Make the Most of your Video Conference Meetings with this One Tip!

Struggles with video conference meetings come up all the time when I talk with business leaders. They know the nonverbal information they receive is compromised by the computer screen, yet they still want to make the video conference meeting as effective as an in person meeting to save time and money.

What are businesses to do? There are many articles on-line, like this one from Entrepreneur with “do’s and don’ts” or this one from the Free Conference Call blog. However, nothing I have seen talks about the distance between you and the camera. Yes, angles, lighting and volume, etc., but the number one way to get more nonverbal information and improve your video conference meeting is to have everyone back up! You should strive to see at least chest up on your video screen rather than a bunch of Brady Bunch heads. Why?

• You will feed your limbic brain more nonverbal behavior.
• Gestures will come into the screen.
• You will be able to see the direction of body shifts.
• Dynamism of speakers will come through.

It is also more difficult to “hide out” and do other work on other devices. Your participants will automatically need to pay more attention!

For another tip, watch this short video clip.

Don’t forget about smiling, volume, annunciating, etc., but moving back further from the camera is the first place to start improving your video conferences.

For many more tips and nonverbal secrets, visit the Moving Image You Tube page and subscribe!