Five steps to get going with video meetings
It’s easier than ever to get started with video meetings. You no longer have to think about major investments and advanced conference rooms. Nowadays, one corner of the office can be turned into an effective place for video conferencing. Follow our five steps below, and you and your colleagues will be ready to say hello to the world, with good audio and video to make the meeting natural and simple.
1. Needs analysis
Start by analyzing what needs exist for distance meetings in your organization. How many participants, which service or platform do you want to use and are a number of different alternatives needed – which sometimes might even need to be combined? Involve those colleagues who regularly attend meetings and weigh their needs into the basis for your decision.
Start by considering these questions:
- How many people have to be able to sit together at your end of the video meeting? Do you need solutions for meetings of different sizes?
- How many simultaneous distance meetings must it be possible to hold at the office?
- Do you need special equipment to be able to arrange distance working, for example from the home?
- What is the attitude in the organization towards video meetings? A simple audio conference is always an option, but maybe it’s time to discover the added value of both seeing and hearing each other well?
- What kind of services, platforms and connection methods must the video solution support?
Further reading:
How to address the end-user conferencing challenges
2. Choose mode of use
After the needs analysis, it’s time to decide which use cases and types of distance meetings are to be supported. There are user-friendly solutions for all services and platforms, also for environments where different technologies and scenarios need to be combined. Focus on the needs of users and let a knowledgeable reseller guide you to the right decision.
Start by considering these questions:
- Do you want solutions for video meetings or is phone conferencing sufficient?
- Will users be bringing their own laptops with meeting apps such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom – often referred to as Bring Your Own Meeting – or are you looking for an all-in-one solution so that the room is always ready for video meetings?
- Do you want to be able to combine the latest collaboration tools in the cloud with regular phone calls, so-called hybrid conferences?
- If you have good, effective conference phones with USB connections, it can be a good idea to just buy some video cameras and smart hubs. To upgrade to video meetings, quite simply.
Further reading:
Why you need video in your meeting rooms
The smart shortcut to a video solution
3. Make room
What are the spaces like where your organization is going to hold video meetings? You don’t necessarily need to think in terms of traditional conference rooms. You will probably be needing to equip a number of small rooms, known as huddle rooms. Or set up an unused part of the office that has been furnished to serve as huddle space.
Draw up an inventory of the premises based on these questions:
- Choose equipment that is adapted for the number of people that must be able to gather. It is common for the need for sound performance to be underestimated.
- Video meetings benefit from having few, but good light sources, so that the video camera can adapt to the light. Also try as far as possible to avoid backlight. Do you have this kind of room, or can it be created easily?
- Do you have or can you create spaces without disruptive background noise and large, smooth surfaces that cause sound to reverberate?
- There are different kinds of cameras, which are optimized for different sizes and furniture layout in meeting rooms. A suitable camera for a huddle room where participants are sitting close to the display must have a wide field of view, ideally around 120 degrees, so that everyone fits naturally into the picture. In deep rooms, it is useful to have a good-quality optical zoom, combined with panning and tilting (PTZ).
Further reading:
8 things to think about before a video conference
4. Installation
If you choose a video kit from Konftel, installation is quick and easy, if you don’t want to spend time on neat, advanced cable installations. Then all the user needs is a USB cable to their computer, thanks to the smart One Cable Connection, to connect the camera, audio device and display.
To bear in mind when performing the installation:
- How far is it between desk and display?
- It’s often a smart idea to place the connection hub under the desk. Obtain an extension lead to the camera if necessary.
- The ideal position for the camera is at eye level.
- Do you need extra microphones so that everyone can be heard?
- Will the person leading the meeting always be sitting in more or less the same place, or should it be possible to vary it?
- There are web-based help tools available so that the IT administrator can configure and update IP conference phones remotely.
- Register all products to gain access to continuous software updates.
Further reading:
How to choose the right conference phone
5. In the meeting
There are a few simple things to bear in mind to ensure a good, high-quality and productive video meeting once everything is in place.
To bear in mind for the video meeting:
- Investigate which audio and video devices your computer uses before you start the meeting. This is an extremely common source of problems in distance meetings. This can often be adjusted in the meeting app’s settings.
- Make sure you don’t drum your pen on the desk or tap away too forcefully on the keyboard. This generates disruptive noise for remote participants.
- If you are running the meeting in an app on your laptop, you should switch from Wi-Fi and connect via a network cable if you have the opportunity.
- Before you start your video conference, it’s a good idea to check what the participants at the meeting will be seeing. An extremely muddled or noisy background makes it more difficult for participants to concentrate on the meeting.
- Try to look into the camera at regular intervals during your video meeting, even if you are taking notes, so that everyone feels involved in the meeting.
Further reading:
Seven steps to better meetings
How we perceive and are perceived by others
