{"id":13516,"date":"2021-02-11T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T07:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=13516"},"modified":"2021-02-12T09:27:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T09:27:43","slug":"blogathon-11-21-teams-etiquette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=13516","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 11\/21: Teams etiquette"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We dipped into S2 of Staged (iPlayer) last night, at around 15 minutes each, the episodes are pleasingly short, and the characters are charming. I’m enjoying watching the growing wilderness of Michael Sheen’s hair and beard, not least because the mad professor look that’s sprouting out of his head and face strongly resembles my own overactive and untamed follicles. I also enjoyed the gag that Michael and David (Tennant) were playing cards via conference call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Teams calls (and I’m going to use ‘Teams’ as the videoconferencing label for all VC products) such as seen in Staged have a more relaxed set of rules than business Teams calls. So I though I’d share my top eight business VC tips, as someone who has been using Teams for the last four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Mute yourself when you walk into the bathroom to use the facilities. I know you’re using a Bluetooth headset and microphone, but nobody wants to hear you lift the toilet lid, do whatever it was you went in there to do, flush, and then wash your hands afterwards. Similarly, nobody wants to hear you *not* wash your hands afterwards. I understand you want to be part of the conversation, but going into the bathroom unmuted is a big fat red line that nobody should ever cross. A very senior member of staff at my former employer committed the unmuted bathroom activity sin; I won’t name him, but really?<\/li>
  2. Be dressed. At the very least, put some clothes on your top half. It is not acceptable to wear a bathrobe and, similarly, it is not acceptable to be topless (unless by prior consent but that’s a whole different tin of worms). I will not share with you, gentle reader, that a colleague at a former employer appeared topless on a call. That would be too much information, yes?<\/li>
  3. If you look like Worzel Gummidge on a very bad day, turn your camera off. Unless you’re Michael Sheen. Or me. However, if you’re going to shove your face close-up into the camera, it might be a cracking idea to make sure you don’t have a veritable forest growing out of your nostrils <\/li>
  4. Mute yourself when you’re on a technical cutover call and the techies are doing stuff. They don’t want to hear you singing George Michael (sorry Rupin!). Similarly, offering to serenade the technical team with a guitar recital should only be done on invitation (and only if you can be assured they’re not taking the pee)<\/li>
  5. Even though you’ve just dashed out of the shower to join this hastily convened call, do not join the call wrapped in your towel and turban. Looking all pink and breathless is, undoubtedly, a good look for you, but not on a professional teams call *thinks about a former colleague who shall remain nameless*<\/li>
  6. Although you’ve been on back-to-back calls for the last two and a half hours, if you must eat, please mute your chomping and switch your camera off. Please. No, really. Please<\/li>
  7. Don’t have dogs. No, seriously. As much as I love our two spaniels, and I do so dearly love them, having a pair of dogs around the place is really not conducive to having a calm, controlled, professional videoconferencing call. See this post for details<\/a><\/li>
  8. Finally, if you’re setting up a series of calls, don’t set them back to back, be considerate to the delegates. Instead of using the default 30 minutes, set the first call for 25 minutes (so it starts on the hour, quarter, or half-hour). Set the second to last 25 minutes but to begin 10 minutes after the previous call ended. That way nobody needs a bladder made out of cast iron, everyone has the opportunity to make themselves a brew, and the two back-to-back calls conclude after an hour.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

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    We dipped into S2 of Staged (iPlayer) last night, at around 15 minutes each, the episodes are pleasingly short, and the characters are charming. I’m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}