USING ZOOM MORE AND ENJOYING IT

Here's Some Hints on Improving Hybrid Zooms

Or Google Meet, WebEx, and Jitsi

As writers circles become less local and more connected through video conferencing, and as we travel less and telecom more, we’re all being subjected to hideously clumsy meet-ups where 1/2 of the attendees are online and 1/2 are in the room and all are unhappy. Are we going to outfit our houses with conference rooms? We are not. Here are some tips for HYBRID meetings or get-togethers that just go with a laptop.

Number one: pick a moderator who will pay attention to the meeting and not its content. The moderator basically has to represent the camera and control the action.

If it’s a large live meeting, then set it up where your key speakers have a podium or something like it.

1. Podium solution — place the laptop at a 45 degree angle to the side of your speaker, and in close where the laptop mike will pick them up. Try to elevate the laptop to shoulder height so that the image isn’t tilted up and slanted. Granted that part is hard, and there is a real fear of dropping the computer to the floor.

2. Tabletop or speaker’s table — easier. Again, the laptop to one side aimed at the speaker. Elevate the laptop — I use a Random House and an Oxford dictionary stacked underneath.

The speaker will want to interact with the crowd. I have two suggestions here — if it’s a lengthy to-and-fro, bring the 2nd person up to the front and share the laptop. If it’s Q&A. have the moderator or the speaker repeats each question.

The crowd can arrange itself in the room — down a long table, in rowed seating, whatever.

If it’s a kitchen-table-sized live meeting, then gather everyone around the (smaller) table and use the table to provide intimacy. The new thing we are trying here is to abandon the stationary laptop at the head of the table — often the mike doesn’t pick up everyone and you get periods of unintelligible droning. We have been putting the laptop in the center, and the moderator’s job is to spin it towards each person in turn. If it’s a large table we’ve actually passed the laptop back and forth. Hopefully no one gets carsick.

One thing: the live meeting and its attendees can dominate and the zoom-in-ers can feel left out. A skillful moderator will work to be inclusive, for instance calling on someone in cyberspace when their particular expertise can be of benefit. Another engager is to directly ask each zoomer if they have a question.

Hope this is helpful. Without the double-camera-and batwing microphone in the center of a conference table (the corporate setup), hybrid meetings are always a little clumsy and maybe irritating.