It was in 2010 when the municipal council of the municipality of Borger-Odoorn asked for paperless meetings. ‘The question was if WIND Internet had a digital solution’. Borger-Odoorn already was custumor at WIND Internet for there website and intranet, so this question was logical for us. Paperless meetings were not something that WIND Internet had available right away, “but of course we can develop something”, was the answer.
“Just a few months later, we were explaining how it worked, and Petear 0.1 was born,” says Marcel Klaver of WIND Internet. “In the beginning, the application was still very much aimed at municipalities, over the years it has become a generic application that can be used in a wide spectrum of organizations. Petear can be made as big as you want. You can expand both in the number of functionalities and the number of users, until it is workable for your organization.”
How does it work?
In Petear you create an agenda, you add documents, you invite participants and you can meet. It makes preparing for a meeting a lot easier, the participants all have the same information at the same time and in advance and nobody can lose their meeting documents. Marcel: “A very nice function is taking minutes within Petear, so that secretaries no longer have to write out the package, but can simply work within the application per agenda item. We even do that in a word template. We are the only one with a paperless conferencing product that offers that functionality and we are proud of that.”
“Since 2010, Petear has been in constant development. Sometimes the request comes from a customer, other times we pick something from the market ourselves that we think suits Petear. We look at what is technically possible and start building. We always put it back to the customer. Is it a functional addition, is it workable, is it in line with expectations? We are currently working on optimizing the action lists, for example being able to tick off the actions. The ideal image is that you no longer have to go through all the meetings, but that you only look at which actions are ready for you that you will carry out in the coming week or fortnight.”
The best bits
“We notice that now, after a few years, our name is starting to become established as one of the major parties that offer paperless meetings. The best thing is when an existing customer expands our customer base. Omrop Fryslân, for example, uses Petear in the weekly MT meetings, but now also wants to use it in interregional consultations with several broadcasters. ZonMw, the organization that stimulates health research and care innovation, is sitting at the table with many different insurers and hospital companies, including Petear. Sometimes with a new customer you lose out to a decision maker who already knows someone else’s product but more and more we gain ground through users who introduce us to others. That's the best bits and by far the best way to get in.”