Latest news and views from Conference Genie

Business practices change constantly with new inventions. Video conferencing is one of the latest ideas to make things easier around the workplace.

Enhanced Technology and Communications

Video conferencing has been around for a while, but only recently has it gained enough in quality to make it worthwhile as a tool for most businesses. Lagging internet connections make for jumpy movements and disconnected voices, but increased infrastructure is improving that.

Less Travel and Reduced Environmental Impact

Meetings that once required days for travel and required accommodations to be scheduled now take place with people at their desks or in nearby conference rooms. Educational opportunities widen as virtual students pop into classroom world-wide.
More Business Meeting Options

For today’s businesspeople, that means options are changing. The benefits of seeing someone in a meeting or presentation give more to communicate with than phone or email can provide, since visual cues are lacking during most of the correspondence.

Saving Time and Staff Absence

While cutting some of the travel is good for the budget, removing the days out of the office for the staff to manage meetings with other locations is a better reason for video conferencing. Commercial flying to remote locations can take a day or two out of the work week. Finding a larger meeting room off-site to accommodate all the participants takes more time to track down.
Working Flexibility for Employees

For larger projects, video conferencing allows an employee to work at home, rather than relocating temporarily to another location for the duration. Larger companies can take the world-wide stage as an option to stagger work in different countries to meet deadlines and schedule video conference meetings to keep all involved on where to start and end for the day’s work.

There are still occasions that call for actual travel, but video conferencing can help you make the most of those business decisions by knowing how to get the most out of the options available to you.

Stay organised and make certain you personally use the video conferencing option to understand how to make the best use of it before telling all your employees to use it. The best management practices lead by doing and make the most of everyone’s time and abilities.

Keeping up with the video conferencing angle allows great flexibility for businesses to expand and grow into better practices for profit and productivity. It is a great information and communication tool for companies to build their ability to work.

Here are 10 of Video Conferencing’s newest (and sometimes, unlikely) users:
Health Professionals

Patients are accustomed to visiting doctors in their offices, but video conferencing can change some of those visits. Disease management for treatment of a long-term disease, specialist referrals, support services in campuses and remote offices, remote patient monitoring, and nursing call center services all bring new opportunities.

Telecommunication

Journalists are beginning to get press videoconferences to allow international presence. Access to a computer allows them to ask questions and report on more events without relying on second- or third-hand information.

Education

Classes taught by video conference bring teachers and students together over long distances to experience the classroom feeling without extensive travel. It also creates options for virtual tours and meeting exciting people who can’t visit a classroom, like NASA officials or native language speakers in the same age group as students.

Surveillance & Security

Remote monitoring, motion detection, and video broadcasting are some of the features used for surveillance. Warehouses or empty facilities keep things safe by the video conferencing tools. They also could set up a person to reason with if someone enters during a time other than the norm without automatically alerting authorities.

Government Ministers

Busy officials can link in to meetings via video conferencing instead of traveling. This means they can get more use out of their time and still attend meetings at more than one venue when necessary.

Emergency response
During an emergency they’ll show up at the door, but video conferencing helps keep them trained to deal with the worst that can happen while saving on fuel and travel expenses.

Budding families

Families spread over large distances or in different countries are beginning to use video conferencing to keep in touch and show how much the babies grow. This alternative can be cheaper than plane tickets, especially for new grandparents who want to make weekly or daily appointments.

Prisoners

Video Conferencing makes for easier connections between parents and children, especially when getting regular visits scheduled with out-of-state children. Lawyers and judges are finding video conferencing benefits for hearings and depositions to speed proceedings by increasing the number of arraignments and “Assignment of Counsel” sessions per day and eliminating travel to the jail.

Seniors

Letters, phone calls, and emails only go so far, and all of them lack the nonverbal cues so vital to communication. Ideas to keep seniors included in the family life are meals and sharing stories to different generations. They also have added security when alone in the house to call someone on the video conference to stay alert during times when a repairman is expected.

Churches

Whether it’s bringing conferences to more people or simply spreading the message from the church, video conferencing proves to be very effective. There are no virtual sermons yet, but group counseling, education, and meetings between officials are on the rise.

Here are some of the most annoying and embarrasing habits of Video conference calling. Make sure you don’t get caught out!

The Mute Button

It’s important to remember whether your mute button is on or off. As a facilitator, you must give the respondent time to take the mute off and answer.
The responders must use the mute button when not speaking and remember to put the sound on when necessary. Don’t mutter into the microphone or talk to yourself. Always assume they can hear you. Limit sidebar conversations within the room and pay attention to the speaker.

Gestures

Be aware of every single gesture you make. Talking with your hands might be acceptable when in the room with other people, but watching it on video can make others nervous or dizzy.

This is especially true when lagging video may only catch a few movements and makes the image at the other end of the conference jumpy and disjointed. Gestures may also give someone a bad impression of you, so try to isolate any bad habits, like scratching your nose, ahead of time to keep them from creeping into the video conference.

Forgetting Introductions

You may not see everyone at all times during a video conference. Introductions make people feel more like they know who is talking. Make nameplates with at least 4 cm letters for easy reference.

When more than one location is involved, make a plate with that name, also. Address everyone directly when asking questions. “Mike, did you have those numbers?” “Susan, can you tell me…?”

Something Else in Your Mouth
Food, gum, or other items that might otherwise occupy your mouth are a definitely no-no during video conferencing. While you might not always have the camera on you in some larger meetings, no one wants to look over at you and see your jaw working.

The kindest assumption they can make is you’re attempting to talk and not being heard. At worst, they see your open mouth and what occupies it during their possibly lagging connection.

Time

Begin and end all video conferences on time. This is respectful to all attendees, because they definitely have other work to do even if they are not scheduled for another meeting.

It also lets them know what to expect. If someone constantly drags meetings from a half hour scheduled to two hours actual time, no one wants to go and their attention wanders. Adults are alert for 30 to 45 minutes at a time; schedule appropriately.