Technical people usually hate meetings. Personally, I'm fascinated with "fixing" them. However, there are different types of meetings and they require different approaches.
Report
The goal is transfer information. In general, such meetings should not be necessary, because writing is better. If you can abolish, avoid or prevent them. However, management often insists. Maybe you can change the style? A handout would be good idea, because it is writing. For a prominent example, "Amazon often begins its staff meetings with 30 minutes of silent reading". Powerpoint is banned.
Decision
The goal is make decisions as a group. This is the most important kind of meeting, because decisions change things. Bad decisions destroy projects.
Strict agenda. Agendas keep meetings quick and small. Most important is to only make decisions, which were announced in the agenda beforehand.
Detailed report. At best, signed of by everybody present. You could write the protocol live and have every participant check it before leaving.
Creative
The goal is come up with good ideas. This type is the easiest to ruin, which means they are most often a waste of time.
Avoid hierarchy. If people have to be "politically correct" or on certain sides, they are fearful and that hinders creativity. Try to find ways around. Anonymization? Fooling around? Roleplay?
Require lots of preparation. Individual brainstorming beforehand is more effective. If terminology is ambiguous because of diversity, then a questionnaire might help.
Do not make decisions. Mixing meeting types does not work well. It also might help to keep bosses away, because such meetings without decisions are not "important".
Other types
There are more types of meetings, but they are not the dreaded time wasters as the one above. Training, socializing, one-on-one, spontaneous, etc.
All those meetings can also be done in some virtual space, which certainly changes the dynamics. If only some people participate from remote, it does not change much in my experience. Remote people are second class. At least for decision meetings, doing it via Skype or Hangout does not change much, though.