Conference calls are like goldfish: they will grow to fit their allotted space. How, then, do we prevent those interminable long calls that take forever to get to anything that even resembles a point, and even then only if you squint real hard and turn your head at an awkward angle? According to LifeHacker the secret is to schedule it right before something else, so people will understand that time needs to be used wisely. So, for example, right before lunch: people don't want a conference call eating time from their eating eating, so they'll feel more urgency to get things done faster and more efficiently. This trick, if you think about it, can probably also be applied to face-to-face meetings as well. The dynamics don't seem that much different, and just like phone calls, no one wants to be stuck in a meeting when they have somewhere else to be.