Below are helpful tips and tricks for phone conferences and videoconferences, useful for working from home, remotely, and the office: 1. Never type or shuffle papers near your phone (or microphone if videoconferencing). The microphone picks up such sounds, and are distracting and annoying to the listener. 2. If you must shuffle papers or move items on your desk, place a towel on the table to reduce noise. 3. Be aware of your pauses. In a conversational meeting, people can misinterpret a brief pause as the end of a statement, causing people to jump in and talk over each other. 4. If you are holding a phone while speaking, be sure you are not covering the microphone. Pinkies often unintentionally cover the microphone, blocking the sound of your voice.

5. If you are giving a presentation, clarify whether questions will be taken during or afterward. If you take questions during the presentation, tell your audience you will continually prompt the question period (i.e., you should specifically ask if people have questions) so they know when you are briefly pausing or opening the floor for questions.

6. Test technology well before important meetings, and as a participant, start 5-10 minutes early. Technical issues can happen anytime, even to tech-savvy people.

7. Stop talking if you and another person talk over each other. (This can be hard if it’s not already a habit.) Don’t expect the other person will stop talking. No matter how important your point is, people will have difficulty understanding it if someone else is also talking. Keep in mind: it is harder to understand people talking over each other on the phone than in person, as talking over each other warps sound on phones and leaves listeners unable to understand either speaker. (Take it from Radio 101 – you have probably never heard radio personalities talk over each other.)

8. Everyone should be introduced during the meeting. Also ask everyone to identify themselves each time they speak. You might be familiar with everyone’s voice, but someone else might not.

9. Do not touch the phone when talking, or, if you must hold it, try not to move the phone, change your grip, or type on it while talking. These can distort sound or cause additional noises, even if you think you are not doing anything that would affect sound. (For example, moving a wired office phone while talking can distort audio entirely, leaving the listener unable to understand anything said during the phone’s movement.)

10. Share the agenda and collect questions in advance. It’s important for people to know the purpose of a meeting and prepare for potential contribution. (This seems obvious, but still happens all too often.)

11. Gather input from people who cannot join the meeting.

12. Always send follow-up correspondence or email with key meeting takeaways.

13. When talking into a phone, “p” and “b” sounds often pop and cause a distorted sound that damages speakers and people’s ears. Do not speak directly into a phone. Instead, a phone should be to the side of your mouth, and sometimes even a few inches away from your mouth.

14. During videoconferences, keep body movements minimal, gesture slowly, and be mindful of your background.

15. Screen share whenever possible.

16. If you can’t screenshare and people are following a visual (e.g., a powerpoint), continually reference where you are in the powerpoint or visual.

A few reminders of the obvious: Microphones pick up more noise than you think. Put your phone on mute when not talking. Check in with everyone to keep people engaged.