83rd SAWE Conference Information

Forum Etiquette

• Minimize crosstalk not related to the session before and after sessions.
• Assume people need additional context. During forums this can be done by introducing someone and their background and having the moderator call on people that they know have experience related to the topic.
• If your camera is on, try not to seem distracted.
• Close or minimize other windows on your computer and limit your multitasking.
• Silence your phone.
• Wear business casual attire.

Camera View

• Try not to have a lot of mess or clutter in view of your camera. In most cases blurring your background is a good idea.
• Do not use artificial scenes or "beachy backgrounds". If you wish to use something as a backdrop, a plain gradient serves nicely. Remember that Teams will crop your background, so less is more.

Web Camera

• Check your camera before enabling your feed.
• Know your camera angles! Your camera should be at eye level or just above it. Similarly, your camera should be vertically in line with where you plan to have the window with the meeting on the screen. If your camera is on screen and the meeting is on another, or to the side, you will be turning your head to look at that screen and the viewers will get a great shot of the side of your head.
• Ideally use an external camera and put some light behind the camera. A basic store-bought camera and a ring light is more than sufficient.
• If you must use a built-in laptop camera, know your angles! These tend to be angled up from below your face. This can put focus on your chin and show a fair bit of your ceiling. Mitigate this by elevating your laptop on a stand.
• If you need to process your feed (crop, pan, zoom, color adjust, light adjust, etc.) look at webcamoid. It's a program that does just that and can run a virtual camera to loop its output directly into Teams. In Teams where you select your camera, you will instead select webcamoid. It's free to compile yourself or $1.50 for a precompiled version.

Microphone

• Check your levels before joining a call. Especially if you don't make many voice calls from your computer, open your system's sound settings panel and verify that the bars are moving when you speak. Call a friend and sample your microphone or use a voice recorder to check how you sound.
• Use automatic gain settings. Teams and most video conferencing programs do this by default. If it's enabled, you should see the mic volume slider move itself in the sound settings panel as the program adjusts to your speaking volume. This means you don't need to shout or whisper; you can speak comfortably and normally, and your listeners should hear you just fine.
• Use a headset! Generally, the built-in microphones are low quality and have a tendency to pick up ambient sound. Headsets bring your microphone closer to your mouth and usually have a foam cover to reduce popping or breathing sounds.
• If you can't use a headset, at least use headphones! As a rule you should avoid taking meetings on speakerphone or using a laptop's built-in speakers and built-in microphone. If two people on a call have microphones that can hear their speakers, you will create feedback, and everyone will feel embarrassed for you.

Computer Configuration

• Mute system sounds - we don't need to know you got an email when you're presenting.
• Use a hard-wired connection. It uses a decent amount of bandwidth to send and receive streaming video and this helps prevent any hiccups in your signal.
• Enable "Presentation Mode" - On Windows, there's something called Presentation Mode. It's not necessary, but it mutes system notifications, sets your wallpaper to a default, and disables sleep timers.
  • This only works by default on Windows laptops. If you're on a desktop, see this link for how to enable Mobility Center.