The setup
Raise the laptop on a stack of books until the lens sits at eye level or slightly above, and frame yourself from the chest up with a little space over your head. Put the light in front of you, ideally by facing a window, because a window behind you turns you into a silhouette. Keep the background plain and tidy. A blur is steadier than a virtual backdrop, which tends to swallow hands and hair. Sound matters more than picture, and wired earbuds or a headset beat the laptop's microphone and end the echo. Dress as you would for the same meeting in person, all the way down, because sooner or later you will have to stand up.
Joining and speaking
- Open the link five minutes early in case the software wants to update, and join two minutes before the start.
- Enter muted, unmute to speak, and mute again whenever you type, cough or hear a siren outside.
- Keep your camera on when the others do, and if you must turn it off, say why in the chat.
- Look at the lens while you speak and not at your own image, which you can hide in the settings.
- Leave a longer pause than you would in a room, since the delay makes people collide, and use the raise-hand button in groups of more than six.
Sharing your screen
Share a single window and never the whole desktop. Before you do, close your email, your messages and any tab you would not project on a wall, and turn on do-not-disturb so that a friend's text does not arrive in front of the whole department. Enlarge the text, because your full-size screen is a small rectangle on someone else's laptop.
What everyone can see
Eating on camera is unpleasant to watch, though drinking coffee is fine. Reading email is visible as well, because eyes that scan left to right and a face lit by a changing screen give it away. When a child, a pet or a delivery breaks in, mute, deal with it, come back and apologize in five words. Keep the chat for links and questions, and assume the host can read a saved transcript, private messages included. Ask before you record, since many states require the consent of everyone on the call.
Tip When the connection stumbles, turn off your own video first. Audio needs far less bandwidth, and a clear voice with no picture serves the meeting better than a frozen face.
