Does anyone here have experience with hybrid Zoom meetings?
Asked by
Jeruba (
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October 29th, 2022
I belong to a group that moved to Zoom because of covid and now wants to try hybrid meetings. I’m looking into it.
And I’ve just attended a memorial service for my uncle that was a hybrid Quaker meeting. They had a Meeting Owl in the room that enables those present to speak. I don’t know what they were able to see of the Zoom participants, but those of us on Zoom could see the people in the room when they spoke.
I see that the Meeting Owl costs a little over $1000 and that there are cheaper devices that, of course, do less.
Have you had any experience with any variety of hybrid Zoom meeting, including the do-it-yourself makeshift kind? If so, how does it work, is it satisfactory, and would you recommend it?
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7 Answers
I participated in hybrid meetings for about two years. I liked having the option to still be on zoom.
In my circumstance the meeting room had one laptop for the speaker connected to projecting onto a large screen. That laptop was zooming, and anyone not in the room could connect to the zoom.
The Rochester Academy of Science started hybrid zoom meetings a few months ago. We have about 15–18 regular attendees. About half come to the location, the other half stay on line.
We do not use any special equipment. Rather, we use one of the in-person attendees’ laptop as the monitor ,camera, and microphone for the zoom attendees. All participants are scrupulously polite so there is no problem with one person dominating the meeting or discussion.
The in-person folks get to eat the snacks and enjoy the drinks while the zoomers can only watch. :-).
A community board I am on has done hybrid meetings – several of us in person, and several on Zoom. And we have done some of these at work, as well.
It works pretty well. The in-person room has a camera at one end of the table, with a couple of microphones attached so that audio is good. The Zoom people are in little rectangles. We have it set so that the person talking is on full screen.
Being in person is better, but at least we can see facial expressions and body language somewhat.
I’ve attended two hybrid funerals over the pandemic. A handful of people attended in-person. With one person dialing up over zoom. People over zoom could use the raise hand feature to speak. But mostly they just listened. The meeting was recorded and shared with those who couldn’t attend.
I was both sad and grateful for the hybrid option. It’s harder to have that emotional connection through a screen. But it also allowed people to attend that couldn’t.
We use Teams, not Zoom, if you’re looking at options. Can be thru phone or laptop wherever you are. Good quality, too.
Thanks for all responses—all are helpful.
@KNOWITALL, thanks. How does Teams work? How is it different from Zoom? Are you using it in the workplace?
Yes Teams is more user-friendly I’ve been told. Yes we use it at a big corporate company.
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