How To Set Up Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is important, all the same ofttimes complicated. Common questions include, "what's the ideal room setup?" or "what tools should I be using at my company?"

It'due south hard to know what's right!

Although many of usa consider ourselves to be video conferencing experts at this point, we're still running inefficient meetings and leaving meetings disappointed. Meeting isn't easy—whether that'southward in a virtual infinite or an office - or in today'south world, a mix of both. But that doesn't hateful nosotros shouldn't gear up the way we accept meetings to make them easier on us all. Let'due south swoop into our biggest obstacles and how we tin set ourselves upward for amend video meetings.

Video conferencing setup challenges

Despite the countless options when setting up for video conferencing, simplicity always wins. And with that, there's one common video conferencing setup we will never, e'er recommend.

Ready?

You should never prepare up your meeting room with a standalone in-room computer. It's difficult to utilise, easy to mess upwards and volition slow downward the start of every meeting.

How exercise we know this setup is the worst?

Because we lived with information technology at Owl Labs for half a twelvemonth. In our room, we had an Intel Nuc (a mini PC) connected to a Coming together Owl Pro and a TV monitor.

When people consider using this blazon of setup, the intention is to solve ii things: simplicity and consistency. The first is a plea for fewer systems, fewer wires, and fewer subscriptions. The 2d is a desire to accept the same uncomplicated setup in all your rooms.

Nevertheless, information technology's really all a terrible trap. While adding an in-room computer to your setup might seem simple, information technology really adds a lot of complication.

Let'due south break downwards the challenges around using a standalone in-room computer.

1. It's a struggle to control the in-room computer.

Many people forget when adding an in-room computer to a meeting room that you demand a mouse and keyboard to utilise it. And for information technology to be useful, it should sit down on your briefing room table at all times.

Withal, rarely are in-room computers installed to sit on the conference room tabular array. By and large, it's mounted behind the monitor in the room, or hidden off to the side in a console.

This means that if the keyboard and mouse are all wired, you demand to accept cables long enough to attain the in-room computer. Yikes! Many turn to unwired Bluetooth solutions to help, simply then you have to bargain with batteries running out, having chargers nearby, and getting people to remember to plug the devices in when they are washed with their meetings.

Don't forget, you also need to connect the Goggle box, video, and audio device(due south) to the in-room reckoner. Combine all these challenges and you accept multiple possible failure points in the room.

2. You waste material time at the offset of every coming together.

In 2022, more than 50% of video conferencing users are wasting almost x minutes per meeting on meeting setup. There are ii scenarios that play out.

Scenario 1: Oftentimes when someone schedules a meeting, the person will send a calendar invite with a link to join the video telephone call. Then when the meeting organizer gets to the conference room, they demand to access the link on the in-room calculator. This likely involves logging into their agenda or the video conferencing platform.

Scenario ii: Perhaps a group of people is having an impromptu meeting and thus at that place'due south no agenda invite. That too ways no video conferencing link has been set up yet. Now the coming together organizer needs to login to the video conference platform on the in-room reckoner to start a video coming together, then go the meeting data, and send it to the remote people. This either requires logging into the company conversation platform on the in-room computer or copying the meeting ID from the in-room reckoner to their personal computer and sending it to the remote person — what a mess.

In both cases, the coming together organizer has but spent 10 minutes of everyone'southward time trying to remember their passwords and communicating coming together access codes.

iii. It's a hassle to share content on the screen.

Once the meeting is finally set up and both the remote and in-person attendees tin can meet and hear each other, the coming together organizer has to figure out how to make any necessary content (presentations, spreadsheets, working docs) visible to anybody in the meeting.

If your team uses a file-sharing organization that's the aforementioned as your calendar system, like Google Calendar and Drive, most likely you're already logged in due to the previous setup steps. However, if this isn't the case your meeting organizer needs to login to nonetheless some other system on the in-room computer.

An alternative workaround requires bringing your laptop to the meeting. In this instance, the person presenting could join the meeting from their laptop (besides every bit from the in-room estimator), and then they can share the content on their screen to all attendees at the meeting. The biggest risk is when two computers are logged into the same meeting in the aforementioned room and the laptop isn't muted, y'all might go a lovely ear-piercing sound screeching for a minute or 2.

The last alternative is to have everyone look at the document on their own laptops and to but utilise the video platform for seeing and hearing each other. This works, but likely increases multitasking as everyone has their estimator open and in front of them.

iv. Information technology puts employees' secure information at risk.

The final matter to be considered is the implications of this kind of setup on security. There are two potential failure modes. First, since y'all have people logging into public computers in the office, there's a risk that the person won't call up to log out when they leave the room. This means their e-mail, calendars, file systems, and chat systems are now attainable to the entire company or anyone who comes into the room.

Security is also compromised because with this setup employees are probable to brand their passwords simple and use the same one across systems. This is done with the intention to reduce the difficulty of logging in.

A corporate single sign-on system tin resolve some of these issues, but that is definitely not a simple solution!

The best video conferencing setup for your space

Imagine a world where you get in at your conference room and simply hitting a push button to brainstorm the meeting. Big improvement to the above scenarios, right?

We exercise this with Meeting HQ. The Coming together HQ integrates with your calendar and video conferencing service so you can start meetings in just i tap - scheduled or unscheduled. In that location is no need for a mouse, keyboard, or logins. Information technology saves us time, and we aren't distracted at the showtime of the coming together, so we can focus on the conversation.

Once the meeting has started, our Meeting Owl Pro captures everyone in the meeting room to avoid multiple laptop cameras, speakers, and echoing problems in the office.

That said, nosotros understand that all meeting rooms aren't created equal. Depending on your company's needs, in that location are endless means yous can set up up your hybrid office for better virtual meetings. Let'southward dive into a few spaces in video conferencing where you lot tin meliorate your meetings:

Hybrid collaboration

Regardless of your squad's environment, collaboration should be piece of cake—like sliding a piece of paper across the desk. In some cases, the paper is a Discussion document, and the desk is your company's shared network. While locations may differ, your virtual workspace is one affair every teammate has in common. Your teammates should exist armed with simple hybrid tools for shared work, like screen sharing and certificate editing in real-time.

Whiteboards

The visual learners on your team all love whiteboards - trust united states. Having a dedicated space to map out ideas, jot down notes, and explicate things visually tin ofttimes get a indicate across that wasn't already clear. Accept advantage of whiteboards in your concrete and virtual spaces to meliorate your communication and collaboration all at once.

You tin can even connect your in-office whiteboard to your video meetings using the Whiteboard Owl, which lets video briefing participants see a straight view of your whiteboard while you're writing on information technology. Anyone in the meeting tin can capture and download howdy-res images from the whiteboard so no of import notes get erased abroad. And Whiteboard Enhance makes the presenter transparent so notes are never blocked from your view.

Huddle rooms + conference rooms

Huddle rooms in a concrete function are small areas where 1:1s and modest group brainstorming can happen. The thing with huddle rooms: they tend to be overlooked and don't get set up with video meetings in listen.

If you're conferencing from within a huddle room, make sure your room is well-lit and the room is padded with carpet and piece of furniture to prevent sound reverb. Use a 360º video conferencing camera like the Meeting Owl Pro and so anyone dialing in can feel similar they're right in the room with you. If your coming together is taking place in a conference room, Owl Connect tin can pair more than one Owl together for a more inclusive experience for larger in-office teams.

Home office workers

Not everyone who works from home benefits from their home function existence in an isolated room. Merely there are means to isolate your WFH office from the rest of your home, so kickoff with some simple room dividers to keep distractions out—and piece of work in. Video conferencing setup tips for a WFH office are otherwise the same for folks in function: sit toward an optimal calorie-free source then your face up is well-lit, use a proper headset and external microphone, or soundproof your space, and go along your webcam at middle level.

Source: https://resources.owllabs.com/blog/video-conferencing-setup

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