Working safely: tips when using Video Conferencing

With the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitators of the Work That Reconnects, and many other similar practices have been scrambling to get their offerings online.

There are more questions than answers, as we walk in the unchartered territory of working online with emotions and practices that were designed to be “lived” and “embodied”.

That is why two of us at the Work That Reconnects Network decided to offer two webinars on “planning and running” a webinar: our focus was less on WTR practices and more into the administrative and technical pieces.

The webinars launched by the end of March and attracted more than 200 participants. We made many mistakes, and learned a lot in the process…

Apart from recommending anyone who is new at facilitating online to visit these links (see below) often (as we are updating them and adding new resources every week), we recommend some extra tips you may not have seen during our webinars:

• Test the technology first, invite friends or family members before you offer this to a bigger group.
• Make sure you have the right plan and have set it up properly: Zoom Pro, for example, allows up to 100 participants. If you want more, you need to buy a monthly or annual add-on that allows for up to 500 (or more).
• Use a Video conference platform that allows you to have control on who attends, accept and remove people as needed and offers extra security such as password and settings to disable sharing screen and recording from other than the host and co-host.
• Before creating your meeting, check the settings: Zoom Pro, for example, allows you to decide who controls break-out groups, sharing screen, recording, admitting people into the meeting, chatting, etc.
• Incorporate “register” and password: this way you will know in advance who is coming
• Have someone to proofread all the pre and post webinar messages, and make sure you know what you want to know from your participants, what you want to ask them to bring (or prepare) and what you want to share with them.

Do you have any other tips?

Please share them (or your questions) with us!

And stay tuned…we are exploring platforms to offer more to our facilitator members and friends of the WTR:

• A forum, where you can organize by region, language and/or topic of interest, find mentors or offer mentorship, find someone to co-facilitate or be your tech person, discuss how to adapt practices, etc.
• An eLearning system, where you can easily develop e-courses and offer them for free, by subscription of for a fee.
• The launching of the Webinars & Cafes program, where facilitator members can submit their proposals and be supported in all the admin, registration, accounting and technical areas, while you focus on what you love: facilitating!

Links:

• Our evolving response to the COVID-19 page: https://workthatreconnects.org/offering-the-work-that-reconnects-online/
• Suggestions on how to facilitate the WTR online: https://workthatreconnects.org/suggestions-and-guidelines-for-facilitating-the-work-that-reconnects-online/

Resources to facilitate online: https://workthatreconnects.org/resources-for-facilitating-online/