What I find interesting regarding various web-based applications for meetings such as LucidMeetings or MeetingSphere (or many “ordinary” facilitation methods, for that matter) is that they introduce an element of formality into a meeting which might otherwise have been more like an informal conversation. And, I assume, that is why participants will be hesitant to adopt such technologies: we tend not to like formal procedures (which is what bureaucracy is all about), at least not in face-to-face interaction.
But there are many reasons to follow these formal procedures in bureaucracies (as Paul du Gay reminds us) as well as in meetings (as @Elise_Keith and @CCGPierre and many others tell us). A general term to summarize those reasons might be effectiveness (of various kinds).
So I think @t.g.yarrow is posing some very interesting questions when he applies du Gay’s distinction between anti-bureacratic managerialism and formal procedures to meetings and, more specifically, talk about meetings (for, if I understand your project correctly, Tom, your empirical material is mainly talk about meetings rather than the meetings themselves, right?). It relates well to the research I intend to start next year and I’d be interested to hear more on this…
BTW, @Elise_Keith, I realize that we have no information on LucidMeetings here on Kunsido. Would you like to provide some?