There's no doubt that video conferencing is useful. Every day, more and more businesses, churches, hospitals, and people use video conferencing in their day-to-day activities. While most online meetings are essential, we have to admit that some meetings can, well, go on a little longer than we would like. Take it from the meeting experts -- being in a useless meeting that doesn't engage its participants can be a total drag.
If you ever find yourself in this position, don't worry! You're in a perfect spot to try one of these sneaky conference call tricks to make your meeting more interesting.
Here are 4 of my favourite conference calling tricks. Use them at your own risk, and oh yea ... don't tell my boss!
This trick works much better when 1 or 2 other meeting participants are in on it. The trick is simple: act bored or mildly disinterested when your speaker is talking without using his hands, and react enthusiastically when your speaker IS using them. Over time (this could be a few weeks) the speaker will start to use their hands more and more, and will eventually always move their hands when they speak.
Of coarse, they are going to deny the fact that you manipulated them, but if you've been recording your meetings, you will have all the proof you need. This trick may sound dastardly, but just think of all the smiles and laughs you will share with your coworkers when the truth comes out.
A much simpler trick: when we yawn, the people around us often cannot resist yawning as well. While the science behind this phenomenon is fascinating, it hasn't really been tested in a a conference calling scenario. Maybe we need more test subjects?
If you try this trick out for yourself, just remember not to yawn too frequently, or people will start to get annoyed.
For a long time, I always thought that getting a song stuck in your head was spontaneous, and something that happened by accident. Now, I am able to manually induce a "musical inception" almost every time I make a conference call.
This is something you have to do while you are waiting for the conference to begin. Just hum or sing a popular or catchy song of your choice for a 5-10 seconds, then immediately say something unrelated to get everyone's mind off of the song. Once that is done, all you have to do is sit back and wait. It could take minutes or hours, but eventually they will be humming along for the rest of the day. Sometimes, people will even tell you that they have your song stuck in their head!
Just a reminder to use these tricks at your own risk -- they can be pretty powerful when you've got them down correctly. Remember: with great power, comes great responsibility.
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