Zoom and Conference Calls When You are Travelling

How to Set up a Zoom Meeting

People at both ends need a Zoom account. Both of you need the zoom app. You get 45 minutes free if you are on the free trial. 

A business can either afford to pay the premium for longer, or offset the cost against tax. 

How to cope with the time? Either the organizer/admin is a person who has a zoom account installed at work. If you find the system is a great help, you may wish to pay for the service, a monthly fee. 

If not, what can you do?

Shorten Meetings

Hold shorter meetings more often. Split the agenda by subject. Discuss this months meetings on the first Sunday of the month. Discuss the rest of the year on the second Sunday and by whatsapp and email.

Time Meetings

Or be more careful about keeping to time. Five minutes per agenda item. Chats about other matters after the formal meeting ends.

Schedule Following Meeting Soon
Consider logging in later the same day after a tea break on a different person's laptop or phone.
Or log in another day on a different person's account. 

Watch the time because:

1 If you are on the limited time system, it will cut out after flashing a warning message.

2 You can structure the meeting to end slightly earlier. 

3 Put the thanks to the host and the dates of the next meeting at the start instead of only at the end in case you run out of time.

Happy chatting, and a productive year.

What does zoom do that Skype does not do?
Zoom allows webinar. If you can share screens you can show slides.

Useful Websites

Zoom
https://www.zoom.us/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications

Skype

Google share
Toastmasters Find A Club

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club

Singapore Online Toastmasters

About The Author

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author of more than 20 books listed on Amazon and Lulu.com  Please share links to your favourite posts and useful posts.

Travelling to Sales and New Year's Eve, and making business calls

Decide whether to travel by train or car. Seeing a six hour delay getting out of the car park at Bluewater, a major shopping mall in the UK, you might prefer to travel by bus or train.

Public Transport New Year's Eve
One New Year's Eve we had a New Year's Eve meal near Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square. Just after midnight we decided it was time to go home. We could not get near the entrance to the station. The entire street was blocked by a cordoned crush. Despite the efforts of police, if you got in the queue, you were likely to be trapped and squashed for ages. We gave up and went back to the venue, spent on more drinks. Lucky they were open another hour or two. We ended up coming home leaving at 1 pm and reaching home at 2 pm.

1 Budget
Free travel on Christmas Eve in London. Check times.

2 Being Sociable
Travel by car if you want to keep the family together and talk.

3 Elderly
You need a car with four doors, not two, if you want granny or grandad to get in and out easily.

4 Bulky purchases, bags and delivery
You need strong arms or fold up bags, tote bags, a bag on wheels, if you are likely to buy a lot of heavy items. Some places deliver, but may charge.

5 Free Travel for Seniors
Residents of UK get free travel for seniors in some areas of London. Reductions are available on nation wide rail services on purchase of a card, which is good if you are doing several journeys.

Backup accommodation
Check in advance for backup accommodation. Supposing there is a bomb scare and transport stops running? Do you have a colleague or family member with a room in the city centre or the suburbs. Even if you had to walk a mile or two, could you find their address? Do you have their address and phone number in your phone. It might be a good idea to send them a Christmas or New Year or birthday greeting and enquire whether you can crash out in an emergency or if they know a cheap nearby hotel.

If you are arranging a huge conference, you might book a couple of rooms for people to change clothes or shower and sleep and stay over in any emergency or transport problem. Have the numbers of the nearby hotels in your smart phone so that at the first sign of a problem you can make an instant booking.

Conferences and Expenses
Add a trip onto a business conference and your transport is paid for on expenses. You only have to find the money for the extra days of accommodation, travel or trails at destination and meals.

Weddings and Events
For a wedding you can hire a minibus to take the family to the venue. Prepare a backup plan for anybody who is late or delayed (such as an emailed or printed directions for routes and car parks). Also note your drivers and number of car seats available, just in case the car hire company has a sick driver or gets the date or venue wrong.

Conferences
World Travel Market in London at Excel had to organise backup plans for hundreds to travel over four days and evening events when it was announced that there would be a strike of bus and train staff.

Conference Calls
Your backup plan if you cannot travel might be Skype. You might want to clear clutter so that you have a good backdrop for a video or photo or conference call. If doing a business call to Muslim country, or anywhere, you might want to remove your champagne bottles and glasses. Or wedding and baby photos.

Then, even if working from home, generally look more professional. Have a tidy desk. Pick papers off the floor. Arrange a backdrop of certificates, qualifications, awards, frames hanging level. Add all your technical books. Get out of your tee-shirt or dressing gown and look your best.

More Information From
Mall Opening Times
http://intu.co.uk/watford/centre-information/opening-times?utm_source=intu%20Watford%20Centre&utm_medium=Centre-Newsletter&utm_campaign=merry_christmas
Travel New Year's Eve
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/news-articles/getting-around-on-new-year-s-eve

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Business Meetings Abroad - where? Skype calls

There are six ways of arranging meetings with international colleagues,
1) by conference call,
2) airport lounge or hotel meeting when in transit,
3) your hotel
4) at a town or country club, using reciprocal memberships
5) or a city coffee shop,
6) restaurant.
You might try all of these, on one business trip, or over the course of a year, as I have. Let's start with the conference call, saves flying. But first time for any of your users can lead to chaotic conference calls.

1 Conference Call
a) Choices
You can save on the cost of international calls by using Skype.
I've seen this done across three continents with companies the size of Nielsen, and also participated in multi-city conference calls with not for profit Toastmasters International speakers clubs.

b) Challenges
i) Across three time zones, e.g. USA, Europe and Asia, you may find that your VIP in the office in the USA always arranges conference calls in office hours which mean that people in other parts of the world have to get up early or miss their weekend social or club or sports meeting or family events such as birthday parties.
ii) One or more of the participants may be unfamiliar with the system and unable to hear or see or be heard and seen as you take each of half a dozen members in turn for their comments on each item of your agenda.

c) Solutions - Preparation and Troubleshooting
iA) Organisers in head office in the USA. Vary meetings days and times, e.g. first week of month or uneven weeks (1st, 3rd, 5th) use mornings in home or head office country, alternating weeks, use evenings in home country. Or change from Mondays to Fridays so you are not always taking your Asian staff away from their family or club or social meetings. Or simple ask staff if they have any regular or intermittent events at those times. You may think work is a priority over social life, especially with new staff, or even with long-time staff, but to keep goodwill and prevent staff leaving from overload it's a good idea to check every now and then.

iB) From the employees point of view, the head office cannot know that you are taking an exam for a course which is run on a certain evening a week, nor that it is your wedding anniversary. Instead of saying that you cannot attend or feigning sickness, let the others know of your plans in advance.

For example, you could ask the others where they recommend you take your spouse for your wedding anniversary dinner, and book the restaurant they suggest, and thank them. If they then decide they must hold a meeting that date and time, they may remember your dinner and realise that your are losing money on the booking and disappointing the family. The company (boss) might apologise, rearrange the conference call, or send flowers and a card or a gift to your spouse by way of apology and so that their special day is still special and to create goodwill.

ii) When trying this out with a new team, it's a good idea to have a short run with just two of you with the leader and each user so as to troubleshoot. This will get the newcomers up to speed with the system and prevent multiple users avoid all those delays whilst newcomers to the system say, I can't see the picture, I can see you but can't hear you, how do I increase the volume etc.