How to be there when you can’t
WITH the fear of contracting coronavirus or if you’re in forced quarantine, you’ll be looking for ways to meet with friends, family, colleagues and customers in the safest way. The sheer thought of meeting up for coffee makes you weigh up the risks of being infected by those around you, the barista, the next table and so on. This doesn’t mean you need to lock yourself in a bomb shelter with all your toilet paper purchases.
ONE TO ONE
If a text message isn’t personal enough and a phone call isn’t visual enough, then get ready to use the cameras in all your devices. Applications like Skype, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Google Duo enable free video calling between your contacts on any device. Whether you’re using a Windows or Apple computer, an Android or iOS phone or tablet, they’re all able to communicate with one another using any of these applications. A recent meeting with a client became a virtual coffee whereby we agreed to sip our morning brew over a face-to-face video call. And whether you are using a 4G mobile connection or using Australia’s blessed internet, you’ll be surprised how well it can perform with enough detail to know whether they’re impressed with that business proposal or not.
GROUP CALLING
Many of these applications will also support group video calling. This can bring families or groups of friends together on a single call. If you’ve just become engaged and want to announce it to many at the same time, this is a great way to capture all the surprised and hopefully happy faces.
If you own an Xbox One and still have that fairly useless Kinect accessory you can actually use Skype on your television.
BUSINESS MEETINGS
Sometimes a video link isn’t enough for a robust meeting. Generally, at least a few slides in a PowerPoint need to be shown, maybe a spreadsheet and two instances of “If you aren’t speaking please mute your line”.
For those in business not used to connecting to and presenting to clients or colleagues remotely, this isn’t as complicated as you may think.
Take a look at Zoom meetings, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Zoho. Many have a free option, or at least a free trial. They will enable you to bring multiple parties together where you can communicate via text, voice and/ or video but also share content.
Geoff Quattromani is a tech commentator. Check out his podcast Technology Uncorked.