26 Ways to Feel Even More in Control on Zoom
Whatever your business, you’ve by now probably run a meeting or two on Zoom. You might even be attending – or running – multiple Zoom calls involving large participant numbers and complex instructions. Maybe it’s all feeling a bit ‘next level’. Don’t worry, though: here’s a checklist, to follow up on The Offer Bank’s first ‘Zoom Tips’ blog. These are various features that all gave me a real ‘light bulb’ moment; hopefully they’ll support you to feel more confident and in control of your calls. NB. All commands are written for Apple MacBook Pro: please check for equivalent steps that match your personal tech.
A Zoom Gallery View of nine screens featuring the same woman that has been heavily graffitied over.
BEFORE
1. Update Yourself
Get the latest version of Zoom on all your devices. You’ll benefit and so will the room, since several functions need everyone using an updated version to work at all.
Zoom.us/ Download
2. Check Filters & Backgrounds
You don’t need to be US lawyer Rod Ponton or a cat to know that filters can have a distracting effect. Open Zoom.us, log in, hit Personal Room: Start and test both video and audio to iron out foibles ahead of time.
3. Plan Your Session in Detail
Calls with big participant numbers, calls that involve Breakout Rooms (BORs) and calls with a lot of complex engagement all need meticulous planning (it’s proven that a bad engagement experience online feels much worse than equivalent in real life). Use a dedicated software package such as Sessionlab.com (recommended to me by the brilliant Erica Marx Coaching. Thanks, Erica!).
4. Book a ‘Meeting Buddy’ or a Team
Are you running a big or complex meeting? It’s a lot to manage when you want to throw in fiddly extras like playing music multiple BORs. Assign a Zoom technician who’ll become Zoom ‘host’, and safeguard smooth running for you, so that you concentrate on presenting. You might even want another pair of eyes on the Chat, for maximum engagement. If there’s a client involved, explain this extra cost and build it in.
5. Have a Tech Back-Up
Not a person but an extra device, eg. your phone. It’ll be eyes on the main room if you need to visit BORs and, if you fall off the call, you’re still there with everyone. Rename it something like ‘tech support’ but don’t ‘join with sound’ or it creates feedback echo.
6. Set Your Recording Mode
Default recording view is Speaker View (the person speaking is the whole screen). If you’d prefer Gallery View to be recorded (even-sized screens), set it up beforehand. Recording view mode can’t be changed once the meeting’s begun; the meeting records as you’ve set it. NB. You can only change view modes if recording to the Cloud.
Zoom.us/ Personal/ Settings/ Recording (this is the top bar)/ Cloud Recording: pick option.
7. Create a Customised Whiteboard
Make a landscape jpeg that has client logos or information on it. When it’s Whiteboard Sharing time, you’ll ‘share’ the customised image and if you save it, it’s a professional-looking engagement memento for the client. Remember to Save, in Annotate, within Zoom, and it’ll save into your Zoom folder on your hard drive. If you don’t, Zoom won’t save the drawings that got added to your original jpeg – it was just a ghost image in the meeting and won’t have any of the cool annotations ‘stuck’ to it.
Open jpeg on desktop. On your call, Share Screen: choose the jpeg: Share: Annotate: and remember to Save.
8. Allow Use of Polls
Polls are great for in-meeting engagement and quantitative results. You need to turn this function on before you start the meeting.
Zoom.us/ Personal/ Settings/ Meeting Polls
9. Write Your Poll
You can write poll questions actually in the meeting if you want to ask a quick question that’s come up but it’s good to set more involved questions beforehand on the website and for the specific meeting. When you’re in the meeting, hit the Polls button and you’ll have the option to launch your question(s).
Zoom.us/ Your scheduled meeting/ Add Poll (down at the bottom)
10. Make a Playlist
Sharing music is great, though I’m impatient for Zoom to write an update that incorporates a single Share Music button rather than it take up to six(!) clicks to play a tune. If you want to share songs, make a playlist so they’re all in one place. Beware adverts crashing in on free Spotify or via YouTube video. NB. If it doesn’t say Sharing Computer Sound in bright green at the top of your Zoom screen, your participants won’t hear it.
Share Screen: Advanced (top of the box): click on Computer Audio: click Share. Now go to your music source on your desktop, hit Play.
11. Enable Closed Captioning
The Zoom Captioning function is excellent and will make your meetings more accessible. One day it’ll be swear-proof but for now, laugh it up.
Zoom.us/ Settings/ Closed Captioning
12. Write Your BOR Messages in Advance
Sure, write directly on your call to the BORs by typing your comment into the ‘Broadcast Message to All’ box. However, if you have complex specifics to impart, write the messages in advance on a note document and copy/paste when you need. The advantage is that you can put carriage returns in, which means the message takes up more space and catches the attention of your busy BOR participants.
13. Practice Quick-Key Commands
Nothing like being quick on the quick-keys draw to put you in control. A whole bunch of Keyboard Shortcuts are in the Video Settings menu: have a read and a practice in a quiet moment.
Start Video chevron: Video Settings: Keyboard Shortcuts
DURING
YOU
14. Confused as to Which Call This Is?!
Maybe you’re a call you didn’t mean to attend. Maybe no-one’s turned up to what you thought was the correct meeting or you need to check you’re signed in with the correct account. Maybe you’re happy to be there but your internet is shaky and you might fall off the call. The tiny green shield symbol top left is your friend: it holds the meeting link. Click to see who you are, where you are; copy the link if you need a fast route back.
15. Check Filters & Backgrounds
“I’m not a cat!” jokes aside, did you fail to check Filters before joining your call? Quickly check what you’ll look like before Starting Video. Zoom’s new Blur Background function is a chill way to anonymise your surroundings. For fun, you can click on the tiny top-right icon on your own screen pic in Backgrounds and Filters and rotate yourself! If you have a Background on, it stays still as you’re upside down, LOLZ.
Start Video chevron: Video Settings: Audio and Background & Filters.
16. Edit Profile Picture
A new-version boon to make your Stop Video screen more, or less, anonymous, as required. Sometimes you want your business logo in the room, sometimes a smiley selfie, sometimes an anonymous neutral lakeside, sometimes a plain black box. This feature gives you a quick upload fix. Store options on your hard drive.
Your screen: Ellipsis: Edit Profile Picture
17. Flip Your Image
Zoom is mirrored by default because seeing ourselves as a mirror image is what we’re used to. Turn off the mirroring and your ‘Self View’ screen becomes the version of you that everyone else on the call (and in life!) already sees. ‘Mirror’ is default to give your brain an easy ride when you have Self View on. No big deal.
Video Settings: Mirror My Video
18. Change Participant Numbers Seen in Gallery View
Toggle between 25 screens and 49 screens per ‘page’, for either wider ‘reach’ or higher ‘focus’, depending on your need in the moment. Getting people to raise their hands and ask a question? Having 49 per page will help. Needing to see expressions and names more easily? Try 25 per page.
Start Video chevron: Video Settings: Maximum Participants check-box
19. Practise Security
Try out a few functions that help with security, such as Lock Meeting, Mute All, Share Screen and Rename. You never know when you’ll need them fast.
Bottom bar: Security
20. Save Chat
If it’s a meeting with lots of useful Chat, Save as you go and, even if you drop off the call, you’ll have saved what was written up to the point you left. The file is saved in a Zoom folder on your hard drive, alongside your saved Whiteboards.
Chat: Ellipsis (bottom right): Save Chat.
THEM
21. Invite Others to Optimal Connectivity
If it’s a big call the room might feel a bit creaky and it’ll definitely take longer to ‘commute’ to BORs and such. Invite everyone to Stop Video for better digital connection or Start Video for better human connection.
22. Control Your Participants
You have the right to control your meetings, as Jackie Weaver would testify. As well Mute or Stop Video, you’ve two modes of removal: put a person in the Waiting Room (when they come back, new Chat won’t be visible to them) or Remove them from the meeting – if you do so, they can’t rejoin on that device.
YOU AND THEM
23. Have People See What You Want Them to See…
You can create a room where everyone sees the same order of screens as you, which can be very useful when you need everyone to follow a specific order. And the old favourite: invite everyone to Hide Non-Video Participants: perfect for quickly highlighting just a few people who don’t turn off their cameras.
24. Spotlight vs Pin
NB. Spotlight: everyone can see it, Pin: only you can see it. A hot tip: get people Pinning each other in pairs and each pair will feel like it’s just the two of them, which is great for movement connections. If you’re Spotlighted as the Speaker, it can be very disconcerting for you – but simply hit Gallery View and you’ll still be Spotlighted but will see the rest of the room in Gallery View: win-win. Zoom can now Spotlight up to nine people, which is cool. Finally, do invite everyone to UnPin each other (or UnSpotlight yourself) at the end of the segment, and invite the room to hit Gallery View for a group reset.
AFTER
25. Log Out
You might by now have a number of bosses or clients and, therefore, a number of attendant Zoom log-ins. You’ll want to jump straight back onto the Zoom.us website after your call and Log Out. If you don’t, the next Zoom link you click on might boot one of your colleagues out of their meeting, because you’re still logged into that shared business’s account.
Zoom.us/ Log Out/ Log In (to the next account you need to use)
26. Connect
Breathe, connect with yourself and write down your reflections (as per my previous Zoom Tips blog). You still need to process what just happened and fresh notes are the best notes.
By Victoria Hogg. Written with gratitude and respect for AIN’s online Open Space USA & Europe teams: you are an inspiration and the AIN is a powerfully positive share space. Thanks for reading and good luck, everyone, with your Zoom calls! To feel even more confident, creative and in control on Zoom and when presenting, check out The Offer Bank.
Picture credits: Brendan Smialowski (Bernie); Autostraddle (Zap!); Anna Kucherova (goat).