Here’s five of my favourites for you; 

1. Stand to facilitate / lead the session. You will look like you are there to lead and your participants will take comfort and feel at ease knowing they are in good hands right from the outset. 
2. Have a script that you share right after you Welcome everyone to the call. Include who you are, what your role is and how the session will unfold. This leads to buy in from participants as they see how they can be involved.  
3. Give out some time markers, so participants know what to expect. Like at 10:20 am we’ll move into the key part of today’s session all about x, y and z.  
4. Share eye contact – yes its a thing! Non verbal communication is more important online than when face to face. Have an observer on your next session with you and ask them to give you feedback with you. The name of the game is to lead an engaging online meeting, forum, session or keynote. Getting your non – verbals down pat is part of the deal.  
5. Build 10 mins into each hour of a session for summary and closing. Share the key learnings / outcomes, or if the group is small, ask participants to do this. If it’s a big group, ask questions and ask people to use their reaction emojis to show support etc.  

We recently facilitated a Leadership Unconference via ZOOM for emerging leaders in the Australian cotton industry with Cotton Australia 90% stated the Unconference exceeded their expectations and 10% shared it met their expectations. Feedback revealed, participants would love more social connection time. Our challenge is to build this into future online events. Check out the best tips we’ve listed here for going above and beyond when you lead your next virtual session. Use these yourself and feel free to send them on to those in your team who lead sessions before your next online get together.  

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I hope to hear from you soon.

The post 5 Tips for your next Zoom appeared first on Ruralscope.

Here are my Top 10 Engagement Tips. 

1. Let’s start with setting up the ZOOM session for success. Just the same here as if it was a Face to Face meeting. Ensure the meeting / forum / session has a clear purpose, be clear about what you want to achieve, who should be invited and how long the session will go for. Get all this sorted before you send out the session invite, and ensure your invitees understand these things right from the get go. 

2. Open up the ZOOM room about 10 minutes early and if there is a small (say under 20) attendees, they can come in and chat among themselves. This also gives people, and especially those new to ZOOM, a chance to try out their technology and ensure all is working. People take comfort from this and you definitely want people comfortable on the session. 

3. We are wired for and at our best when we CONNECT. Start with a few connection activities at the beginning of a session; Ask people to type in the chat where they are calling in from, what their time zone is, what they can see out their window right now, or how the weather is in their neck of the woods. (Just one of these will do) Ask people to put their hand up if they know other people on the call. Do a quick intro of ZOOM features. Go through those you will encourage attendees to use and ask them to try them out as you introduce them.

4. Use a visualisation technique. It helps people to become physically present in the session rather than maintain an observer status. Example, today I want you to picture yourself sitting around a campfire with a group of colleagues. You have all met each other, shared a laugh or two and are now ready to talk about XXX (meeting topic).

5. Invite people to turn on their camera if at all possible (this will depend on bandwidth etc)

6. Give a clear overview of the purpose of the session. Mention timelines and expected outcomes. Share what role you hope participants will take eg sit and listen, take notes, ask questions etc.

7. Use break-out rooms. Hands down this is one of the best features of ZOOM sessions. Regardless of the size of your group, build in at least one breakout room activity per ZOOM session. 10 mins is a good length. I find it easiest to set the rooms up and assign people randomly. Have someone else on the call help if you need. Make them a Co-Host of the session so they can access this function with you.

8. Record the session, especially if there are people who can’t attend.

9. Avoid people talking over each other. Ask attendees at the beginning of the session to use the raise hand emoji or their physical hand when they wish to speak. And / or include question / comment in the chat function. I acknowledge people in order and by name, so that when there is a discussion they know in what order they can speak.

10. Signal closing and provide a connection touchpoint at the end of the ZOOM session. I will always signal closing by saying, OK everyone we have about 5 minutes before closing xxxxxxx.  And with 1 minute to go wit ha small group I will invite them to share one word about the session and I will thank them for it by name. And if it’s a large group, I ask them to typo their word into the chat and I then comment on the words showing up and thank everyone for their contribution.

It’s a craft to facilitate an engaging ZOOM session. Please have a go at some of these tips. We’d love to know how they work for you. And reach out anytime if we can help you set up or facilitate your online sessions. 

Feel free to book a Facilitation Made Easy session with me. We can focus on techniques for virtual facilitation. Click here for more information

I hope to see you soon!

The post 10 Top ZOOM Engagement Tips    appeared first on Ruralscope.