Tips for Chairing a Video Conference

Prior to the meeting

Schedule the Conference and Rooms. A multipoint conference is scheduled through Technical Support through a step-by-step process and a Web site.  To get assistance prior to or during a conference, call 1-800-696-4357 (HELP).

Advertise Room Locations. Most locations (campuses and centers) have more than one room equipped with a video conference system. Therefore it is important to inform your attendees of the particular building and room number that is scheduled for your meeting.  This information is provided to you via a conference confirmation email.

Prepare your Visual-aids. You can use PowerPoint and/or a document camera (similar to an overhead projector) in most rooms.  For graphics, use landscape (horizontal) page orientation, large bold test -- a 24-point orlarger size sans-serif font (e.g. Helvetica or Arial).  Avoid crowding the text and use generous margins and line spacing to provide lots of blank space.

Send out hand-outs.  This is especially important if you aren't using computer content or a document camera, it is important that participants in remote rooms are able to review the same materials as those in your room.  Having your presentation materials prepared in the sequence of the presentation is helpful.

Know your Audience. If appropriate, contact remote sites and confirm participation at least one day before the meeting.  A tentative roster of participants at each site may be useful. A person at each site could be designated at the facilitator to run the technology and make copies if needed.

Dress Appropriately.  Wear solid neutral colored clothing. Avoid wearing bold or bright colors and complex patterns. Bright clothing tricks the camera's automatic controls and can darken the whole picture. Avoid narrowed stripped, checked and intricate designed clothing. Such patterns will cause distracting visual effects to the television picture.

Starting the meeting

Arrival. Arrive 5-10 minutes before the start time of your session to set up.  Arriving earlier is better, but the room may be booked for a meeting prior to your conference. 

Start time.  The conference will begin at the requested start time.  For consistency this is generally precisely on the hour or half-hour. 

Connection. Most rooms will be automatically connected at the start of the conference.  However, for security reasons, some rooms such as the University Presidents' Executive Conference Rooms are not set to automatically answer.  Participants in these rooms must call into the bridge with these steps:
- Access the address book by pressing the green directory button.
- Scroll to the multipoint/bridge choice with the red arrow buttons and press the center red  button.
- Place the call by pressing call-hang up.

Adjusting the cameras.  Once the conference begins, you can point the camera to the best view of the room to include as many room participants as possible without making people look too small.  Camera presets may help (see below).

Greeting all participants.  Allow some time at the beginning of the meeting to greet all participants by location. It may be disconcerting to some participants if they are unaware of who is in the rooms.  A greeting also tests that members can be seen and heard.  If there are problems, please refer to the troubleshooting guide or call Tech Support at 1-800-696-4357 (HELP).

During the meeting

It is reasonable to establish some meeting rules to ensure the most seamless meeting possible.

Mute Microphones.  In a conference that has more than three locations, it is a good idea to mute the microphones at locations that aren't speaking.  This keeps the video signal from switching to a room with more noise (e.g. crumpling papers, coughs, or ventilation systems).  Mute the mics by pressing the button on top of the microphone or by pressing the orange mute button on the remote control.  The light on the microphone is red when muted. 

Make sure you can hear everyone.  Remind people that they will have to un-mute the mic to speak.  To gain the floor and be seen, participants will have to speak up and toward the mic.  The mic can be moved closer to soft-spoken people.  Volume controls only control what you hear, not what you say.  Also, beware that several people talking at once will cause the audio to break up a little.   This can be minimized by the chair coordinating "turn-taking" or calling on participants to speak.

Display content.  If you use a document camera, remember that people at the other locations will see that view instead of your face.  Periodically switching back to camera view using the blue camera  and # 1 button will bring you back into view.  Using computer content via the visual concert does not work this way and you will be able to see both the computer content and people simultaneously.  Refer to the Reference Sheet for help with this.

Use Camera Presets. An underutilized but useful feature is to set a couple of camera presets.  Move the camera to a frequently-used view using the red arrow buttons and blue zoom button.  Then press the blue presets button and a number button (1-0).  Go to that preset by simply pressing the number button of the preset.

At the end of the meeting

End times.  The conference will end precisely on the time that the meeting is scheduled to end.  This is normally 10 minutes before the hour or half hour. (e.g. 1:50 or 2:20).  The gap allows the room to be vacated and the next meeting to begin on the hour or half hour. 

Warning tone.  A warble tone will signify that the conference will end in 5 minutes.  Again, be advised that the conference will automatically disconnect participating locations.

Extending the conference. Call Technical Support (1-800-696-4357) prior to the end of the conference to see if it can be extended.  If there is not a subsequent event scheduled in any of the rooms, the duration can be changed on-the-spot.  If the conference includes any non-centrally scheduled rooms, you will need to check with the room schedulers to see if there is a live meeting scheduled in that room.  

Re-creating the conference after it stops.  If the conference has ended, Technical support can build another conference to extend the time, but this is a bit more cumbersome.  Participants can be notified to stand-by, but if there are conflicts preventing the meeting from continuing, those participants won't know if it will or won't go.