Hybrid Work and Return to Work

Since the previous edition appeared, many as hundreds of millions of people around the world have returned part-time or full-time to a company office that they hadn’t seen—or had run into and run out of a few times—since March 2020.

As a result, hybrid work is on the rise: people working a mix from home and in a company space. This means many Zoom sessions can involve a mix of people sitting together, sitting within earshot, and individually remote.

I’ve updated the book to add strategies and better reflect the new work environment. In particular, see Prepare for Hybrid Meetings, a new section that outlines a few scenarios.

Zoom Whiteboard

A whiteboard appears in most conference rooms and became a heavily relied upon virtual feature during the pandemic. Zoom had built one simplified kind of digital whiteboard into meetings that can be invoked through Share Screen > Whiteboard. (See Share from a Desktop App.)

In April 2022, the company released a second kind of collaborative drawing space it calls Zoom Whiteboard. It supplements, rather than replaces, the shared whiteboard. It may be invoked and used inside or outside a meeting. The tools are similar but not identical to the drawing and annotation options available in a Zoom meeting, making for confusion. (See Mark Up a Screen for markup and annotation tools.)

I cover this feature in a new chapter, Collaborate with a Whiteboard.

Livestreaming

The rise during the pandemic of livestreaming—literally meaning streaming video live via a number of online services—pairs neatly with Zoom, which has excellent and ever-improving built-in support. The company recently added direct support for Twitch.

I’ve added a chapter in this version, Stream a Meeting, to help you through the creaky setup required.

Apple Updates

With the expected release in third quarter 2022 of iOS 16/iPadOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura, Apple will bring multiple webcam-related improvements that allow iPhone and Mac users more options and more sophisticated video input choices. See Apple Virtual Camera Arrives in Third Quarter 2022.

This edition also expands on the Center Stage feature available on select iPads and with Macs connected to a Studio Display, adds coverage of the background-blur Portrait mode in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and explains how those features will be affected with this fall’s updates. See Apple Keeps You in the Picture and Apple Offers Its Own Blur with Portrait Mode.

Hide Self View

It’s an odd omission, but I never mentioned the Hide Self View in previous editions of this book, a choice that disables your view of your own video stream. I now cover it in Hide Yourself.

Watermark Your Audio and Video

Hosts can have watermarks appear on all video panels or in local audio recordings in a meeting for all participants. A visible watermark is the viewer’s email address; an audio one is hidden and can be decoded only by Zoom. See Add a Watermark. (This privacy and security feature was added years ago, but I only recently encountered it.)

General Zoom Updates

Zoom is always expanding, tweaking, and improving its apps. I’ve updated the book to reflect the following changes:

• Zoom One rebranding: Zoom is slowly renaming its core videoconferencing service that bundles in a few other features—chat, Whiteboard, and Zoom Phone, which is optional—from Zoom to Zoom One. Given the company, app name, and main product were all called Zoom, distinguishing those makes a lot of sense!

• 40-minute limit on all free sessions: Any user without a paid license attached to their user account can only host sessions up to 40 minutes, whether with one other person or 99 other people. See Zoom Ends Unlimited 1:1 Sessions for Free Users.

• Polls library: You now have the option to create polls before a meeting—instead of only during one—using an account library available in the Meetings webpage for your account. When scheduling a meeting, you can select to include these polls among the polling options available as a host. See Run a Poll.

• Record individual audio tracks in the cloud: Zoom is often used to record podcasts and other events. Having separate audio tracks from each participant allows later editing and removal of crosstalk. Zoom has an option for local recording that allows recording individual tracks by the host, but only recently started testing it for cloud recording. See Set Options for Recording.

• Recognition of suspicious logins: To avoid hijacking of Zoom accounts, the company may require an additional password for corporate accounts using a business email login and without two-factor authentication enabled. If Zoom detects something unusual, like “a login from a different country or device than usual, among other factors,” according to release notes, the company will send a login password and link to the person’s email address.

• Meeting reactions displayed for yourself: When you raised your hand, used an emoji, or opted for what Zoom calls “nonverbal feedback” (like a slow down or speed up request), it was hard for you to tell what you’d just done—no feedback on your feedback. Zoom now displays your actions and reactions for you in a meeting more clearly, particularly when you’ve hidden your “self-view” video stream. See Get Attention.

• New administrative interface: Zoom splits admin features for individual, group, and company accounts across many locations in its web-based account interface. The company has tried to simplify this by overhauling the interface so it’s easier to figure out where to find features. I address this throughout the book, wherever website settings are mentioned, but you can find a number of specifics in Configure Meeting Options.

• Avatars: Zoom has jumped on the animated face-tracking avatar background, letting you have a red panda or dog or other animal swap out your face and body. I don’t see a use for it except for kids in remote learning uncomfortable for having their faces appear on camera. See Mess with Video Filters, Studio Effects, and Avatars.

• Mobile picture-in-picture mode: You can have a Zoom window appear as a picture-in-picture inset. See How to Switch Among Views.

• Participants list can show invited parties: Account admins can opt to have the Participants list in a live meeting show all those invited instead of just those currently attending. See Engage with Tools To Manage a Meeting.

• Waiting Room: Improvements for hosts for managing the pre-entrance Meeting Room include:

  • Rename participants: A host can rename participants before they join a meeting.

  • Participants’ order: A host can sort people in the Waiting Room by when they entered or alphabetically by name. See Check Other Participants in from the Waiting Room.

• Breakout rooms: Zoom has added a couple of useful tools to improve breakout room management by hosts and admins (see Break Meetings into Smaller Groups):

  • Save Breakout Room assignments: When creating breakout rooms, a host using the desktop app can store the participant assignments to room to recall for future meetings.

  • Host access to breakout rooms without joining: A host can now view the action within breakout rooms from the main level of Zoom without joining a breakout room.

• Chat Etiquette Tool: Zoom has enhanced how account owners and admins can create word lists and patterns and set policies for when those match. For instance, a numeric pattern for account numbers could prevent a message from going through and suspend an account. See Manage Chat.

One additional change to the book worth noting is in the Schedule a Meeting section. Zoom increasingly offers scheduling options available only via the website. To reflect that split and make it clearer where you can make configuration choices, I’ve reorganized the section, splitting it into Schedule via an App and Schedule via the Website.