3 Great Ideas To Jazz Up Your Online Meetings

In the presence of the COVID pandemic, with social distancing impeding traditional socialization and rendering work and communication more remote, digital communication platforms like Zoom have become the new norm for conducting online meetings and events. However, like any new norm, complacency can cause people to treat using these platforms as a daily chore, affecting productivity and pleasure.

This, along with the general societal disconnectedness and angst stemming from COVID restrictions, has duly taken its toll on the psyches of everyone involved in today's climate of remote work and communication. However, by treating this new and unfamiliar digital space as an opportunity for constant exploration and learning, something mundane can become something magical. With all of this information in mind, the following are three great ideas to jazz up your online meetings and make them enjoyable for everyone involved, regardless of the platform used.

New Gestures

The first great idea to jazz up your online meetings and make them enjoyable for everyone involved, regardless of the platform used, is to use celebratory gestures called jazz hands instead of traditional clapping. Doing so accomplishes several things at once. For one, much like people have adapted to conducting online meetings as the new norm, so too a new kind of gesture can celebrate and adequately adapt to newness rather than simply ignore or endure it begrudgingly and mindlessly via an overly formal and almost impersonal gesture like clapping. It also aids an air of humor and fun to the current social situation that connects everyone as human beings and better cope with unfamiliar realities and hardships. Also, the occasional throwback to more straightforward gestures in the form of group high fives and finger-snapping can keep the blood flowing in one's hands as well as figuratively in the heart.

Advantageous Functionality

The second great idea to jazz up your online meetings and make them enjoyable for everyone involved, regardless of the platform used, is to use the functions built into the online platforms to your advantage. For example, changing and playing with the representative usernames presented to each other during meetings provides an opportunity for people to learn more about each other beyond attaching an arbitrary online name to a person. These changes can reflect something specific about any given person to demonstrate what they offer to the meeting as an individual rather than simply tag them as spectators in a mundane online encounter. Creating polls that participants can vote in anonymously allows everyone to engage safely while making important decisions or merely catching up with or getting to know each other. Breakout rooms allow more personalized and intimate interactions that would enable everyone to be included. The gallery view function can be used to take group photos, allowing participants to end meetings on a fun and memorable note.

Scavenger Hunt

The third and final great idea to jazz up your online meetings and make them enjoyable for everyone involved, regardless of the platform used, is something along the lines of a scavenger hunt. As part of this scavenger hunt, a list of things to be found and presented from one's home can be made ahead of time and then shared on-screen with the group during the meeting event to participate in it and share the experience.

This scavenger hunt can be done as a single group or, if the group is too big, in individual breakout rooms for an even more personal and intimate experience. A scavenger hunt is a unique and creative way for participants to connect more deeply and humanly, whether through Zoom, connex virtual meetings, or any online digital communication platform.

With COVID so profoundly affecting the way we have become accustomed to socializing and conducting our lives, it is unsurprising that many are having a hard time adjusting. Some of those who do adjust end up coping in a less-than-ideal fashion by fantasizing about how things were rather than genuinely engaged with and adapting to the present moment. Rather than merely going through the motions with online meetings and interactions, people can find new and creative ways to jazz up the new world they have been thrust into.