A detailed report about how to do better at working online - like at Zoom meetings

 

There are a lot of articles about how to improve web (Zoom) meetings, webinars, and webcasts. Most just offer personal opinions. But I found one serious report which instead is based on actually surveying a lot of people at nonprofits and foundations, colleges and universities, and government agencies. The survey was done in July and August of 2020. A total of 4,405 people responded, 4,231 from North America.  

 

That 37-page report by Andy Goodman, dated October 2020 and basically an e-book, is titled Unmuted - What works, what doesn’t, and how we can all do better when working together online.*(*As told by the people going it every day). You can download it from the Goodman Center as a .pdf file.

 

Nine takeaways from it are:

 

Engagement and participation (The adventure begins here)

Inclusivity (Our virtual welcome mats need some work)

Leadership and Facilitation (Get training. Get some help. And get better at the basics)

Structure (More online time requires more attention to structure)

Length and Frequency (Shorter and fewer, please)

Preferred Platforms (It’s a Zoom world. We’re just working in it)

Personal Video Feeds (Q: Should I turn my camera on or off? A: Yes!)

Slides (Less text, more action, and always build)

Long-Term Trends (It ain’t over when it’s over)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page 14 of the report identifies seven challenges to leading a successful online convening. They were rated on a scale from 1 = not challenging to 5 = extremely challenging. A bar chart shows those for web meetings (which includes Toastmasters club meetings).  

Several other questions from the survey had answers regarding frequency that ranged from 1 to 5 where 1 = Never, 2 = Rarely, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Frequently, and 5 = Always. Results from these questions can be summarized by a Frequency Score calculated via a linear formula and reported on a scale from 1 to 5 as follows:

Frequency Score = [1*(Never %) +  2*(Rarely %) + 3*(Sometimes %) 

  + 4*(Frequently %) + 5*(Always %)]/100     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bar chart shows the Frequency Scores. For most questions those scores were between 3 (Sometimes) and 4 (Frequently). The exception was a 2 (Rarely) for how often leaders or facilitators created greater accessibility.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note that a Frequency Score is like a mean or median. It describes the average but not how much variability (how wide a range) is present. As shown above for one question via a table, it is possible to create hypothetical examples with the same Score but different ranges.  

 

On March 8, 2021 I blogged about a 2006 e-book by Andy Goodman in a post titled A 2005 online survey of 16 problems that can affect presentations found the speaker being too nervous ranked last for both harmfulness and frequency.