Why does communicating during meetings on Zoom and Microsoft Teams have to be so
difficult?
One of the lingering side effects from the pandemic is the frequency in which we
do these virtual meetings for work, school, and even family get togethers.
Not only has this made communication with friends, family members, colleagues,
and classmates a lot more convenient,
but it has also led to a ton of hilarious videos and memes on the internet,
like this video where a lawyer could not figure out how to turn off the cat
filter on Zoom,
forcing him to tell the judge that he in fact was not a cat.
While platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams,
and a variety of other virtual meeting spaces have their benefits,
being able to communicate on these platforms can be difficult,
especially if you have a hearing loss. Of course,
there are several things that you can do to communicate more effectively inside
of these virtual meeting rooms,
even if you do have a hearing loss. But before I show you what those things are,
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go ahead and do that as well,
because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I
release a bunch of new videos every single week. That being said,
it's greatly appreciated and a huge shout out to Phonak for sponsoring today's
video. But more on them in a little bit.
The first thing that you can do to hear better in these virtual meetings on
platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams is to make sure that everybody has their
video turned on.
Some people like to treat these virtual meetings more like a phone call where
they turn off their video so they can be multitasking and doing other things or
so they don't have to put on a shirt or do their hair. However,
being able to see the face and more importantly,
the mouth of the person that you're talking to can be extremely beneficial when
it comes to understanding what they're saying. When you have a hearing loss,
obtaining visual cues off of the lips of the person that you're talking to can
fill in a lot of missing auditory information,
which can substantially increase the clarity of what you're hearing.
Simply asking your coworkers to turn on their cameras during these meetings is a
very simple request that everybody should be willing to comply with except for
maybe Karen in accounting.
If you only have a few other people inside of the virtual meeting room,
I highly recommend that you turn on the gallery view so you can see multiple
faces at one time. So if anybody starts talking,
you immediately get to see their mouth moving.
If you have a lots of people inside of one meeting,
it's usually better to leave it on speaker mode,
so whoever speaking is the person who pops up bigger on your screen,
and it is more beneficial to do this on a laptop or a desktop computer so your
monitor's bigger. The second thing that you can do to hear better inside of
these virtual meetings is to use direct audio input. By direct audio input,
what I mean is you want to take the audio from your computer or your phone and
put it directly into your ears using headphones, earbuds,
or even Bluetooth hearing aids.
Anytime that you stream audio directly from your computer into both of your
ears, it will substantially increase the clarity of what you're hearing.
Let's face it, most of the speakers that are inside of your desktop computer,
your laptop, or even your tablet, are not very high quality,
and they typically do not project the audio directly towards you.
So if you're relying on these stock speakers inside of your electronic devices,
you're just asking to have hearing difficulty. Of course,
not all headphones and earbuds are high quality either,
so you wanna make sure that you get a good pair of those if that's the route you
choose to go. And if you have a hearing loss,
your hearing aids should be custom programmed to your unique hearing loss
prescription to make sure that you can actually hear clearly the sound that's
coming from your computer into your hearing aids.
And the third thing that you can do to communicate more effectively inside of
these virtual meetings is to get a better microphone.
Very similar to how the stock speakers inside of your electronic devices are not
very high quality, the stock microphones might be even worse.
This can often lead to issues where the person that you are talking to has
difficulty hearing what you are saying because the audio quality is not very
high. If you have normal hearing,
the best thing that you can do is buy yourself an external microphone that you
can plug into your computer.
Just make sure that you get that microphone as close to your mouth as possible.
Of course,
there are headsets out there that combine the speakers and the microphones
together, which might make things more convenient for you.
If you have hearing loss,
hearing aids like the Audeo Lumity devices from Phonak, today's video sponsor,
can take the audio directly from your virtual meeting and stream it into both of
your ears and the microphones on the devices can pick up your voice and send it
to everybody else in the virtual meeting. However,
this setup may not be perfect if you have a very soft voice that has a difficult
time making it into the microphones that are behind your ears,
or if you are in a noisy place and those microphones pick up all of that noise
for everybody else to hear.
You may have already experienced the need to turn off Bluetooth streaming if the
person on the other end of the line has difficulty hearing you if you're
streaming things through your hearing aids. This is where the second version of
the Phonak Roger On and Roger On iN come into play because this guy has
a new headset mode.
The Phonak Roger On is a multipurpose wireless remote microphone that acts as a
table microphone if you're with a group of people,
a pointing microphone if you need to hear multiple people that are speaking back
and forth,
or even a lapel microphone by you clipping it onto the shirt of the person that
you want to hear better.
If you're interested in learning more about these particular features of the
Roger On, I will link a video down into the description that you can check out.
But what's really cool is that this second version of the Roger On has this new
headset mode that was specifically designed to help you communicate better in
these virtual meetings.
This means that when you plug your Roger On into your computer, laptop,
or tablet,
it will stream the audio of your meeting directly into your Phonak hearing aids
at the ideal levels that your hearing care professional has set up for you.
But on top of that,
this second version of the Roger On will even take your voice and send it to
everybody else in the virtual meeting. So.
If they have difficulty hearing you,
all you have to do is get this closer to your mouth.
Now it doesn't matter if you have a softer voice or you happen to be joining one
of these virtual meetings when you're in a noisy cafe or restaurant.
All your hearing care professional has to do is install your Roger Receivers
inside of your Phonak hearing aids,
and then pair your hearing aids with the Roger On.
Then all you have to do is plug your Roger On into whatever device you're doing
the virtual meeting through, and it will automatically switch to headset mode.
And just in case the included USB-C to USB cable that comes with the
Roger On is not compatible with your other electronic devices,
I was able to test out a couple of different cables that did make it compatible.
And yes, I tried it out, you can use this with your phone as well. Listen,
I know that nothing will replace good old fashioned in-person communication
face-to-face with your friends, family members, colleagues, and classmates,
but anything that you can do to help improve your experience virtually is
definitely something you should consider. After all,
I'm not expecting virtual meetings to go anywhere anytime soon,
especially since we have more and more people working from home.
So the way I see it is if you're struggling to hear and understand others in
these meeting rooms or they're struggling to understand you,
you can either implement one of these three fixes or you can just turn on one of
the many filters like this cat filter and just try and distract them until the
meeting's over.