Friday Focus: Effective Digital Communication

Another Friday and another Friday Focus. This week we were focusing on Effective Digital Communication. If you didn't manage to watch our stream you can watch it below and here are the notes for this session.


As we used Discord as an example platform this week, our top tips are going to be focused around that. It's a really useful tool that is being utilised by work places and digital communities a like so a tool worth an explore. Here are our top tips for using Discord:

1) Active your Keybinds. We are all familar with keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+C for copy, but some tools, including Discord, allow you to set your own shortcuts. This can be used for really useful tools, such as a push to mute/talk key when in voice chat to quickly mute your mike in a chat.
2) In app audio settings. We aren't all blessed with a quality microphone, fortunately Discord has some tools that can improve your sound! The only negative is that you cannot hear your sound yourself so it'll be a team effort to get your sound right but a really great setting from the app.
3) Using the pager. This obviously is inspired by the now outdated pager, and as you'd expect it allows you send direct notifications to those in a chat or even to a direct user. Great for when you need to send out an important update or need a response.
4) Use typographical emphasis. Sometimes a word just needs to be bold to really drive home a point. Fortunately you can! Discord allows for bold, italics, underlined and strike through formatting of your text. You simply put * * around what you want to be bold and it's done. You can find a full list of options on the support page.
5) Control your notifications. Discord is used by so many communities and if you are in multiple servers, the notifications and become overwhelming. Particularly in larger groups, that can be a lot of messages! Fortunately you are able to mute servers so you aren't drowning in them every time you log in! Also great if you want to turn off notifications of a work chat when not working to be able to relax.

Will you be looking at Discord for your business? What other tools are you considering from our stream? We will see you next Friday for our Friday Focus which is going to explore Supporting and Training Others with Technology and specifically using Chrome Remote Desktop. See you Friday!

Friday Focus: Using Trello to Keep Your Team on Track

This week's Friday Focus saw us looking at how Trello can be used to help keep yourself or your team on track and goal driven. Think of it as the virtual equivalent of sticking to do post its too your screen, just more efficient and less waste! If you missed our stream you can view it at www.digitalucs.co.uk/live (as well as our other Friday Focus streams) but it is also embed below:

 You can find the accompanying notes here.

So now that you're up to date, here our are top tips to utilise Trello:

1. Keep it simple. If you over complicate a board, it isn't going to quick to see what you need to do. This is key for both an individual board or a group board. If it's not kept clear and simple, a Trello board can quickly become an overwhelming nightmare! Better to have multiple boards than cram too much into one.
2. Use comments. If multiple members of a team are using a board to complete tasks together, make sure you use the comments option. This will save time having to chase up why something has changed or why something has been done in a certain way. It allows for that quick conversation you would have in the office which doesn't seem worth an email! It's also a great way as an individual to keep a report of when you are doing specific tasks.
3. Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Trello has numerous ways to make your experience as productive as possible, one thing people miss out on is using keyboard shortcuts. We will let you explore these on your own time as there are a lot but one definitely worth noting is pressing "q" will filter the cards to show just what is assigned to the logged in individual! So much easier to focus on your own task than a sea of cards for everyone.
4. Keep it updated. We all know how annoying it can be when you're in a good work flow and someone pesters you for a task you know you've done, but did you mark it as complete on Trello? It's not just about keeping track of yourself, by updating the board, other's will know where you are up to and the time used emailing can then be used productively.
5. Turn emails into cards. Every Trello board has an email address allowing the user to forward an email to the board rather than copying and pasting the same information. Likewise each card has an email too, forward an email to that and it becomes a comment on the card (perfect for tip 2!). This can be a great time saver.

Trello is a great tool, making sure you work smarter, not harder. However it is as only as good as you make it, we all have our own practises when using Trello and now you'll be well on your way to maximise your productivity using it!

Our next stream will be 17th April (not the 10th as it is Easter Friday) and we will be exploring working collaboratively on documents using Google Drive. See you then! 

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?