From casual exchanges between coworkers to in-person lectures from educators to students, a spectrum of once-common activities remains substantially impacted. Fortunately, technology is there to not only bridge the gap under current circumstances, but to help us push forward toward the future of work. 

Indeed, in acquiring Kaptivo, a leading innovator in visual collaboration technology, Lifesize is not only reaffirming its mission to redefine and simplify communication, but also putting forth a concentrated effort to return and raise the bar for a staple of meetings, trainings, and seminars: the whiteboard.

Whiteboarding Overview 

Digitizing and augmenting the conventional experience of standing at a physical whiteboard at the front of the room, the Lifesize native whiteboarding implementation likewise brings meeting participants together for ideation and education. 

In its launch iteration for the Lifesize desktop app, web app and guest experience, the digital whiteboard is accessible via the new Collaboration Tools menu option in the app interface and opens with a click in a separate, secure window for using during your meeting. 

Once open, you can write, draw, and diagram on the shared canvas using an array of interactive tools with adjustable properties and responsive real-time display. Any and all participants who join the meeting can access and annotate the digital whiteboard simultaneously, with intuitive color-coded labeling to easily distinguish between participants and their individual activity. 

When the meeting wraps up, you can download an image of the whiteboard for reference and archive—plus, your whiteboard will be preserved in its state at the end of the session, allowing you to pick back up where you left off next time you meet. 

Practical Application 

Much like its analog counterpart, the Lifesize digital whiteboard is a blank canvas for collaboration that can serve as anything from a freeform virtual scratch pad for real-time brainstorming to a carefully constructed and curated space for projects and programs. Consider using it for any of the following applications and use cases: 

Creative design

There’s no better way to get the creative juices flowing for a project than having a meeting of the minds to work through concepts and ideas. Particularly where visual design, compositing, and aesthetic are concerned, digital whiteboarding can help you put thoughts into practice and run with feedback in real time to move closer to achieving your creative vision. 

Customer experience 

Whether you offer a product, a service or content, mapping out and fine-tuning the ways a customer interacts with your brand and experience is a critical step to success. Digital whiteboarding can help your team establish a plan of action, iterate to incorporate new data and developments, and architect a customer journey that fits your organization and resonates with your audience. 

Product development  

With product experts, engineers, marketers, sales leaders and executives all having major influence on the direction of a company’s “next big thing,” having a shared think space for brainstorming and freeform ideation can help everyone find common ground to begin the process. Digital whiteboarding provides a platform to cultivate early-stage ideas before each stakeholder group branches off into using their preferred productivity tools as development progresses. 

Flowcharting 

Process management is an area where businesses and organizations are constantly evolving to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Integrating digital whiteboarding with process meetings can help visualize the discussion around current and prospective touchpoints to refine workflows and facilitate success. 

Event planning  

While virtual equivalents have summarily replaced conventions, tradeshows, and networking events in recent months, that’s not to say that they don’t come with their own inventory of moving parts. Digital whiteboarding can help set the stage for event managers and coordinators, from rough floorplan diagrams to ensuring plans are on schedule and responsibilities are defined for staff, vendors and attendees. 

Task tracking  

Whether you participate in daily standups, team meetings, or group projects, having a digital whiteboard directly attached to your virtual meeting room can help with tracking agendas, tasks, talking points, action items, and more. Everyone can stay focused and on the same page, rather than combing through individual checklists and corresponding application windows. 

Teaching and training 

Instruction and explanation are among the most common use cases for physical whiteboarding, and that also holds true for digital whiteboarding. Teachers and trainers can easily use a comparable visual communication style to that which they are accustomed to using in person in drawing attention to key themes and illustrating their points.

Conclusion 

Building upon the room-based whiteboard sharing enabled by our Lifesize Share integration with the Kaptivo camera system, this new digital whiteboarding application represents another milestone in our mission to enhance collaboration for customers worldwide. Lifesize is excited to officially welcome Kaptivo into the fold and we look forward to announcing new features and functionality in the coming weeks and months to further support the ways you work together. 

The post A Blank Canvas for Collaboration: Digital Whiteboarding with Lifesize appeared first on Lifesize.

But there’s more to remote communication and collaboration than simply connecting with a contact or jumping into a virtual meeting room. With that in mind, here are a handful of tips and tricks to get more from your Lifesize experience—and all can be done in five steps or less.

Tip 1: Secure Your Meeting with a Passcode

Adding a passcode that participants must enter to gain access to your meeting provides an extra layer of security to keep uninvited guests from crashing your conversations. Not only that, but a passcode can be used to keep your personal or team space free when not in use (much like physical meeting rooms are prone to camping or squatting, an unoccupied virtual meeting space can be occasionally commandeered by a colleague).

Here’s how to ensure your meeting is open only to your invitees and always available when you need it in five easy steps:

1. Click Meetings from the left menu of the Lifesize desktop app, web app or Admin Console
2. Click the button to Create a Meeting
3. Configure your meeting details
4. Set a numeric passcode in the field provided
5. Click Save

Now, when a participant attempts to join the meeting, they will be required to enter the designated passcode. You can also add a passcode to any existing meeting by searching for and selecting the desired meeting, then clicking the Edit button.

Tip 2: Change Your Background to a Virtual Environment

When working from home, it’s understandable if you’re not keen on allowing customers, coworkers or the entire company to peek into your personal space during a meeting. But what do you do if you don’t have a home office or a dedicated work area? Try using a virtual background.

Lifesize is compatible with an array of free and premium apps that let you trade your real-life backdrop for a simulated scene to maintain your personal privacy or to achieve a more professional-looking atmosphere.

Here’s how to upgrade your presentation with a virtual background in five easy steps:

1. Choose a third-party app that is compatible with your computer and fits your needs (examples include ManyCam, Snap Camera, ChromaCam, CamTwist, XSplit VCam, and more)
2. Download and install the app on your computer, then follow the applicable instructions for setup and use
3. Open Settings in your Lifesize desktop or web app
4. Under Camera, click the drop-down menu and select the virtual background app as the input
5. Join your meeting

You can manage your virtual background by using the third-party app software. If you’d like to switch back to your default camera, simply open Settings in Lifesize again and change the Camera input.

Tip 3: Poll Meeting Participants with Raise Hands

The Raise Hands feature in Lifesize is convenient for fielding questions and comments from your audience. With the tap of a button, participants can raise their hands virtually to notify the meeting organizer or moderator that they have something to say. They can then be called upon to speak, and the speaker can respond.

But Raise Hands isn’t just useful for conducting Q&A. You can also use it to poll meeting participants. Here’s how to call for a show of hands and tally the votes in three easy steps:

1. When presenting the question or statement for which you are requesting feedback, instruct participants to use the Raise Hand button to answer
2. Provide ample time for participants to raise their hands, then note the number of raised hands displayed in the on-screen notification
3. Have the moderator Lower All Hands

Repeat as needed to collect additional feedback.

Once the votes have been cast and counted, the results can be handled in a number of ways depending on your objective:

• If polling is simply for audience interaction, the speaker can point to the results casually and move on with the presentation

• If polling is done to make an official decision, the meeting organizer can confirm the votes for and against or the majority stance on available options
• If polling is being conducted formally for survey or research purposes, results can be tabulated and presented later                                                                                                          

Tip 4: Mute All Participants on a Call

In meetings where only one person or a small group of people are addressing a larger audience, most incoming audio on the call is, at best, unnecessary or, at worst, disruptive.

While you can request that participants who won’t be speaking mute their microphones, it’s likely you’ll have to ask repeatedly, both to notify new people as they join and to remind others who aren’t fully tuned in.

Instead, you can use the Lifesize moderator controls to mute all participants at once. Here’s how to limit meeting audio to the scheduled speakers in five easy steps:

1. Join the meeting
2. Once you’ve joined, click the Participants List button in the right menu to access the moderator controls (if you join as a remote moderator, controls become available immediately within the desktop, web or mobile app upon joining)
3. Click the Mute All button
4. Locate the scheduled speakers for the meeting in the Participants list
5. Click the microphone icon for each speaker individually to remove moderator mute

Your scheduled speakers will now be able to talk freely, while the microphones for participants already in the meeting and incoming callers will both be closed.

To remove moderator mute for all participants, simply click the Unmute All button.

Tip 5: Focus Audience Attention with Lecturer Mode

When people think of video conferencing, they typically think of interactive communication between two or more people. But with Lifesize, the same technology you use to converse and collaborate through video can be easily adapted for a one-to-many address, either live or recorded.

From classroom instruction and corporate training to employee briefings and executive leadership communication, lecturer mode lets you focus the attention of the audience on a single person.

Here are the five easy steps to set up your meetings so that participants see only the designated lecturer:

1. Click Meetings from the left menu of the Lifesize desktop app, web app or Admin Console
2. Click the button to Create a Meeting
3. Configure your meeting details, then click Other Options
4. Designate a Lecturer in the field provided by typing in a name and/or choosing from the drop-down
5. Click Save

Now, when participants join the meeting, they will see and hear the lecturer but not one another. Likewise, any future recording of the meeting will now only capture the lecturer’s video and audio.

You can also configure any existing meeting for lecturer mode by searching for and selecting the desired meeting, then clicking the Edit button.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that the more time you spend with Lifesize, the more you discover that you can do with the platform. Best of all, it doesn’t take expert-level knowledge to implement very helpful and valuable functionality that can take your video communications to the next level.

With the experience of using Lifesize continually improving, we invite you to frequently explore your desktop, web and mobile apps, room system hardware and admin console further and to follow our What’s New page for the latest technology updates.

The post Tips and Tricks to Get More from Your Lifesize Experience appeared first on Lifesize.

What Is Live Streaming?

A live stream typically involves a broadcast of live video over the internet for viewing by an online audience. Much in the same way you can view a live television broadcast by tuning into the designated channel when the program starts, you can view a live stream by navigating to the designated URL in your browser (or to the applicable hosting platform, such as a mobile app) at the appropriate time.

A live stream can be public, available for viewing by hundreds or even thousands of people around the world, or private, with the URL shared only with the intended audience members and protected by password to prevent unauthorized viewing.

How to Live Stream with Lifesize

As part of our end-to-end solution for enterprise video communications, you can opt to add live streaming to your Lifesize account plan and turn any meeting into an HD-quality live stream accommodating up to 10,000 live, concurrent viewers. You can even live stream multiple live events simultaneously. Here is the step-by-step guide to live streaming with Lifesize.

Step 1: Create a meeting in the Admin Console

It’s worth noting that while users can create and edit meetings in the Lifesize app, live streaming can be enabled for a new or existing meeting only from within the Admin Console. Here’s how to create a new meeting in the Lifesize Admin Console:

• Navigate to the Admin Console at manage.lifesize.com and log into your account
• Select Meetings from the left menu
• Click the “Create Meeting” button in the top-right corner of the screen
• Now, configure the general settings for the meeting: choose your meeting type, give your meeting a name and optionally require a passcode or include a description
• Next, configure the roles for the meeting, designating the meeting owner and moderator
• Click Save

Step 2: Enable live streaming

Now, that your meeting is created, you can enable live streaming in the Admin Console: 

• Click on the name of your newly created or existing meeting to edit
• In the “Edit Meeting Details” panel, click on “Streaming” in the top menu
• Click the button to “Enable Live Streaming”

Step 3: Configure additional options

Once live streaming is enabled, you are presented with additional options to configure. You can enable questions and choose whether to automatically approve all incoming questions. 

Additionally, you can determine the viewing permissions to make your live stream available to a public, private or group-only audience:

• When you select the Public setting, your live stream will be available to view for anyone with the link.
• When you select the Private setting, you will need to create a passcode, which viewers will be required to enter to access the live stream. Note that the passcode required for the live stream is independent of the optional meeting passcode.
• When you select the Group Only option, only members of your group can view the live stream.

When you click Save, your meeting will automatically issue a streaming link, the designated URL where the live stream can be viewed.

Step 4: Share the streaming link with intended audience

Now, your meeting is created and ready to stream. At this point, you’ll want to provide the streaming link to your intended audience: 

• Locate the streaming link by clicking on the meeting name again and click “Streaming” in the “Edit Meeting Details” panel.
• Click the “Copy Link” button to copy the link.
• Paste the link into your meeting invitation, HTML email, social media post, webpage —whichever form of communication you’ve chosen to reach your prospective viewers.
• If your live stream is set to private, you will also need to distribute the passcode as part of your live stream invitation.

Step 5: Start the live stream 

When the meeting is ready to start, the moderator should be logged in to Lifesize and at the designated URL in their browser. Once the first participant has joined the meeting, the moderator can enable the live stream at any time to start streaming.

Viewers can then tune in to the live stream from any computer, laptop or mobile device with a browser and Internet access. There are no downloads required and no special apps or plugins to install.

Step 6: Q&A during the live stream

If questions are enabled for the live stream, a panel will appear at the right of the browser screen for both viewers and moderators for questions to be asked, approved (if required) and answered. Note that Q&A will only be available when using a computer.

Step 7: End the live stream

When the meeting is ready to wrap up, simply click the button to “End Stream” and confirm.

Recording a Live Stream

Even if your live stream is intended for appointment viewing, it’s unlikely that everyone will be available to watch in real time. That’s why it’s important to record your live stream for on-demand access.

With Lifesize, account plans that support live streaming also include recording. We even activate recording automatically when you enable the live stream, so your content is captured without even clicking the record button.

When you need to retrieve the recording link to share in poststream communication or publish elsewhere, simply:

• Navigate to the “Recordings” section in the left navigation bar in the Admin Console. 
• Click on the live stream recording 
• Open the “Share” properties by clicking on the applicable icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. 
• Finally, copy and paste the link to share within your account or to share publicly.

Accessing Live Stream Data

Once your live stream has ended, you have access to attendee information and the archived Q&A (if applicable) from the Lifesize Admin Console. This lets you learn more about who you reached and the areas of concern or interest with the content presented. You access the live stream data in the Lifesize Admin Console:

• Select “Meetings” from the left menu
• Click on “Live Streams” in the top menu
• Click on the name of a live stream to view its data

Live Stream Privacy and Security

Beyond the configurable settings and controls available to you to ensure that your meeting, live stream and recording are only seen by the intended audience when and where you decide, Lifesize takes the utmost care behind the scenes to ensure your privacy and security. 

All Lifesize cloud-based communication, to include streaming and recording services, is hosted within highly secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers and subject to independent third-party privacy and security certifications. The Lifesize service, room systems and client software employ WebRTC, for which encryption is a mandatory component for both signaling (via DTLS) and media (via SRTP/AES-128). And all meetings, live streaming events and recordings are encrypted by default to the highest standards, to include AES-128 for data in-flight and AES-256 for data at rest.

Whether you are meeting with a single person or live streaming to 10,000, with Lifesize, your privacy and security are simply not optional.

Why Live Stream?

Live streaming is a popular and cost-effective method for communicating through video to a large number of people, who can be anywhere in the world, all at once. Live streaming is also extremely flexible, as content can be accessed and consumed through virtually any device, to include computers, mobile devices and streaming media players.

In the context of business communications, the need for live streaming usually arises when:

• The logistics of gathering the intended audience together in person is too costly or too complex — think a company-wide announcement for a global corporation.
• The intended audience is larger than, or has the potential to be larger than, the capacity available for a video call or video meeting, like with an all-hands meeting or town hall meetings.
• The event or presentation will have one person or a small group of people addressing a larger audience, such as with a webinar, lecture, keynote speech or panel discussion.
• The event or presentation is primarily intended for public consumption and the audience is largely composed of people outside the organization, for example, a product demonstration for prospective customers.

Conclusion

Live streaming is a valuable tool to have for enterprise communication in an increasingly connected world and should be a consideration for any company or organization looking to increase the size of their meetings and expand the reach of their message to a global audience. And with Lifesize, it’s easy to implement live streaming as part of your overall communications strategy and technology stack.

To learn more or to request a demo, visit the Lifesize Streaming and Recording webpage.

The post How to Live Stream: Step-by-Step Guide to Hosting and Recording Live Streams appeared first on Lifesize.

Now, as enterprises and institutions around the world begin to strategically reopen their offices and distributed employees gradually return to more traditional workplaces, we can expect there to be heightened sensitivity with regard to the health and well-being of workers who will be sharing not only spaces but also meeting room technology. In fact, we’ve heard from many customers that foremost among their considerations and changes for a safe return to the workplace is adoption of as much “touchless computing” in shared spaces as they can reasonably implement.

With that backdrop, Lifesize today announced a new, native integration with Alexa for Business from Amazon Web Services to support safe and streamlined in-room meeting experiences via touch-free, voice-controlled system navigation and room management. Lifesize with Alexa for Business brings artificial intelligence to the meeting room and to the industry’s highest quality video meetings.

Combining the Power of Alexa and Lifesize

Organizations with an active Alexa for Business account can immediately enable the integration for Lifesize Icon 300, Icon 500 and Icon 700 room systems from the Lifesize Admin Console, allowing users to start, end and extend meetings; check in and reserve rooms; and more using simple voice commands. There’s no need for IT teams to purchase, deploy and manage additional hardware, as users can interact with the Alexa intelligent assistant and receive visual feedback directly from the Lifesize Phone HD in each meeting room system.

Among the standout features of the integration is the fact that Lifesize becomes the first video collaboration provider to support directory integration with the Alexa address book, enabling direct name-based calling to any contact, room system or meeting associated with an organization’s Lifesize account. This means that calling colleagues from any Lifesize-equipped meeting room is easier than ever. Simply state, “Alexa, call [Name]” and your video call will be initiated in seconds.

Beyond the hands-free interaction with Lifesize room systems to connect to and conduct meetings more efficiently, the Alexa for Business integration also allows the creation of custom skills for needs like virtual tech support and sharing the guest Wi-Fi password. A sampling of other skills (both standard and custom) include:

“Alexa, is this room free?”
“Alexa, who booked this room?” 
“Alexa, find me a room at noon.” 
“Alexa, ask our company for the latest news.”
“Alexa, report an issue.”
“Alexa, join my meeting.”
“Alexa, extend the meeting for 15 minutes.”
“Alexa, end the meeting.”

For room management, integration with common calendar applications grants Alexa the ability to automatically release booked rooms that end up going unused, and customers receive access to meeting room usage data so that they can take steps to maximize space utilization and increase productivity.

Safe to Meet in More Ways Than One

In alignment with the Lifesize commitment to ensure reliable, safe and secure video communication for our customers, privacy and security are paramount in the implementation of this new integration. As rigorously tested and certified Alexa Voice Service (AVS) solutions, our room systems comply with AWS’s comprehensive compatibility, security and privacy requirements.

This certification is further reinforced by additional security and privacy measures that customers can enable within their Alexa for Business accounts to ensure they are comfortable with how Alexa uses data. For example, IT administrators can use an API or web interface to remove voice recordings from the cloud as well as decline manual review of voice recordings. Plus, users can always tell Alexa to forget what they told her during a given day or meeting.

The entire backbone of Lifesize’s business already runs on AWS, and we are excited to further extend our collaboration with this integration to help joint customers make a safe return to work. At launch, North American customers can enjoy trialing Alexa for Business with their supported Lifesize Icon meeting room systems free for 90 days. To learn more, visit our integration page or read today’s press release.

The post Contactless Control Comes to Lifesize Meeting Rooms with Alexa for Business Integration appeared first on Lifesize.

Nonverbal cues are essential to effective communication. When interacting with a colleague or client in person, it’s easy to tell when the other person has something to say by picking up on nonverbal cues like body movements, facial expressions, eye contact and hand gestures. When meeting with a group of people, there are more moving parts, but the conversation usually carries on successfully because you’re all in the same room and actively participating in interpersonal, nonverbal communication.

With video conferencing, it’s not always that simple. While you can generally maintain awareness of facial expressions and body language when meeting face to face with one person or a small team, it becomes more challenging as the attendee list increases in size. If you’re the speaker, you are likely focused on delivering your message or presentation to the people in the room more so than the participants on screen. If you’re a participant, a subtle cue that you have a question or comment can easily go unnoticed when you don’t have the attention of the speaker or, in larger meetings, aren’t pictured on the screen at all.

With that in mind, we’ve added a new Raise Hands feature to our Lifesize desktop, web and mobile apps as well as to our guest experience for Apple Safari®, Google Chrome® and Microsoft® Edge browsers. 

Raise Hands allows participants to communicate with the meeting organizer or moderator without commandeering the proceedings. With the simple tap of a button, your virtual hand is raised, and a notification appears to indicate you have a question or comment to be addressed. The speaker can then respond at their discretion — perhaps in real time but most likely at a more opportune moment that’s not in the middle of making an important point. After all, isn’t that when the disruptions always tend to occur?

In addition to enabling participants to speak up without speaking out, Raise Hands provides moderators with the tools to manage meetings better. Participants with raised hands can be easily identified by the hand icons next to their names in the participants list or filtered out from all participants with a single click. Moderators can also lower hands individually or lower all hands simultaneously if questions have been addressed or are no longer being accepted.

Speaking of moderators, with another recent update, any admin or superuser for your Lifesize account can now moderate any meeting they join. With this increased control, assigning moderator privileges to your most trusted personnel is no longer required on a meeting-by-meeting basis.

Look for more updates in the weeks and months ahead as we continue to improve our Lifesize video conference call services and customer experiences!

The post Pardon the Interruption — Lifesize Introduces Raise Hands Feature appeared first on Lifesize.

But with the Coronavirus outbreak, there has been a dramatic there has been a increase of companies and organizations attempting to put platforms in place as quickly as possible. With people racing to download software and apps to stay connected on their smart devices and laptops, the consequences of rushing normal software-vetting processes have become rapidly apparent. 

Whether through news coverage, professional networks or browsing social media, by now you are probably aware of recent security findings and reports of video conferencing abuse and personal information leaked in which unassuming people have unfortunately found themselves:

• Hosting a webinar only to have a participant present obscene material for all to see? Check.
• Having uninvited guests deliberately crash video meetings and share their bad intentions with classes, congregations or constituents? Check and check.
• Having data serendipitously shared with a large social media company without user knowledge or consent? Check.

Signing up for a video conferencing service and connecting with personal contacts and professional colleagues over video is relatively quick and easy. However, there is still a learning curve to navigate for the millions of people who are new and unaccustomed to this form of communication, particularly as it relates to safeguarding personal or sensitive information. To help you avoid similar situations, here are ten best practices for maintaining your privacy and security while using video conferencing.

10 Video Conferencing Best Practices for Privacy and Security

For users

1. Configure and confirm meeting settings

When quickly joining a video call, it’s easy to stick with the default settings. Take an extra moment to confirm that each option is configured appropriately for your meeting so that you don’t encounter unexpected surprises when you join. This includes testing your audio and video before the call to ensure both are working properly. Remember, meeting participants will be treated to the view of whatever is behind you, so testing your video before the call gives you the opportunity to check your background and make sure it’s appropriate for the meeting.  

2. Take the time to learn the tool you are using

You don’t have to become a power user overnight, but at a minimum, get familiar with the buttons to mute your microphone, turn off your camera and leave the meeting. It’s the easiest way to make sure you are seen and heard only when you want to be.You don’t have to become a power user overnight, but at a minimum, get familiar with the buttons to mute your microphone, turn off your camera and leave the meeting. It’s the easiest way to make sure you are seen and heard only when you want to be. Some video conferencing tools also require you to download the software prior to the meeting. Ensure you do this ahead of time so you aren’t fumbling last minute to get set up3.

3. Mind your screenshots

Want to share a snapshot or video clip showing you and other meeting attendees on-screen? Double-check that no sensitive meeting details or personal contact information are visible in the frame before you upload it to your profile. It’s important to avoid any privacy issues or exposing user data which could be an innocent mistake with serious repercussions.  

4. Leave meeting invites to the meeting owner

Is there a person missing from the meeting invite? Would someone else benefit from joining? Rather than passing along the meeting details yourself, notify the meeting owner and let them handle it. You can easily trump their oversight by forwarding to the wrong contact or create an awkward situation for the meeting host when another party shows up unannounced.

For meeting owners and moderators

5. Don’t share your video meeting link publicly

Treat your meeting link like the key to your office or, better yet, your home. You wouldn’t share it with just anyone. To ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, distribute the link only to people who need to know it — and only through private means, like secure email or direct message. Remember to always treat your meeting IDs with caution. 

Need to host a public meeting with hundreds or thousands of participants? Most enterprise-grade video conferencing platforms like Lifesize have built-in controls to help you avoid abuse by restricting access for content sharing, video sharing and chat only to invited presenters.

6. Require a passcode for meeting entry

Consider an additional safeguard for your meeting by setting a passcode, if possible for any privacy concerns you might have. While you can share the passcode with your meeting link, you could also consider sharing it verbally or in a separate email or message for increased security.

7. Don’t just attend, moderate

If you own the meeting but are unable to moderate, designate a moderator to join. If you are only in a meeting to moderate, it can be tempting to multitask. Don’t. If you are called upon to stop a participant’s presentation, remove a person from the meeting or lock the meeting, you need to be ready to act.

For people exploring alternatives to Zoom and other video services

8. Choose a service that meets your needs

Believe it or not, you don’t have to opt for the first video conferencing app that shows up in your online search. Common free services like Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts may be easily accessible, but while they generally provide basic features like screen sharing, they don’t always provide the functionality needed for larger video conferences. Given the current circumstances, multiple companies are providing free access to their video conferencing services and tools, so you could actually try them all and see what works best for you without being locked into a plan. Professional tip—if privacy and security are especially of concern, look for a provider that has a history and reputation for securing their customers’ personal data and privacy.Taking the time to understand service providers and the security measures they have in place will only benefit you in the long run

9. Consider live streaming

Video conferencing serves a specific purpose—real-time, two-way communication and exchange of information among hosts and participants. If your need is mainly outbound communication to an audience, you may alternatively consider live streaming as your primary channel. This would limit the opportunity for outside parties to disrupt your message and presentation, especially in large call situations. Fortunately, live streaming is available as an option for select video conferencing providers, so you can broadcast to larger audiences while also preserving your ability to meet and interact with individuals and smaller groups on a more personal level. 

10. Prioritize encryption and enterprise privacy policies

Given the prevalence of cybercrime and cyberattacks, such as the increasing occurrences of bad actors hijacking video meetings, it’s highly recommended that you emphasize data privacy and cybersecurity in your search for a solution. Fortunately, most providers’ security and privacy policy documentation is publicly available on their websites (you can access Lifesize’s privacy policy here). When thinking about providers’ policies, consider the following:

• Does the provider explicitly state what data it collects and how it is secured?
• Does the provider specify how long data is retained, and for what purpose?

Remember, it is ultimately your responsibility, as a customer or IT administrator, to dig deeper to determine if an offering stands up to privacy and security scrutiny and if you are willing to accept the caveats and the accompanying risks.

Conclusion

Where some pitfalls of video conferencing can simply be attributed to user error, the remainder are the product of flaws in the service being used and the compromises made by the provider itself. It’s no secret that the way the technology is coded, packaged and deployed has a significant impact on the security of your data and privacy of your conversations with meeting attendees. But you should also be comfortable with the level of transparency a provider maintains regarding their offering and how forthcoming they are in terms of how your communications and intellectual property are handled.

We are all taking measures to keep ourselves, family and friends safe and secure during the Coronavirus lockdowns. Let’s also make sure we are doing the same with our communication tools.

If you are currently in need of a secure, enterprise-grade video conferencing platform, Lifesize is offering free, unlimited video conferencing service to all businesses for six months. To learn more, visit www.lifesize.com/remote-work.  

The post Video Conferencing Privacy: 10 Best Practices for Maintaining Privacy appeared first on Lifesize.