This past week, I got to kick off my Leadership In Action project in a most unusual way. Instead of going onsite, the team made use of the new monitors in the Owen library meeting rooms and held a virtual kickoff face-to-face with our client. In addition to being one of the cooler/geekiest moments of my business school career, it also revealed some interesting tips for video conferences in general.
It Matters Where You Look
Because I wanted our team to look like we were actually looking at the client instead of the computer screen, I set the computer as far down the table as possible. This minimizes the discrepancy you usually find when using webcams. Granted, we had a couple of interesting moments where we had to reference things on the big monitor a good 30 degrees above the camera, it definitely made the difference in the professional look and feel of the call.
It Matters What Your Body Language Says
It’s apparently really easy to look like an evil genius on video conferences. Though I only noticed it about 10 minutes into the call, at first I had my elbows on the table and my hands clasped together, right under my chin. Put a person on either side of you with significantly more relaxed styles and you have the makings for a really interesting scene. My best advice on this is to make sure that, if you have to have multiple people on the call with you, to mirror each other’s body language. Talk about it before hand and definitely do a camera test.
It Matters How You Close It Out
Video conferences tend to close out like phone calls more than in-person meetings. This can be slightly awkward. Let’s just say this; make sure the client hangs up first.
All in all, I do recommend at least trying out video conferences. It can be a great way to up the professionalism of project and increase the connection between your team and your client. Also, for more on video conference; check out this videoconference etiquette list or the software we ended up using.
Read the full article: The new frontier in project communications