As many of us have noticed first-hand, the COVID-19 crisis and working from home has caused a massive spike in usage of video communication tools. In an earlier post I wrote about the stunning growth numbers reported by Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

For some organisations frequent collaboration via online meetings has come as a completely new thing. Others have been doing this for years, especially distributed organizations with multiple locations. Regardless of the experience level, I’ve noticed that a few things are often overlooked when preparing for video meetings. I’m talking about relatively small fixes that can have a profound impact on how people hear, see, and ultimately understand each other.

The first thing is to ensure is that your microphone doesn’t catch voices and sounds from other participants. Zoom (and other similar software) will do a pretty good job in filtering and processing audio so that you don’t get echo or feedback, for example in a situation where you’re using your laptop’s built-in speakers and microphone.

The problem is that the more audio processing Zoom has to do, the more sound artifacts and distortion there will be, especially if somebody starts talking while you’re talking. The easy solution is to use headphones, which of course come with the added benefit of reducing the amount of noise people around you have to endure.

The second thing is to ensure that you’re using a decent mic so that your voice sounds as good and clear as possible. Built-in laptop mics vary a lot in quality. For example, the new 16” MacBook Pro has a very good built-in mic (it could even function as a backup podcasting mic), but the mics on the MacBook Air and the 13” MacBook Pro leave much to be desired.

I would recommend to use an external USB mic whenever possible (which you can find for less than 50 euros) and to have it as close to your mouth as possible. Alternatively, use the mic which is built into your headphones, for example the mic in your AirPods.

Finally, the point with video meetings is that you can actually see the person speaking and thereby catch facial expression and other visual cues. This will of course be impossible if you have strong backlight from a window or if you’re sitting in a dark room. The easy fix here is to always check your background and to make sure you have enough light on your face. A table lamp will often do the job just fine.

With just a few simple fixes video meetings can be improved a lot. This is important especially if you have several participants and the meeting topic is complex, potentially causing a lot of debate. If the meeting is held in a language which isn’t everybody’s native language, the benefits should be obvious. After all, the point is to collaborate and that requires that we understand each other.