Effective Online Meetings

As more employers are contemplating work from home due to concerns around spreading coronovirus, I want to share some of my random throughts around how to have an effective online meeting, regardless of underlying technology (Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Zoom, etc.)

I've been primarily working from home for the past 13 years, so I've gotten a lot of practical experience.

1. Use your camera (assuming bandwidth supports it). It's better to see faces and pick up on the nonverbal cues that we use for communication.
2. Mute and unmute quickly. This will limit background noise and allow the speaker to be more focused. My tech (Microsoft Teams) has a software mute button, but I prefer the hardware mute button on my headset, because I can quickly press it, share my thoughts, and then mute myself without much effort of reaching for the mouse. 
3. Keep it light. Meetings are less effective when people go in scared to contribute. I like to start things off light (a couple of bad dad jokes maybe), introductions to participants that I don't know or don't know each other, and then try to get into a groove of productivity.
4. Give time back. If you've accomplished what you need to accomplish, no need to stay on for the entirety of the scheduled time. People are busy. Give them time back to do their things.
5. Consider recording. Generally, recording is cheap / free. If anything about the meeting feels relevant to others, start off by recording (I like to announce the date & subject at the beginning). This can be a tough one, as recording can make some less likely to contribute. Also, recording should not take the place of good note taking with action items. I'd rather browse a well written set of notes than sit through a 30m recording to discover outcomes.
6. Play. The underyling tech is your tool. Learn how to use your tool. Learn how to screen share, learn how to record, etc. I will sometimes grab coworkers that are friends and (if they are not busy) have them join an impromptu meeting where we play with features of the meeting tech. Play yeilds familiarity, where you can use these tools effectively and be a tech leader in your organization.
7. Phrase questions in the negative. When I assume that everybody understands what I've been talking about, I will say "shout if you don't understand", and then give a healthy pause. I don't get visual cues about understanding like I do with a real life conversation, and having everybody vocally assert the positive ("yes, I get it") gives a lot of unnecessary cross talk.
8. Pause. There is a sub 100 millisecond delay that we have online that we don't get in real life. Account for that by communicating an idea, and, especially if it's controversial or tough, give a healthy pause for others to participate.
9. Enable participation. If there is cross talk with different people trying to talk at the same time, the meeting organizer should be the "switchboard operator" and let each of them go in turn. If you have cross talk with somebody else, do the polite thing, and let them go first. For some of my regularly scheduled meetings, I also like to force participation: everybody talks (gives a status). 
10. Focus. I have 4 monitors in front of me. They can be very distracting, and meetings are not the place to multi-task. I like to minimize all other windows, have one monitor dedicated to whatever is screen shared, and one monitor dedicated to the participants view. The more focused, the faster we can accomplish what we need, and the faster we can get out.