Audio
One Track Mind is a very useful iOS app which lets you play through a playlist one Music track at a time – very helpful when playing music tracks in worship live or online – no more having to watch for the end of the track and stop before the next track plays!
General
Earlier today I sent an email to over 30 colleagues and had omitted to attach the attachments! Then came the flurry of phone calls and emails… “I think you forgot the attachments!” Some email apps do clever things and remind you if you have used the word “attached” but not attached any files. I’m usually quite careful and take a moment to check emails, posts, messages and tweets before zapping them out to others… Thinking about how to be more thorough – I came up with the mnemonic TRACKS to remind me to check:
Always check emails for typos. Autocorrect is very clever but sometimes gets it embarrasingly wrong – and it’s you that will be embarrassed. Take a moment to read over the email, post, tweet before you send it into the ether.
Think about who will read your post. If it’s an email use the To, CC and BCC carefully. If your email is to more than one person a good style is to use ‘To’ for the people from whom you expect action, CC is for information. BCC use carefully! Remember GDPR and dont share email addresses without permission.
Have you included all attachments referred to?Is there a better way to share the info – perhaps a link, or sharing to DROPBOX, TEAMS, SLACK or another collaboration tool?
If you refer to a meeting on Wednesday, have you also mentioned the time and venue… think ‘complete information’ – even if it’s repeated and was in an earlier communication?
Emails should be kind! Also think of the kind of conversation. A letter, phone call or face to face talk might be a better approach for that difficult conversation.
The subject line is so important. How many emails do you delete on the basis of the subject line? Simply being there is a good start as many spam filters will make assumptions about emails without a subject. It should be clear and concise and relate to the actual subject matter rather than an earlier thread! It’s okay to change the Subject line when replying to an email if the subject has changed!
Before sending an email, post, message or tweet, think TRACKS – Typos, Recipients, Attachments, Complete, Kind, Subject – and then click SEND.
Productivity
Many of us are on a learning curve with the various video conference possibilities during this time…
Zoom provide on-line advice at this link:
Zoom | Support during the COVID-19 pandemic
It’s not as complicated as you may think to get up and running with Zoom! To join a meeting you DO NOT require to have a ZOOM account and login.
To use Zoom you will need:
When someone invites you to a Zoom call, they will likely send you a link that looks like https://zoom.us/j/1010101010
If you are using a laptop or desktop computer and don’t have the Zoom app yet, when you click on the link the client will automatically download and then connect you to the call. If you already have the client, you will just be connected to the call.
If you will be using smartphone or tablet, you will need to download the Zoom app from the App Store.
If you are using a laptop or desktop computer, go to https://zoom.us/download where you can download the a for your machine. Install it the way you would install any software.
If you are using a smartphone or tablet, go to the iOS App Store or Google Play, and download the app.
if you have an iPad, iPhone or other iOS Device, go to the App Store and download the free Zoom Cloud app. Then when you click on the zoom link provided by the person hosting, the video call should begin. You may be asked to enable audio, microphone and camera… click OK to any such questions.
If you have an Android device, go to the Google Play store and download the free Zoom Cloud app. Following the link (provided by the host) will open the video call in the app… you may have to enable microphone and camera and should respond OK/YES if requested.
If on a laptop or desktop, clicking the link (provided by the host) will open a browser page, and if you don’t already have the app it will be automatically installed – you should follow the screen prompts and enable camera and microphone if asked.
If a Linux user, you presumably know what you are doing and have ZOOM installed already! 🙂
If you can help to improve and perfect these notes, please comment here, Thank you.
