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RB | November 13, 2021

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14 Tips to Impress on Your Next Video Call

Video calls won’t be going away any time soon. Despite companies eyeing “return to the office” initiatives remote work is here to stay. The new normal distributed workforce will continue to use video conferencing to support workplace collaboration. It is estimated that by 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely. That represents an 87% percent increase from pre-COVID-19 levels. U.S, businesses have more than 11 million video meetings a day Here is a list of things you can do to improve your effectiveness during your next video call.

Before the video call

1. Dress Appropriately – You want to appear professional. Wear attire that’s appropriate for the type of meeting. This doesn’t mean you need to wear a suit. Assess the situation and dress to match it.

2. Be Prepared – Before attending an online meeting, prepare yourself mentally. This helps you take part more effectively. This also includes preparing materials you may need. This is even more important if you are presenting or need to go through some documents with the team.

Join the video conference

3. Arrive Early – Arriving early helps you get settled in and ready to begin. You’ll have time for small talk, which can help you connect with others. Arriving early also provides additional time to review any documents or presentations prior to beginning the session.

4. Frame Yourself – Position the camera to be straight in front of you or slightly higher. Don’t have the camera off to the side or below you. Sit close enough so that you’re in the middle of the frame. Fill at least one-third of the screen. If you sit too far away, you’ll appear small on the camera.

5. Clean Your Background – Look at what’s behind you and what others will see when you’re on camera. Don’t show a room full of dirty laundry or stacks of clutter. Use the virtual backgrounds available in Zoom and Microsoft Teams. And make sure others in your home know that you’ll be on video to avoid any potentially embarrassing situations.

6. Light Up – When you’re using a webcam, avoid direct sunlight because this can be too harsh. Don’t sit with a bright light behind you because it will be hard for others to see your face. Also avoid bright or harsh overhead lights. They wash out skin tones. Instead, choose soft lighting that lets others easily see your facial expressions.

During the video call

7. Turn the Camera On – Many feel strongly video conference participants should leave their camera on during meetings. When you turn your camera off it is considered a sign of disrespect to everyone else in the meeting.

8. Sit Straight – Your posture should reflect confidence and strength. Do not hunch over your laptop. Keep your shoulders back and head upright. You’ll definitely look better on video calls if you sit up straight. Sitting up straight will help you be more energized while on the video call. Slouching can make you look unmotivated and lazy.

9. Look at the Camera – Eye contact conveys interest and engagement. When speaking, look at your camera so that it gives the impression of making eye contact with those you’re speaking to.

Use common courtesy in the call

10. Pay Attention – Remain focused throughout the entire meeting. That means avoid multitasking. Multitasking takes your focus away from what’s happening in the meeting. The best way to avoid multitasking is to mute your phone. Incoming calls, texts, emails, and social media notifications disturb you as well as other stakeholders.

11. Speak Clearly – Speaking loudly may seem appropriate when communicating face-to-face, but it doesn’t work well over distance. Try using clear language and short sentences.

11. Don’t Interrupt – It’s rude. Interrupting makes it difficult for speakers to finish sharing their thoughts. Instead, wait until they finish speaking before responding.

12. Ask Relevant Questions – It shows that you’re engaged and paying attention. Even if you have nothing else to say in a meeting, asking a question gives you the chance to take part and get noticed.

13. Don’t Gossip – Be respectful of others. Even if you’re having a more casual meeting, spreading gossip makes you look unprofessional and will decrease others’ trust in you.

14. Stay Positive – Being negative does nothing to help anyone’s mood. Instead, focus on solutions rather than problems.

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Using these tips can help you appear more confident and elevate your presence in virtual meetings. This can help you get noticed, and others will take you more seriously at work. And they’ll help you build relationships that can help your career.

Stay safe out there!

Related article

How to Improve Your Posture After a Year of Working From Home (Newsweek)

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Project Management | Tags: Microsoft, Teams, Tips and tricks, video conference, Zoom

RB | May 22, 2020

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Make Excel Dance

I was working with a newish Project Manager the other day and we were building a data collection tool to log some intermittent errors and she was fussing about how to build the tool to get data. Should she email a Word form to the team? I finally asked her what’s wrong with Excel?

I suggested she build the form in Excel, post it up to SharePoint, that way everybody on the team has access to the same document and you don’t have to tease the data out of 50 different emails.

You know Bob the Boss likes clear directions with bullet points on his forms and you can’t do that with Excel.

Say what? – Well newbie you can make pretty text in Excel. Here’s how…..

Use the right font

When you have a lot of information to present – the temptation might be to use a small font – don’t people will ignore it if they can’t read it. When it comes to choosing the best font for displaying both text and numbers, the font you choose matters.

From a readability point of view, the Times New Roman font is considered to be easier and faster to read compared with other fonts. Times New Roman is a serif typeface introduced in 1932 by the British newspaper The Times. The Times New Roman font’s serif design makes reading easier because the characters are more recognizable. But styles evolve over time:

Times New Roman font was fashionable in the 1970s;
The Helvetica font was the go-to font in the 1980s;
The Arial font was dominant during the 1990s;
The Verdana font was widely adopted in the 2000s:
The Calibri font is widely used today.

Microsoft (MSFT) introduced Calibri with Windows Vista in 2006. It is basically a skinnier version of the Arial font. The Calibri font was specifically engineered to be highly legible for both alphabet and numerical characters on today’s smaller handheld devices.

Now that you have made a good choice for your font use it. The Font list is on the Home ribbon- Click font and select the font you want to use. (No Wing Dings or anything that starts with Gothic right?)

Break up the text

When you have a lot of information to explain about a certain task, it’s helpful to include a few paragraphs in one cell. By default, a bunch of text in a cell is truly unreadable. But – you can make Excel display pretty paragraphs.

First your need to expand the column width. The column width will determine how many lines are needed to display the text. Use one wide column rather than multiple rows for lengthy text entries for greater readability and for any lists of data.

To expand the column width put your cursor on the cell boundary and left click on your mouse and drag your column out. Don’t worry about the final column width yet – you can adjust it again and again and again.

Now that you have a bigger column – wrap your text. Click in the cells (or an entire row or column) where you want to display your text. Then click on the Wrap Text button on the Home ribbon.

Or you can right-click on the selection and choose Format Cells, pick the Alignment Tab, and check the option for Wrap Text, finish with OK.

Now – type away! Add as much content as you’d like to the cell. You will have a big blob of text. To improve its readability – insert line breaks in the cell. Line breaks make dense information easier to digest by making it easier to read.

When you’re at a point where you’d like to start a new line, simply press [Alt] + [Enter].

Want to add a blank line to create paragraphs in your cell? Press [Alt] + [Enter] twice.

Add bullet points to an Excel cell

You can also add bullet points in an Excel cell. Bullet points are a great way to concisely convey important pieces of information or instructions. You can easily add bullet points to any cell in Excel spreadsheets.

Double-click on the cell you want to add the bullet to.
Position the cursor at the point that you want to insert a bullet.
Hold down the Alt Key and type 0149 from the numeric keypad.
A bullet appears.

With these easy steps, you can make Microsoft Excel dance for you.

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This is for Windows users – Mac users – your mileage may vary on some of these tips and tricks – but it should be doable.

The transcript of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is courtesy of Cornell University.