Updated in October 2024
Remember when seeing yourself on a screen was a novelty? Three years later, I’m rethinking that excitement.
I admit I have Zoom fatigue. I thought, “Ugh do I really look like that? I’m turning off my camera.” Then, I got better at adjusting the light and angle of my camera lens so I could look a little better than that. Then, after ten weeks in lockdown, it didn’t matter. The whole thing was exhausting!
As we ease into a post-COVID world, it’s clear that Zoom meetings are here to stay. Here’s what I’ve learned about making them a bit more bearable—and effective.
The blips, the cutting out, then cutting back in, when one person tries to speak over another. And the awkward delayed-silence when everyone is trying to be polite and let someone else speak. No one speaks, and we stare at each other in the little boxes.
Oh right! I forgot that there was a business objective to this meeting. Sorry. I got distracted by myself and with everyone all at the same time. Business in the time of Corona virus…not fun.
Now, Three years later, we are getting back to business-as-usual and have (hopefully) acquired some new tips and tricks to making this remote modality effective and productive. Here are a few that I’ve learned.
Digital Workplace tools: Yes, digital communication platforms like Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams have become the new norm. In 2020, Zoom reported 300 million daily participants. What a time for Zoom. These are insane numbers! Think of how much more time you spend on Zoom now during business hours compared to let’s say… 2018.
My favorite new tools are AI notetakers, like Fathom and Copilot. They take notes for you, summarize the meeting for everyone, and even highlight the next steps. Those tools alone saves me almost 3 hours a week.
Meeting Etiquette – Working from home means you are still working. Show up! For your colleagues and for yourself. Here’s how:
Turn on your camera. Eye contact, even if it is digital, is critical for building relationships through non-verbal cues. Turn on your camera. If you’re invisible, no one will remember you. And in a tough decision, they might not even recognize your name.
Front face lighting: The lighting should come from behind your computer to brighten up your lovely face. If possible, place your laptop or PC monitor in front of a window, so you are facing the window while you are looking at your screen. Sunlight is the most flattering. Otherwise, put a lamp angled at your face. Lighting coming from behind your head makes for a dark silhouette which is a little ghostly. We don’t want to spook our colleagues. Look at the light.
Mute your microphone when you aren’t speaking – Microphones pick up a lot of background noise that comes through everyone else’s speakers. It’s annoying and distracting.
Dress for success – You might be at home, but put on a nice shirt, brush your hair, fix your face… present yourself.
So let’s move on to the substance of the meeting, which is supposed to be for making smart decisions and moving projects forward.
Conversation: The purpose of a meeting is to get the ideas from your best and brightest colleagues but talking through a remote meeting can be difficult, especially with the delays and pixelated video. It’s easy to fall into the background. If you are hosting a meeting, make a point of calling on everyone at various points. Make sure everyone contributes, and if someone has been silent for a while, ask them a question. Bring everyone into the conversation.
Content: One big advantage of remote meetings is that you are freed from the confines of a linear slide show. By all means, prepare a deck to get the conversation started and keep the meeting on point. But you also have access to all of the other great content: videos, infographics, contracts, case studies, old timelines that you and your team can reference. It’s right at your fingertips, either saved on your local drive, your network or company DAM. You can literally work with your team as you would on your own, referencing docs and files as you need them. You can present these documents as conversation dictates. The presentation follows the conversation, and everyone becomes better educated as a result.
Story: Business can be boring with its reliance on hard data, charts, timelines, bullet points and other migraine-inducing formats. Frame the information in a story with a beginning, middle and end. Or maybe a problem, solution and resolution. But most of all, include the human element, the emotion, what it means to everyone on that remote call, and to your partners and customers who are the ultimate target for your efforts. Stories are for and about people.
Meetings are for and about people, not pixels. We sometimes forget that as we blithely stare at our computer screen, which is also filled with emails, IMs and a million other distractions. Therefore, it is important to take those extra steps to add a little extra humanity and the personal connection into your remote meetings. Working remote, especially in the post- COVID world, can be lonely. Remote or not, a bit of humanity goes a long way in keeping our digital workspaces productive and connected.
