Friday Focus: Utilising Free Video Conference Tools

In case you missed our first exciting edition of "Friday Focus" please find it below, and here is the link to the notes.


It would be impossible for us to cover everything, and there's other platforms out there for your business to try but here are some top tips which you can apply to all video conferencing tools:

1. Consider your internet speed. We sadly are not all blessed with fibre internet and video conferencing needs a lot of your bandwidth. So, consider, do you need to show your face or will just voice work? You could also look at plugging in your laptop direct with a LAN cable. Disconnect other  devices from the wifi, you don't need to be on your phone checking Facebook when business calls!
2. Have an agenda for the call. As we covered in our stream, some platforms give you a limited amount of time in their free versions. With an agenda there's no excuse to get cut off! With everyone at home, surrounded by their own distractions, it's very easy to go on a tangent so stay on message to ensure the most effective use of everyone's time.
3. Elect a chair for the call. We don't mean find somewhere comfy! As it's so easy to get distracted have someone who chairs the call, the same way they would chair an actual meeting. This helps you stay on message, it also is a good way to police the call and help everyone be heard.
4. Have patience and don't interrupt. One of the key struggles people have is waiting their turn to speak, we all struggle with it so don't feel bad, but just be mindful and let everyone have their turn. Using the tip of having a chair above, hopefully everyone will have their turn to speak and time for questions and queries we be made. Don't be afraid to ask to return to a point so you can get your point across.
5. Location. We appreciate that whilst on lockdown the choices for locations are limited! However do your best to be in a room by yourself and as quiet as possible. Having your dog interrupt the call doing something cute is only tolerable so many times! Think about the potential background noises and distractions around you and do your best to isolate them. The less distractions the easier the call will go and the faster you can go back to doing your work!

If you are interested in our next stream, it'll be on Friday 3rd April at 1pm and we will be covering using Trello to Keep Track of Team Tasks. You can view it on www.digitalucs.co.uk/live or head to our Facebook page  to view direct. Give us a like to be notified when we are going live. You can also find the schedule for the upcoming streams on our website. What are your top tips for video conferencing?