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Tips for Successful Videoconferences
at Benedictine University
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Preparation
Arrive thirty minutes before your meeting is due to begin in order to prepare and to
ensure the room is arranged appropriately.
How to present
Forget the equipment and chat as if the other person is in the same room as you. To achieve this:
- Sit comfortably
- Have your papers to hand
- Relax and breathe normally
- Talk normally
- Keep a drink to hand
After a few minutes you will forget the technology and begin talking to the other person as if they were with you.
Making best use of time
Videoconferences are usually time-limited, to make best use of time:
- Have an agenda and circulate it to all participants before the conference
- For large conferences, appoint a Chairperson to keep control and keep to the agenda
- Circulate any documents to all sites beforehand even if you plan to transmit them on the day of the conference
- Be succinct
- Don't cut across other people's speech
Distance learning and lecture presentations via videoconferencing
The main problem in presenting lectures (either in real- time or via videoconferencing) is keeping the audience's attention focused on you! So:
- Make your lecture interactive
- Pose questions
- Invite comment
- Look for tell-tale danger signs (bored-looking people, feet waggling, arms folded, eyes closed) and wake them up
- Involve them in the conference; make it two-way, not one-way
- One hour is the maximum length for a presentation and that should be broken-up with audience questions
- Provide the audience with notes ahead of the presentation so they can make notes and prepare questions
Interviews via videoconference
- The candidate may not be used to videoconferencing for interviews. If so, he or she is
likely to be nervous of the technology but determined to make a good impression so that he
or she is seen as adaptable to new technology.
- The interviewers may be nervous for the very same reasons!
- Before the interview, send a list of the interview panel names to the interviewee to help him or her remember your names on the day of the interview.
- Use the first couple of minutes of the videoconference to settle your interviewee and yourself.
- Ask them if they are happy and comfortable. Hopefully, they will say yes. Then, you can start the formal interview.
- Allow sufficient time for them to answer and ask questions and do not cut across their voice.
- Allow enough time to wrap up at the end with a conclusion as to when you will next contact them, whether it will be via letter, phone, etc.
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