Imagine you’re in a Zoom meeting. The speaker is scintillating. Then all of a sudden you hear another voice. You don’t know where it’s coming from. Then an unknown person appears in the gallery. His behavior is obscene. The meeting stops. Everyone is silently wondering what to do. This actually happened in a class I attended. How do you get rid of this disgusting intruder?
Fortunately, we had a couple of back office experts on the call and they were able to remove him from the room. What if this scenario happened to you? Would you know what to do?
Here are a few tips for preventing invaders from Zoom bombing your meeting.
Know who is coming. Make sure the team cross checks the people against the participant list.
Don’t let them rename themselves. By shutting off this feature, they can’t hijack someone else’s name and appear to be that person. Be wary of someone who calls himself “User” or an impersonal moniker.
Shut off their cameras and audio before allowing participants to leave the waiting room and enter the meeting. You’ll see if there are duplicate names or names you don’t recognize. This will allow you to remove them before there is any trouble.
Turn off Share Screen so they can’t override your display.
Tell people to arrive early. Close the room after the first 10 minutes so strangers can’t crash the meeting. If you know there will be latecomers, look at the names in the waiting room. If you don’t recognize a name, send a direct message. Ask them to send you an email describing themselves.
Make sure you have a co-host so they can troubleshoot if a stranger gets into the room. You need more than one pair of eyes and hands to catch a Zoom Bomber so share the controls.
Click the REMOVE button once you identify the culprit. Be aware that Zoom automatically reports someone when they are removed by the host. To avoid the wrong person being reported, you can shut off this feature and then manually hit the REPORT button.
In the two years since I’ve attended this same class, we’ve been Zoom Bombed twice. Most of the time the security works and you’ll have effective meetings and presentations. On the rare occasion that you do have an intruder, you’ll know what to do to stop the Zoom Bombing and save the day. The SETTINGS feature is your best friend.
To learn how to Speak Confidently and Effectively check out my LinkedIn learning course. It ranked #5 on the Top 20 Most Popular courses.
To learn techniques to overcome fear of speaking, read chapter 3 of Knockout Presentations.
To work with me contact DiResta Communications, Inc.
Tagged: presentation, public speaking, virtual presentatio