Did you ever think you would be a master of video calls? Whether that’s for personal use with friends and family or for business meetings in your home office, we’ve all had to learn these skills over the past couple of years.

It’s so convenient because it’s quick and easy to start a chat to discuss that problem or work on that ongoing project. But how is your video etiquette? Even though we’ve been using it for a while now, there’s still things we can improve.

Here’s 3 steps to improving your video call etiquette:

  1. Create and share a meeting agenda – Let everyone know what’s going to be covered and what you plan to talk about, then stick to it. This gives everyone the chance to prepare, to ensure a more productive meeting. You can add this information in Teams in the New Meeting invitation which gets emailed to all invitees. Use the text box at the bottom of the invite to add these details.
  2. Have a suitable background – A messy or busy background can be distracting leading to people not listening to what you are saying. But the big advantage of video calls is seeing others. If you can’t change your real background, change your virtual background to something less distracting. Teams allows you to blur your background.
    Select More Actions (3 dots) > Apply background effects > Select blur > Click apply
  3. Share the right window – It’s better to take your time when screen sharing to make sure you don’t accidently show sensitive information. Better still Teams allows you to select just the one window you want to share rather than the whole screen. Click ‘Share’ then select just the application you want to share with all the meeting participants.

If you want Microsoft Teams for your business or need helping using it get in touch.

March 01, 2022 — Paul Stanyer