Avoid the Day of the Zoom Zombies!

“Welcome to the terrifying world of the Zoom Zombie… coming to a work place near you. A wall of faces, emotionless, dead eyes, voices of presenters a low drone, endless … slowly sucking the life from all who see them.” 

If this trailer rings true  - and I suspect for the majority of businesses it does, then there is a hideous cost. Here's some stats and they’re scarier than real Zombies.

• In the United States, there are around 55 million meetings held each week with organizations spend roughly 15% of their time on meetings.

• Surveys show that 71% of those meetings are considered unproductive.

• An estimated $37 billion is lost per year to unproductive meetings.

So how do we encourage our people to keep cameras on, stay engaged, deal with zoom fatigue… And avoid the Zoom Zombie apocalypse?

So here’s 8 tips to help your teams avoid Zombie Zooms and put their best self forward.

1.   Pre-call. Minds and bodies ready. When attending a video call, we often have a  sense of being physically trapped because of the need to stay within the view of the camera.   In face to face you can move around, stretch, look away etc. That sense of being trapped just isn’t healthy and is also exhausting. In the minutes before the call, encourage people to exercise  - it’ll also help engage their brains and is great for mental well-being.  Here’s some suggestions:

• Jog on the spot furiously for 30 seconds, do some star jumps, pull silly faces and dance to your favourite up beat tune. The sillier the dance the better. The aim here is to free your body and mind and wake yourself up.
• Wave your hands in the air. There’s science behind this, but  waving your hands in the air makes you feel better and more alive. And alive is good on a video call.
• Have some fun banter with colleagues, friends or family. Get those laughter muscles working.

2. Be clear on the purpose of the call. What’s the expectations of the presentation or meeting? This is even more important online than face to face. What do individuals want to achieve and what can they add to the meeting?

3.   “Let go and let God” is used by lots of organisations who help people deal with trauma or extreme stress. I’m not saying your calls induce stress, but individual’s desire to appear cool will inhibit them. Let go of that and trust. Its OK not to be perfect. In fact it's a good thing!

4.   Turn cameras on. Doh! Seems obvious – but if the person you are looking to impress can’t see you then you really are going to be Captain Anonymous.

5.   And on occasion, turn cameras off. Zoom fatigue is a real thing. Create a simple protocol for when you have teleconference, online calls, hybrid and face to face and which is the right medium for a meeting or presentation. And when is it OK to have cameras off. Giving people a break from video will encourage people to have them on when it matters.

6.   Back to back video calls is a disaster. Ensure people have a minimum of 5 minutes between meetings.

7.   Encourage better room and camera set ups.

a)   Eyes level with camera

b)   Get your head and shoulders in shot not just your head or as I’ve seen on a number of occasions, half a head so we just see people’s eyes but no mouth.

c)   Make sure the gap between the top of their head and the frame of your camera shot is as small as possible.

d)   Don’t go too close to the camera – it’s weird and can be a little intimidating and possibly a bit yuck as we focus on your blackheads and spinach between teeth; and also don’t sit too far away so your head becomes a little pea.

8.   Attendees to demonstrate engagement. If audience members make an effort to show they are listening and engaged then it de-stresses the presenter and improves their communication. We can do that by nodding at something we approve of, smiling or laughing a little more frequently, giving little thumbs up occasionally to show that we like what’s being said, or more frequently using the reaction emojis to encourage and help replace the missing body language clues.

Have a look through these 8 – you can probably come up with some of your own as well. This how we avoid the Zoom Zombie apocalypse. And you know we can do it. It’s not so hard!

Work together to build that remote presentation culture and save yourselves from being taken over by that zombie stare. It can be done, it has to be done, save yourselves!!