Join the meeting from a suitable location
Joining a participative online meeting is best done from a location that is comfortable, well-lit, quiet, and free from background noise. Make sure that your position, your screens, and your ability to move will enable you to keep your neck and shoulders free from strain. Keep hydrated, and keep mobile. And take breaks as breaks. Don’t use them as an opening to do yet more work sat down at your computer.
Make sure that your internet bandwidth is sufficient
In joining a participative online meeting you may well be using twice the traffic you typically use for a video-conference call. Check also that nobody else on your network is likely to be using anything that requires high bandwidth at the same time. And ensure you have a reliable connection.
Please don’t be the person that holds everyone up.
As with physical meetings, leave yourself time to get everything you need and prepare yourself. And join the meeting early, with time to fix anything that might not be working correctly. Do this well before the meeting is due to start.
Switch your webcam on. Always.
Our faces and our expressions are THE key psychological mechanism for communicating with each other. This is especially true when we are listening to someone else. Seeing each other face to face is also important for influencing people, and for sustaining relationships. If possible, place your webcam near your view of other participants. In this way it can appear that you have real eye-to-eye contact.
Use a headset if possible.
The reason for this is that you can still hear the important sub-vocal responses (the helpful ‘mmms’ and ‘errrs’) when you are speaking. With a headset they are less likely to be muted out. It is also less likely that people will hear their own voice coming back to them (with a delay).
Consider carefully where you place you microphone
If you are in a low-noise environment, your murmers can be helpful and encouraging to the speaker. But the sounds of eating, drinking and heavy breathing may not be. For that reason, I normally position my headset microphone just below eye-level – above my mouth and nose. And I mute it whenever appropriate.
Close down all other windows and alerts
Try to switch off anything that is not connected with the meeting. And (if at all possible) switch your phone off too. We do the equivalent of this for physical meetings (only bring the relevant documents, and block possible interruptions). And we do it for very good reason. The challenges and opportunities of joining a participative online meeting make this discipline more important, not less.
Encourage and explore contributions from others.
It is easy to overlook quieter and more reflective people as discussions become more excited or intense. This happens even in a physical meeting, with everyone sat around the table. But the risk is increased in a virtual meeting, especially one in which not all webcams can be seen. Actively ask the opinions of those you don’t often hear from. And always express interest and curiosity about whatever contributions they make.
Participate fully in whiteboard exercises and polls.
Virtual meetings can miss out on a lot of the signals that are available to us as we engage with people in the physical environment. But they can more than make up for this with the opportunity to communicate and share easily, simultaneously, using multiple channels. In joining a participative online meeting, try to utilise them fully, even though they may seem alien and unfamiliar at first.
Accept that technology goes wrong, frequently.
Please expect a higher level of issues than we experience in physical meetings. And try not to get frustrated with it, with yourself, or with the situation. But if at all possible have back-up alternatives already set-up for how you can quickly rejoin the meeting and get back into participating effectively.
And endeavour to set yourself up with two screens for all of your virtual meetings.