Engaging in Online Meetings

    If you are anything like me, you know what it's like to never pay attention when in an online meeting. They are boring and can never grab your attention. The professor of your class uses the same slide format every week and talks in the same monotone voice, so you'd rather be playing with your cat than focusing on class.

    This week I listened to a podcast produced by Stanfords Graduate business school titled Quick Thinks: How to Shine Online and Excel at Virtual Communication (listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/19uW3rmMNnjcswqi5cOrNV?si=OmkqYKGLQz2RJbtf6QNZtg). This episode was a shorter podcast, only about 8 minutes, but talked a lot about how to successfully communicate online using platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. 

At the time this episode was released, the current pandemic had been in full swing for a little over a year in the United States and everything such as school, business meetings, and every hanging out with family had moved online to virtual platforms. The host invited several people online to share tips on how to be successful on such a platform. These included changing activities every 10 to 15 minutes and making sure you are engaging, well-sorted, and providing breaks as it keeps those involved focused on what is happening (Abrahams, 2021, 1:36).

 I know personally when I was in classes last year, I could almost never stay focused on what was happening in class because we were staring at the same lecture slides in the same format every single class with no change. I would write down what was on the slide and then get distracted with my cat or my phone. The few classes I was actually able to pay attention to the entire time were classes that used videos, or where we would go into break-out rooms to talk to each other and solve problems.

 A few other tips given by the host himself are to make sure you have good lighting, are in the frame of view, and make eye contact with the camera (Abrahams, 2021, 5:51). In our class discussions in my COMM 211 course, we have talked about presenting yourself in a job interview online. The same basic concepts apply to both situations here. One article we read in class, in particular, gave a lot of the same tips: sit forward, keep your hands visible, make eye contact, ensure good lighting, and be enthusiastic or at least not monotone (Levin-Epstein, 2011). 

Any sort of online communication that uses video chat or screen sharing, it is very important to make sure you keep the others involved engaged. I think this can be done by starting the meeting with just yourself with your camera on saying hi, asking how everyone is doing. This directly brings people into the conversation and starts their focus with the meeting. When I would join classes and the professor would immediately jump into slides on the top of the hour without any other proper introduction to that day I never felt as though I was brought into the class in the first place. Without having the benefit of actually sitting in the classroom or office during the meeting, there is not much to grab someone’s attention. People naturally want to pay attention to things that are interesting and different. By repeating the same thing every day with students or coworkers who are sitting in the same room where nothing is different, you are already starting off on the wrong foot. This decreases communication and makes any further attempt to progress futile.

Abrahams, M.. (Host). (20021, April 16). Quick Thinks: How to Shine Online and Excel at Virtual Communication. (No. 31) [Audio podcast episode]. In Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques. Stanford GSB. https://open.spotify.com/episode/19uW3rmMNnjcswqi5cOrNV?si=OmkqYKGLQz2RJbtf6QNZtg 

Levin-Epstein, A. (2011, September 13). Ace Your Skype Job interview: 14 smart tips. CBS News. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ace-your-skype-job-interview-14-smart-tips/ 

*Image from The Guardian, By Bogdan Kurylo/Alamy*