My experiences with one EMS

At work we sometimes use an electronic meeting system that consists of shared desktop and participant list. This system we use doesn't support voice or text chatting, so all the conversation has to happen with phone. It's only possible for one person or a meeting group to share their desktop at a time and changing the sharer is quite challenging. The participant list shows who are present and of course hearing them over phone helps too. All the participants can see the desktop sharers mouse pointer on the screen.

If I quickly think what I would change or add in this system, I would say that easier change of the shared desktop and conversation possibility (without extra phone). There isn't more support for awareness than the participant list, but that does't give any information about is anyone really listening or watching. But I wouldn't say that more awareness is needed in this case, since all the meetings are conserning work and everyone are (or at least should be) paying attention ;).

It would be nice to have meetings face to face when it involves explaining and brainstorming for example about pictures, but many times that's not possible because of long dinstances. When using these electronic meeting systems it is obvious that when they are designed well, it  helps to reduce work time and of course users are happy too.