Zoom

Three Trillion Minutes On Zoom (Is That Just This Week?)

April 21, 2021

Zoom calls… Teams meetings… Google Meets… whichever tech platform your business uses*, do you ever get to a Friday evening and feel a bit “over Zoomed?” Especially if you then have ANOTHER Zoom arranged with friends or family?

According to estimates, over three trillion minutes will be spent on Zoom this year. That’s about 5.5 million years!

As much as they’re a pain when you have them all day, video calls really do help us be productive and get things done while we’re working remotely.

76% of all employees use video calling for remote work, according to some stats we’ve been reading. Three quarters of those say it makes them more productive. 41% of employers believe video calls lead to better engaged teams.

How to feel less “over Zoomed” then… here are three suggested rules that have worked well for us.

1. Do a tech test before every meeting: Check your video and sound are working. Zoom has a test call facility at www.zoom.us/test

2. Never meet unless you have a written agenda: And put the agenda on screen using screen share. This stops meetings from dragging on.

3. Stand up, especially if you’re the organizer: This is good for real life meetings, too. When you stand for a meeting, your body will give you feedback when the meeting’s dragging. Standing desks are a great idea for productivity and keeping energy levels high.

* Side note: Do you remember in the old days (2018) when people used GoToMeeting for video calls? Or the really, really old days (2017) when we used Skype?

Zoom In: A Look At The Increase Of Virtual Meetings

October 1, 2020

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

Quarantine as a whole was (and still is) a strange thing to see happen in the United States. With state-by-state protocols varying and dates in which states began to open back up done on a per-state basis, months were lost.

Schools shut down and businesses closed, some permanently. The businesses deemed “essential” stayed open with new restrictions in place.

Travel was restricted domestically and halted internationally. Anyone that could work remotely was reassigned to work from home.

With travel bans and remote work orders in place, Zoom saw huge increases in usage.

Zoom is meeting software, allowing users to do video or audio conferences as a group. There is a very good free tier for users to join unlimited calls, to host calls with up to 100 participants for up to 40 minutes, and unlimited one-to-one calls.

Among other similar solutions, Zoom has seen skyrocketing numbers since the pandemic started.

In December 2019, Zoom reported 10 million daily meetings taking place. Fast forward to March 2020, and Zoom hosted 200 million daily meeting. By the end of April 2020, Zoom reached 300 million daily meetings.

Zoom users vary from friends chatting, students collaborating, businesses meeting, conferences, and even the British members of Parliament.

Video conferencing has been used to keep gatherings to a minimum, teach students, conduct business meetings, and more.

While there may be a time that the number of video conferences may drop down, I believe the way we do business and operate as people has changed in some ways that will continue the prevalence of video conferencing.

Many schools across the US closed early late last year due to the pandemic. In Michigan, students in K-12 have a few different options when it comes to how they proceed with their learning now. Students can work remote or virtually.

Remote learning has two options itself, in-person learning with remote or just remote. The in-person learning involves a limited school day and less days in attendance per week. Or a class will be entirely remote.

Virtual school will remain that way all year. This is an existing system in place, and students will remain home doing virtual learning even when restrictions ease. Students may have already been using this system prior to the pandemic.

In both cases, students are typically using Google Classroom and Zoom. Remote learning with Zoom sees students join a conference with an instructor. They may have a lecture or another type of lesson that is done over the video conferencing. Virtual school’s lectures can vary based on the program itself.

When restrictions are lifted in Michigan for schools, those who are doing remote learning with attendance will attend school on a more regular schedule, but will still see some use of Zoom as a way to reduce traffic and students in different classrooms. Those doing just remote learning will stay home after restrictions are lifted and continue to attend video conferences as classes.

There have been many changes this year, and some are for the better. There will probably be a decrease in travel, even as bans are lifted. Some things that had previously been done in-person will now be done through video conferencing. Students will continue to be able to attend school from home. Work-from-home positions may offered by more companies.

Things will continue to return to how they were before the pandemic, but video conferences will continue to thrive.

The Latest Small Business Security SNAFU? Zoom

June 23, 2020

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

With everyone now working from home and finding new ways to collaborate and get things done, Zoom has become one of the most popular video conferencing applications, reporting growth of 378% over just one year ago.

As its popularity has grown, so has the allure for hackers. The FBI in Boston reported that two online high school classes had been interrupted by individuals who began yelling obscenities and the address of the teacher to another which displayed swastika tattoos. So how does this happen?

To start, most recurring meetings use the same meeting IDs. Someone, in an effort to make sure other attendees were aware of the event, would share it in an unsecured way, such as on Facebook or other social media.

Hackers can pick up this information, and even after the event was over, they could use the same information to gain access to the next meeting. Fortune Magazine has reported that dark web dedicated forums have popped up on popular sites like Reddit, and all a hacker would need to do on Facebook is search for “zoom.us” to find any public post containing the targeted words.

So what is a business to do to secure their meetings and avoid the potential sharing of sensitive corporate information during this time of extensive virtual meetings? First, and foremost, set your meeting to private. This means that there is a password required for each participant to enter. Although Zoom has now changed this setting to be the default setting, some users are still opting to make the meeting public for the sake of convenience.

As inconvenient as it is to have invitees enter a password to get into their meeting, it’s even more inconvenient to have sensitive corporate information released. Also… and this might seem to be stating the obvious but do not share your meeting invite over social media.

No matter our security settings on social media profiles, it’s best to assume that nothing you say on there will stay private. Another way to ensure the security of your zoom meeting is to use the feature of the waiting room. This means that each invitee who logs in will first be placed into a room where the meeting host then has to approve their entry and allowing the host to assess each attendee before they enter the room.

Also, never use your personal ID. Each zoom user has a personal virtual meeting room assigned when they create an account. Defaulting to using your assigned virtual meeting room can make it easier for hackers to enter in from old meeting announcements.

You know the phrase, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Yeah. When it comes to Zoom (and any virtual meeting for that matter) assume what happens in Zoom does not stay in Zoom. If the information that is going to be shared is of such critical nature, you should find another medium where you have no chance of being overheard.