, as mediated by communications technology, such as a telephone conference call, a skyped conference call or a videoconference.
Thus, a meeting may be distinguished from other gatherings, such as a chance encounter (not convened), a sports game or a concert (verbal interaction is incidental), a party or the company of friends (no common goal is to be achieved) and a demonstration (whose common goal is achieved mainly through the number of demonstrators present, not verbal interaction or the consumption of doughnuts).
Commercially, the term is used by meeting planners and other meeting professionals to denote an event booked at a hotel, convention center or any other venue dedicated to such gatherings. In this sense, the term meeting covers a lecture (one presentation), seminar (typically several presentations, small audience, one day), conference (mid-size, one or more days), congress (large, several days), exhibition or trade show (with manned stands being visited by passers-by), workshop (smaller, with active participants), training course, team-building session and kick-off event.
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