5 great enhancements for Zoom
Steve Kreeger
?? Co-Founder at Shapes. Digital consultant, Digital storyteller, UX Strategist. Bringing a little more freedom, relief and delight to SMEs, accountants & business owners through better digital experiences.
So as most of the world are on Zoom right now, I thought I'd share a few addon's I think are pretty cool to help the working environment at home feel more helpful, comfortable, or realistic. Feel free to share with those that might need these!
1. Remove Background Noise!
K?risp is a tool for mac, windows, chrome and iOS - basically cuts all the crappy bg noise out of your feed - seems too amazing to be true, so will give this one a try with the kids arguing in the background on our next team call and see if anyone can hear them!
On Chrome and desktop it ships with 120 mins per week for free at the moment! (knowing my luck I'll use it and the first time on an important call my 120 mins will run out...!)
2. Be in the actual office, from your sofa
Well, technically it's a graphic, but these guys have seen a niche in the market for a relatively custom solution for the Zoom backgrounds. If you know how to use photoshop then you don't need this, but short of that access and ability, they create you a custom 'virtual office' background for your zoom meetings - making it look like you're in the office each day on your zoom calls.
$6.99 for one image seems steep but is of course only small fee for the professional look it will give you - plus you can then stay in bed as you all want to anyway.
https://www.virtualoffice.design/
A cheaper alternative - https://www.screenbrander.com/ $1.99 per version - but not as good...
Or contact your agency to create you a good one ;-)
3. More backgrounds than you'll ever want
Another response to the entire world using Zoom these guys have pushed out a library of zoom backgrounds you can look at, download and use to your hearts content, or even upload your own.
Some bizarre ones on there... but some helpful ones too
4. Google Chrome Zoom addon
Schedule meetings right from Chrome - super helpful if are scheduling a lot more video calls than usual at the moment ... which you probably are
https://tinyurl.com/jewzm8a
5. And finally... The one that will change someone's life
This one is the nuts.
I love this idea
I haven't tried it yet, but it is this sort of stuff, that I wish I had come up with!
Good Night Zoom is a tool that partners older generations with children via zoom to read a bedtime story. Kids get a storytime from someone "on screen" and the tool tackles loneliness at the same time. Even outside of lockdown it's these sort of tools that people should be using every day!
"We partner primarily with nursing homes to find trustworthy, warm readers, and it's an amazing connecting experience" - Amazing. I'll be trying this with our kids.
Disclaimer - I haven't tried all of these, so they are not recommendations, just knowledge sharing :)
Enjoy!