5 ways to put an end to rubbish video-calls
November 16, 2016 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Featured Articles, Front Page
5 ways to put an end to rubbish video-calls
“31 hours a month wasted in meetings” according to a recent infographic by Atlassian. Well that’s a hell of a lot. It’s nearly 2017 isn’t it? Everything’s slicker, faster, better, no?
So here’s 5 bonafide ways of how to give your meetings a serious injection of efficiency.
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You’re better than Skype.
Skype or anything similar, yes you hangouts, is your video-meeting equivalent to a 10 year relationship of convenience. No-one’s happy but all your friend’s know them and although they never make an effort to improve, they’ll always be there for you.
Leave them! Software has developed and you can have much better quality video and audio along with 8+ people in the call, free. The best ones don’t even have a sign-up. One-click and you’re in. Give teamtalk.io a try to see what I’m talking about. Honestly the difference is astounding.
2. Audio-record your meetings
This is mega-helpful. Click a button, and audio-record any part of the call. Get emailed a secure link (which expires in 3 days) and keep yourself and others refreshed on key parts of the meeting. This is actually one of the main reasons TeamTalk is awesome.
3. Checklist that.
An interactive checklist that everyone on the meeting can see, add to and cross off. Sounds so obvious but barely any video-call services have it! This has saved me hours a month and allows the meeting to flow.
4. Web-RTC
This is the tech-y stuff. Basically it means that your calls don’t go through a centralised system. No downloads, or clunky software and much more secure. Choose your own URL. Send that URL to your team and hey presto.
5. Be more ‘video-efficient’
Having a text box to rely on, so you can quasi-write quasi-video call, does not an efficient meeting make. Too many communication vessels spoil the broth. Keep your text-talk and your video-calls separate. They both have their advantages.
And that’s that. If you, like me, even loosely follow this checklist you’ll be able to turn some of those 31 hours a month into productivity hours. Or even worst-case, avoid staring hopelessly at Ian from accounts’s pixelated, frozen face every Friday afternoon.