How not to crash whilst Zoom-ing your way through Covid-19

Although my freelance consulting pipeline has withered due to C-19, there are some activities continuing online for which I am grateful. Like many people, I have been using online platforms like MS Teams, Skype and Zoom.

Here are my eight tips for Zoom-ing your way to success:

1/ All meeting benefit from a shared aim, a co-ordinator to steer the process, more listening than talking and a note of the key points. This good practice is relevant to online meetings too! I highly recommend Patrick Forsyth’s book published by CIPD, ‘Making Meetings Work’, particularly the introductory quote from J. K. Galbraith that meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.

2/ If you are using video (ask the organiser if it is optional), pay attention to the angle of your laptop and your distance from the screen. We don’t want to look up your nose, or see you peering down at us while the top of your head is missing. Push it a little away and tilt the screen down; even better if you raise it up on some books, or use a remote wifi camera. Remember that we can see what is behind you. If you pay a bit of attention to ‘staging’, then you can relax during all meetings and not worry how you look. You can even ignore your image and just look at other people in the virtual room, just like you would do in the good old days of 2019 when we met in a real room!

3/ Listen to people without trying to interpret the limited body language that you can observe, as it is just too exhausting.

4/ Small movements while listening are useful as they show that the internet connection is still open and you are engaged: nods of understanding and smiles are helpful.

5/ If you wave your hands in front of your face whilst talking it will most likely appear as a blur on other’s screens, which ain’t good.

6/ Help others to relax by confirming that you understand what they have said: summarise their message using some of the same language or order of points.

7/ Mute your mic when not talking otherwise you might have an embarrassment like this:

8/ And finally, look on the bright side, be glad: at least someone wants to contact you. Enjoy the social moment and give yourself some credit for learning a new 21st century skill.

You can learn more about public speaking from Harvard University here.