EDITOR'S NOTE: In February 2020 I began a new venture writing a blog for "News and Tech" magazine, an magazine devoted to the newspaper industry. The blog appears on the site's homepage. This column originally appeared March 9, 2020.
The ever-increasing demands on our time in this at our respective newspapers, and yet there is more work than ever to do. And so becoming efficient with our time should be a top
priority.
One of the most effective places to increase your efficiency is in communication. Ironically, in a business based on communication, it’s this very facet of our business that we sometimes are the least efficient, and therefore the least effective. We can be our own worst enemy, so to speak.
In these past months, as our media services business has grown, and the need to communicate with multiple people located in multiple locations has increased, I’ve become a big fan of video conferencing. And whether you are in newspaper administration, sales, the newsroom or some other segment of the business, we spend more and more time communicating, and with people who may not just be a desk or one room away anymore. This begs the question: So what are you doing to maximize your communication?
As I said earlier, I have begun to use an increasing amount of video conferencing, and I utilize several platforms now, depending upon the team or the client with whom I am working. For instance, our company takes advantage of the Google business suite of tools (known as “G Suite”), and so we often use the Google video chat function known as “Hangouts” to meet.
But if I’m scheduling a Modulist client meeting with a newspaper, say on the East or West Coasts, I’ll defer to a platform known as Zoom. You can find it at zoom.com. Zoom is so much more than just a video conferencing tool, and like many other web-based tools nowadays, the service can range from the free version on up to premium-priced accounts.
I’ll be straight up honest with you: I used the free version for months before finding the need to upgrade to the paid version. And when I did finally take the paid version, it was only because the platform only allows you to make video calls of 40 minute or less with the free version.
But other than that, frankly, the free version has everything I needed to perform a sales call or do a staff meeting, for that matter. You can video chat live, in face-to-face manner; you can share documents; and you can share video, all in the free version. In addition, you can record any meeting, and you can invite as many as 100 participants into a Zoom session. And in all the months I used the free version, I didn’t find that any of the limitations the service placed on me left me wanting to upgrade to a paid premium account, other than the minute limit.
OK, so what’s so hot about the Zoom video conferencing platform? … Let me dig in.
First off, you can sign up for a free account. True story. You can sign up for a free account and start scheduling your video conferences the very moment your account is created. … Sure, there are a few limitations that Zoom puts on the free accounts, such as time limit, but even being in the business of sales, the limitations were never a complete roadblock to me.
If you’ve never used a video conferencing system, let me state this up front: The majority of them perform in similar fashion. So if you can learn to operate one, you can operate most of them. Zoom is like that. In it, you’ll find the typical tools such as a chat function that allows participants to write questions or participate in a side dialogue alongside the main speaker; you can utilize audio functions through the computer or through a phone call; you can record your meetings to your own computer; you can “screenshare” among participants, meaning that anyone on the video conferencing can “take control” of the presentation and lead the conversation; and you can schedule your meetings so that they interface with your calendar applications, which I happen to use Google Calendar because that comes in our G Suite tools.
Finally, one of the most important functions for which I find myself using Zoom, is for recording my own videos. So, for instance, in Zoom, you can fire up a meeting with no other participants in the meeting, and you can record a video of yourself talking and presenting. This function works well to create training videos or even sales and marketing videos that you can share with clients.
I recognize that this may be old hat for some of you. Some of you have likely been taking advantage of video conferencing for years. But, I know there are others of you who think, “If it’s important enough to be meeting about, it’s important enough to be in the same room.” And I respect that sentiment. There are certainly important facets of communication lost in a video conference versus a face-to-face meeting. But what I’m suggesting is that because of the constraints on our time, and the increasing need to communicate with others outside of our own cities, that embracing video conferencing is a smart and strategic move. It just makes good business sense.
If you have questions about using Zoom -- or even the Google Hangouts platform, for that matter -- don’t hesitate to reach out to me at devlyn@modulist.news. I’ll share with you my thoughts on the strengths of each of the platforms, or even other platforms if I’m familiar with them. Or maybe you find yourself on the precipice of utilizing video conferencing as a business tool and you just need a nudge over the starting line, you can reach out to me as well.
To find out more information about the Zoom platform, and how to create a free account, go visit zoom.com. Everything you’ll need to know -- and so much more! -- is there available at your fingertips.
Let’s start getting more strategic about the work we’re doing! … Always striving to work smarter, not harder.
Devlyn Brooks is president of Modulist, a media services company specializing in the processing of user-generated paid content submissions for newspapers. Devlyn spent 20 years writing and editing in newsrooms big and small, dailies and weeklies.
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