Working from Home Follow Rodney’s Advice “Get a Room”

Rodney Dangerfield certainly popularized the term “get a room” referring to an amorous couple with their over the top PDA-public display of affection.  Yet, he was also ahead of his time in suggesting that people who work from home should have a real room for their home office.  For many who don’t have that luxury what follows will help both situations.  If you have not encountered the “like they are shouting in a barn” effect or worse, you have been lucky. People have tended to use their laptop microphones and video cameras for all their web meetings.  Guess they are just too lazy to realize how unprofessional they sound and worse how they look. Here’s a few ideas for making your home office a “home sweet home office:”

– Wireless Headsets are the easiest and cheapest option to help your voice sound more professional click here for examples but for people who are on all day calls, headsets can be annoying, even painful. 

– External microphones can be expensive but click here for examples and see how good they really are.  There are certainly others but ask yourself how good do you want to be? 

– Cameras can also be cheap, very expensive but very important. Click here for examples.

– Lighting is also good advice and it is a lot less than what you expect. Click here for some examples.  Also close your curtains, don’t have a window in your background and adjust to make sure you look good. I have one and use it and it works great at home or outside to fill-in lighting which improves your video presentation.

– Busy – Do Not Disturb Sign(s) to politely let others aka kids you are busy and to please be quietly click here for some good examples some for under $10.  Of course, pets can’t read and others ignore the signage but it’s a start.

– What people forget the most is the room.  Don’t know why people don’t care if people see their unmade beds and clothes all over the place or worse the kitchen with dirty dishes everywhere.  Yet there is a simple effective solution for that which will also help with the room echo aka “barn effect” is a room divider. And, if you can’t get a room, you certainly can get a room divider !  Click here are some great examples, even some around $50. You may need two dividers but these are cheaper than redoing your room or office as well as being portable to move to other spaces or rooms. Whether you are in a dorm room, playroom, basement, mancave, garage or even patio you can use a room divider to help you look much better.  

These are just a few rather simple tools to help have better video meetings, presentations and even home video parties and events.

When asked, most companies we interviewed said they will reimburse (remember to ask first) employees for these great home improvement ideas.  Even if they don’t you will make a great investment in yourself by “showing them how good you really are” in the next sales call, staff meeting, job interview, investor pitch and more.  In this new hybrid-virtual-digital world, since you are not often nor can be there inperson all the time, your video presence is your new “first impression” to look really good.  If you have any other suggestions, please email me at cross@gocross.com

Next time – more ideas on how to make your home office help you be even better at whatever you do.