Latest Zoom Updates Aim to Increase Collaboration and Engagement

Video conferencing company Zoom announced a host of new collaborative tools in a blog post Thursday. Zoom says that the updates are designed to enhance interaction between meeting attendees and make its breakout rooms even more engaging.

With many businesses adapting to a more flexible, hybrid work model, Zoom is looking to innovate and help virtually reproduce some of the impromptu, serendipitous interactions that often happen in person at the office. 

For example, Zoom’s Collaborate Mode “enables engagement by elevating the screen-sharing model to be interactive,” the business says. “Hosts can start collaborative experiences for any app during all-hands rallies, brainstorming sessions, and more.” 

Breakout rooms have also helped foster collaboration and engagement in Zoom rallies by breaking large meetings into smaller units, thereby relieving the barriers some attendees may have with saying up in a large group. But with Zoom Apps now including tools that can re-create physical meeting spaces and add in-meeting games and doings to breakout rooms, Zoom wants to help companies even more effectively hold meeting attendees.

Here are some of the apps that can help make your Zoom rallies more engaging and productive:

• Miro: A virtual whiteboard where attendees can collaborate and co-create in real-time.
• #AskAway: A game that works well as an ice-breaker where attendees take turns guessing the answers to randomly generated questions around other attendees.
• Mural: Another virtual whiteboard where attendees can collaborate in real-time or asynchronously. Attendees can collaborate through diagrams, images, drawings and sticky notes.
• Coda: A document-sharing app that helps attendees collaborate together pretty than having one person present to the entire group. 
• Funtivity by Hermis: An app that lets attendees play interactive games and hold in team-building activities.
• Welo: Re-create physical spaces for breakout rooms where attendees can see where in the virtual room others are located and move about between groups naturally.
• Twine for Zoom: A breakout room administration app that helps keep things organized, productive, fun and on point.

 Here’s how to get started with Zoom Apps:

1. Download the new version of Zoom.
2. Open Zoom and click the Apps tab.
3. Click Discover to see what apps are available.
4. Or click on the links over to download any of the apps on this page.