Looking to spark creativity & connection in your next virtual team meeting? Here are the apps to help!

Just like discovering a great menu item at that new cafe 🥙, discovering new features your team uses and loves in a great video meeting application can add a bit of extra spark and fun!

So considering the feedback and experiences of both our customers and Sparklers, here are a few well caffeinated ideas for you to consider when you’re looking for a little extra delight (with useful additional features) in your next video team meeting.

The coolest kids: 😻

Emerging leaders in the video meeting arena, these are our faves when it comes to providing a better environment for teams coming together to virtually connect and create.

Butter

Butter 🧈 focus on creating software that fosters wonderfully interactive virtual team workshopping environments.

The delightful visual and sound reactions <insert epic dj horn> make meetings feel more alive and interactive. These moments of unexpected smiles really help to fend off those ‘eyes glazing over’ meeting demons between teammates.

After that, their agenda planner is the bomb. Using their big list of templates, you can rapidly prep your meeting or workshop with deep integration into the tools your team uses everyday.

Vowel

If your team finds great value in capturing, sorting and re-using the content created across your video meetings (particularly for 100% remote teams) then Vowel is for you. 

The ability for teams to co-curate notes and quickly share important moments is pretty awesome… and their live transcription is all kinds of magic. ✨

Different and good: 🐨

Not purely video meeting platforms, these ideas lean into new ways for remote and hybrid teams to connect and collaborate.

Gather.town

Much more than a video meeting platform, Gather provides a canvas for team's to create their unique digital workplace. You can then move about your virtual office and collaborate with co-workers in a more natural, serendipitous manner. 🖖

It's a fun, super interesting and different way to enable proximity with teammates in a virtual world. Wander up to your teammate and start a video conversation with them, or gather together for that team huddle.

Huddle01

Are you all about Web3? Probably not. 🙃 That's okay, it’s most likely super early for your team to be testing! 

Nevertheless, Huddle01 is a video meeting platform here for those teams that are all the way IN on leveraging the power of token economics together.

So if you’re working across Web3 then Huddle01 allows teams to leverage blockchain tech for Web3 logins, personalized NFT avatars, secure video spaces and storage.

The big dogs: 🐶

The default video meeting options for the majority of the working world, there’s a strong chance that you never got to choose if these products would work best for your remote or hybrid working team. Let’s talk about them for a moment.

Zoom

We all know Zoom took over the video meeting space during the pandemic. To Zoom’s credit, the no frills / it just works approach provides a lot of value in itself. Working towards becoming a full communications platform, Zoom’s app marketplace provides additional functionality. 🤓

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft’s ability to bundle Office 365 over decades continues to be an unbeaten strategy producing what is Teams. Microsoft Teams was foisted on many a knowledge worker unexpectedly after explosive Zoom costs were realised and well, it does actually work in an uninspiringly average way. 🥱

Google Meet

Similar to Microsoft, Meet is the default for all video conferencing for those that live in Google’s ecosystem. Unlike Microsoft the experience is light, performant and better integrated with their roster of Workspace apps - mainly Gmail and Calendar.

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Whilst the big platforms dominate today's video meeting moments, the space is moving quickly so stay brave! Find a moment to play and test new options!

Those incremental increases in creativity, connection and culture between teams can elevate happiness and productivity in unexpected ways.

Of course, we love shaking things up with our live and energizing Sparks but maybe a change up in your video meeting app of choice can help too! ⚡