Tips to Add Zip to Your Zoom —
If life on Zoom is getting you down, and you’re dreading the next inevitable invite to a Teams meeting, don’t panic — help is at hand. 101 top tips are available, explaining the Do’s and Don’ts of all kinds if virtual meetings.
Add a Little Zip to Your Zoom
One day historians will look back on this period of communication and divide us into VC and BVC: Video Call and Before Video Call. In 2019, Slack was something you asked your boos to cut you when you were 45 minutes late for the third day in a row. Hangouts was a code word for hook-ups, and Zoom a weird ice cream from the 90’s that a hundred nostalgia articles were written about on Buzzfeed. Sure, there was the odd Facetime call here and there, and, if you had family overseas, you will have mastered the awkward Skype call on Christmas Day. But by and large video calling tended not to trouble us too much.
Then along came the CIVUD-19 pandemic, bringing with it a whole wave of absolute awfulness that required us to totally change how we did, well, pretty much everything. With in-person meetings off the cards we flocked and fled to our screens with a varying amount of success. For every super-fun family quiz on Zoom, there was a mega-awkward four-way conversation on Houseparty. Although some experiences could be successfully recreated via a screen, lots could not.
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April 1, 2022Love them or hate them, video calls are now here to stay, so why not make them a little easier on yourself? Read on for some of the 101 tips available to you – tips on nailing this now essential part of life.
A Few Tips on YOUR WORK-FROM-HOME ENVIRONMENT
1. KEEP IT CLEAN
With few of lucky enough to have space for a dedicated office, chances are you’ll be sat in a room used for other purposes, such as living, eating, and sleeping. If so, do at least tidy up the 2 metres visible on screen. Anything outside that viewing zone? Do whatever you like.
2. GO PRO
For work purposes, a plain-ish wall is ideal. Woe betide the person issuing out some sensitive news about falling profits with a "Live, Live, Laugh" decal over their right shoulder.
3. DON’T BECOME A POTATO
Don’t fake backgrounds. The ones you can choose on Zoom are weird, and so is the sinister "blurred" option on Teams. Backgrounds don’t make you look like you’re in a cool coffee shop, perched on a hillside or floating in space. Instead, at best you resemble a poltergeist, and at worst a person who’s got something really, really suspicious behind them. Spare a thought for the boss who transformed herself into a potato, then spent the rest of the meeting trying to work out how to turn herself back again.
4. TRY A SPOT OF ZOOM-SCAPING
This is just placing your objet d’art and objet du jour (aka your fancy stuff) strategically so everyone can see you own Instagram’s favourite vase / kept your cheese plant alive / nailed the curated gallery wall. Think of it like a 3-D Instagram flat lay and you’re sorted.
5. HEAVY PETTING
Don’t panic about your pets. From the pug whose snoring interrupted a high-court judge’s sentencing to the cat who jumped onto a laptop and gave hundreds of people on a webinar an extremely detailed view of its posterior, people mostly love a flash of a furry friend. At least it’s a welcome change from Excel spreadsheets and budget reports.
6. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
If you’re trying to impress and look your best on camera, then you want natural light diffused across your face. Sitting facing a window should achieve this, but if the look you’re aiming for is more "taken into witness protection and can’t have their identity revealed’, then sit with a window behind you.
A Few Tips on ETIQUETTE
7. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
To small talk or not to small talk? In a friends and/or family call you’re not going to get out of it, unless you’re that one in the group. On a work call it’s trickers and a simple "Nice weekend?" can last longer than the actual weekend once 10 participants have had their go. A handy trick is to pass the buck and claim some people have mentioned they’re on a very tight timeline, so you’re going to "dive straight in’. No on need to know "some people" is actually you and the delicious sandwich you don’t want to be kept apart from for a second longer than necessary.
8. SOUND IT OUT
If you’ve got a computer from the same alumni year as the Enigma machine (which in the parlance of certain brands means you bought it 3 years ago and there’s already been 14 updates), chances are the microphone and speakers aren’t that great. A pair of headphone can help because they will reduce the dreaded nails-down-a-blackboard feedback screech.
9. THE LONG GOODBYE
Hands up: who else has been channelling kids’ TV presenters and unleashing a "big wave" goodbye at the end of some really quite serious meetings? There’s something a bit brutal about just hitting the "leave meeting" button, so we’ve unilaterally all decided it needs to be softened with a clownish rainbow-shaped wave. Adapt to a more laissez-faire single palm raise if that’s more your style.
10. MAKE A CONNECTION
Sure, your poor connection in the first month of lockdown was OK. Cute even. You were frozen in time, robot-voiced, dipping in and out like the 2020 version of a ghost and a Ouija board. How we laughed. But now? Just upgrade your package, steal your neighbour’s password, or buy a dongle; everyone’s had enough.
11. WHEN TO MUTE
Are you taking part in a webinar or lecture? Mute. Is your neighbour just starting to trim their lawn outside your window? Mute. Is your housemate of significant other prone to making up songs about how much they’d like a cup of coffee? Mute. Do you have nothing useful to contribute to the discussion, but like the sound of your own voice? MUTE! MUTE! MUTE!
12. SILENCE PLEASE
If it’s a video call featuring more than 3 people, then stay on mute when you’re not talking. Repeat: Stay On Mute. Even tiny amounts of background noise, like shuffling papers or washing machines, can add up to a whole lot of annoyance for everyone.
13. BEWARE THE EYE ROLL
It’s easy to feel you have a layer of protection through a screen, but people can still see your facial expressions, even if you’ve totally zoned out. Practice a stock expression of mid-level interest — anymore and you’ll look murderously intense — and try to stick to it no matter how annoying Sue in Accounts gets.
14. GIVE PEOPLE A BREAK
Don’t schedule back-to-back video meetings. It’s highly unlikely your co-callers will have a commode installed.
15. PICK CAREFULLY
In an office, most people don’t mind popping along for a quick meeting. After all, it’s 10 minutes away from your desk and you might even get some free sandwiches. However, video meetings can rapidly feel like they fill a whole day, leaving no time to actually get work done. So try to invite only the people who are really essential. Does your boss, accounts guy, HR person, CEO, and facilities manager, need to attend a call dealing with your concerns about of lack of sandwich options now that the all-day sales conference has gone online?
16. SPLASH OUT
Pay for the pro version of Zoom (and claim it back on expenses, obviously). Nothing says amateur like having to re-log back in every 40 minutes because no one’s upgraded.
A Few Tips NOT JUST FOR BUSINESS, BUT FOR EVERYDAY LIFE
17. PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE
You might have spent 6 hours a day on video calls for the past several months, but remember that not everyone has. This is new for some people, and may be a bit scary, so try not to be too cross when your cousin answers the call with a view of his ceiling for the 56th time. OK, he works in IT, maybe he’s the exception. Give it to him with both barrels.
18. INTRODUCE EVERYONE
If you’re throwing yourself a virtual celebration, remember that not all of your friends might know each other or recognize each other via a screen. In real life people would form smaller groups and get to know each other, so you’re going to have to make sure no one is left out.
19. DON’T BE LATE
If someone arrived at your house 10 minutes late you’d barely notice, but waiting for 10 minutes in front of a blank screen feels like an age. You’re soon down a wormhole of paranoia, having convinced yourself that your friend is injured or in trouble, when the reality is that their Internet is just being a bit rubbish. A quick text exchange will put your mind at rest. If you’re the one who’s late, try to let people know.
20. BAD NEWS TRAVELS
If you need to have a serious chat with someone about a subject you think they might find upsetting, then an old-fashioned phone call might be the better option. Delivering bad news is going to be painful for both parties — and nobody wants anyone to see their ugly cry face on a video call.
21. IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU
You might have loads of people around, but if you’re on a call to a friend who lives alone, try to give him or her your undivided attention and take the call in a room where you can chat one-to-one.
22. BE KIND
You might be bored of video calls, but remember some of your friends and family might be feeling really lonely and this call might mean a lot to them.
THERE’S LOTS MORE
There are 101 tips, told with lots of humor, in the book You’re On Mute. From work to social events, family gatherings, multi-generational calls, video quizzes, interviews, cybersecurity, screen sharing, boundaries, and more, pick up some new tricks on how to make your Zoom calls more enjoyable and more effective.
