Your virtual presence in conference calls is the new dressing for success. And just like dressing for success, you can find your own style. This program will help you understand the priorities and main considerations when it comes to your virtual presence.
You will learn the impact of each need, what to look out for, and recommendations on ways to improve your setup.
Individual Videos
The link above is to the complete single-video version. If you’re interested in a specific topic, use the links below to watch.
Overview and Introduction
Your virtual presence in conference calls is the new dressing for success. And just like dressing for success, you can find your own style. This program will help you understand the priorities and main considerations when it comes to your virtual presence.
Why is it important to think about your virtual presence? For one thing, how you look and sound on a call can accelerate the level of trust people place in you. For another, sounding good helps lower the cognitive load on participants – they can use energy to understand your point versus trying to decipher what you’re saying because of bad audio.
In this session you will learn the impact of each need, what to look out for, and recommendations on ways to improve your setup.
It may not be possible to implement every recommendation, so be judicious and prioritize.
Network Connectivity
The TLDR: For video calls, use a wired network. Stay off wi-fi.
This is the most fundamental need in that without good connectivity, the rest of the hierarchy is on shaky ground. You can have a $500 microphone and $5000 camera + lens, installed great lighting, and have excellent framing, but if your network cuts out, all bets are off.
Wi-fi has a higher probability of this happening over a wired connection, just because of the way Wi-Fi is designed.
This doesn’t have to do with good signal strength or the quality of your wi-fi equipment. It has to do with the inherent way wifi is built – whenever there is some interference in the signal, wi-fi will go through a retry process.
This retry process often creates micro-outages during calls (where your audio gets garbled, breaking up, etc). This retry mechanism is built-in to the wi-fi standard. It is especially challenging when operating on a crowded frequency band (2.4ghz, for example).
Audio Quality
In video calls, good audio is way more important than good video. The adage is 80% of good video is made up of good audio.
Clear audio helps reduce the amount of cognitive load other people have to exert – instead of investing energy understanding what you’re saying due to bad audio, people will be able to concentrate on the point you are making. (in other words, they will have a better chance of listening to what you’re saying versus trying to hear what you’re saying).
If you have any question about where to start once you’ve sorted your network connectivity, start with audio.
Lighting
Good lighting is a key to high quality video (good lighting can make a mediocre camera look good, but poor lighting won’t help an expensive camera look better).
The Key Light is your main light source. It is the most important aspect. Aim for soft, even light on your face. You Key Light can be natural sunlight or a fixture, depending on your location.
You might need Fill Light to fill in and even out odd shadows created by the Key Light.
If you have a lot of high-stakes calls, you might consider additional elements, such as a Back lights (also known as Hair Light) to help create separation between you and your background. You might even consider a Background Light to add personality to your background.
Framing and Background
For framing yourself in the camera get front-and-center.
Positioning yourself in the middle of the camera frame. Try to position your eyes about 1 / 3 the way down the frame and your chin about 1 / 3 from the bottom. Note: it is the eyes that should be 1/3 the way down, not the top of the head. Here is an example with a framer overlay.
A rule of thumb for backgrounds: an interesting background is okay, a distracting background takes away from your presence.
Setup your background so you don’t need to use a virtual or digitally blurred background – – unless it is a matter of privacy or security.
Most virtual backgrounds look unnatural – the edges around you aren’t perfect and the lighting on your face doesn’t match the background. Your lizard brain, the amygdala, is triggered thinking that something is wrong.
You end up expending a lot of energy subconsciously tamping down this reaction. This leads to fatigue. And that can lead to lower engagement from the participants.
There are green-screen options. If you choose to go down this path, make sure you have lighting that matches your background, otherwise the lizard brain will notice.
Cameras
This is the last of the needs. Here is the thing, you can have a really great camera, but without good framing, good lighting, and good audio, your virtual presence is compromised.
I don’t have anything against laptop cameras – similar to the adage the best camera is the one with you. If you only have a laptop webcam, then use that. Review the Framing and Background video for tips on how to get the best out of it.
An external camera offers a higher degree of flexibility (and, most of the time, higher quality). The first decision you’ll need to make is about the type – a webcam or a mirrorless (or DSLR) camera with an inter-changeable lens.
If you choose to go with a mirrorless or DSLR camera, you will need a way to get the video feed into your system. Some more recent cameras come with USB-C output, but many only have HDMI output. Make sure those cameras can send a clean HDMI signal. You’ll need a way to get that signal into your computer. You can use a HDMI capture card, such as the Elgato Camlink, or a vision (video) switcher, such as the Blackmagic ATEM Mini.