The average white collar worker interacts with others through a screen more often than in-person now that the COVID-19 outbreak is in full swing. Home confinement has forced millions of people to figure out the nuances of live video conferencing technology in order to continue to collect their paycheck while quarantined. Though most people have heard of live video services such as Zoom and Skype in passing, few understand how to use these technologies. Let’s take a look at some tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of video conferencing tools.
Share Your Screen
Sharing your screen during a Zoom call is an essential function that will help you provide guidance to colleagues, trainees and others. Pressing “Alt” and “S” on the keyboard shares the screen. This combination of keys cuts away from the webcam feed to show the entirety of your screen to meeting participants. You can also click “Share Screen” from the Zoom settings menu and enable the “Enter Full Screen” feature for shared screen functionality.
Record the Meeting
Companies that subscribe to premier Zoom plans are provided with the option of cloud recording. This feature records the meeting audio directly to the cloud. Zoom artificial intelligence facilitates the transcription of the meeting with timestamps to save a complete transcript of the session.
Transcription can be directly shown in the recorded video. Here’s how to do it: Click Recordings -> Cloud Recordings -> Enable Audio Transcript -> Save the changes. Don’t forget to click the “Record” button then “Record to the Cloud” after starting your meeting.
Look Your Best
Though you will be working from home for weeks or possibly even months, that is no excuse to look anything less than professional. If you do not look your best or close to it while interacting with colleagues and superiors through live video streams, your peers will think less of you. Thankfully, Zoom has some helpful tools that enhance streamers’ personal aesthetic during virtual meetings. Tap into the power of the video conferencing tool’s Touch Up My Appearance feature and you will be empowered to perform some valuable self-editing prior to your meetings.
The Touch Up My Appearance tool helps minimize those unsightly dark bags below the eyes likely to form during your sleep-challenged nights amidst the stressful COVID-19 outbreak. Zoom’s Touch Up My Appearance also helps smooth out the skin, reducing the visibility of aesthetic imperfections. The best part is these self-edits look natural as opposed to artificial, creating the impression you really do look your best even though you might have rolled out of bed a mere 10 minutes prior to the virtual meeting.
In order to access this helpful tool, all you have to do is go to Zoom’s settings menu, click the left panel’s Video option and click “Touch Up My Appearance.”
Add a Background
Most people who work from home during the COVID-19 crisis do not have the cleanest living space. Some at-home workers have to contend with kids, a pet, one or several roommates and piles of clutter yet to be tended to. Instead of presenting yourself in front of a mess in your living room or bedroom, add a Zoom background. Zoom has an array of landscapes sure to make you look that much more organized and presentable during important virtual meetings. In fact, you can even upload your business’s logo as your background during video meetings, creating the impression you are conducting the meeting in a workplace conference room.
Simply click the cogs button on the Zoom display to activate the Settings menu. Click the virtual background from the left menu pane. From here, you can choose your selected background. If you prefer to customize your background, click the “+” symbol positioned by “Choose Virtual Background.”
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