Adobe Connect Tips – Making the Background Work For You

by CoSo

April 25, 2016

Looking for ways to make your presentation sizzle?  Background wallpaper is an often neglected aspect of setting up an Adobe Connect room.  At best it’s given a quick company standard background, often an abstract design in company colors and maybe a company logo.  At worst it’s left default blank and covered up with pods in their maximum sizes so you can’t see it at all.  Either way, it’s a waste of a great opportunity. 

At ConnectSolutions, we like to use background images that are appropriate to our meeting.  For example, we use an image of a classroom or lecture hall for a training session, or a boardroom image for an executive meeting, or even a rooftop bar or corporate jet interior to set the mood appropriately.  

A few tips for success:

• Ensure the resolution is optimally set for Connect (1920×1200), and then the real fun begins.
• A quick cut and paste with Photoshop or Paint lets you ‘write’ an appropriate greeting on the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall or classroom. You may ‘personalize’ a TV or monitor in the boardroom with a still image of our presenter or company logo, or add a personal touch to the whatever image you decide to use.  
• When setting up the layouts for Connect meeting, arrange the pods so as not to obscure what we’ve placed in the background.   This takes some experimentation to ensure things work with small and large screens both, but in the end, the results can be spectacularly engaging. 

For an extra flair, try changing the wallpaper mid-meeting to the surprise of our participants while one pod is maximized.  This trick works especially well when the background is something familiar to them, such as a high-resolution image of their own corporate HQ or campus.  It’s just another way Connect shows itself as the most engaging collaborative tool out there!