 having the right hardware for a remote workshop is so important. And in this video, we're gonna show you exactly the things you need to run a perfect remote workshop. What you're gonna be seeing is behind the scenes of one of our courses where we're gonna show you exactly the hardware you need. You don't need to buy our course. All you gotta do is watch this and it's free and I'll see you at the end. See you later. Ah. So when it comes to the ideal setup for a remote workshop, what everything needs to have as a baseline is a good connection and good audio. At the very least, even if people can turn on their video because of their connection, they just need to be able to stay connected to the call and have access to the digital whiteboard throughout the workshop. And you need to be able to hear them when they talk. So those are the very, very basics. But for you as a facilitator or for your team, it makes the experience a lot better if you pay attention to every part of the hardware setup and make that a more professional and pleasant experience for your team or your clients. So if you're someone who's gonna be doing a lot of these remote workshops, it makes sense to invest in some equipment to make your workshops sound and look and feel better in general. So if you're gonna be facilitating a workshop, the first thing I would invest in is a good microphone and you can find good microphones for $50 to $100 and that will give you a huge quality boost, especially since the facilitator is the person that's gonna be talking the most throughout the workshop. And so if you have bad audio, that's gonna make the experience a lot worse for everyone involved. Of course, using a built-in microphone on a laptop should be a no-go because that will mean that a lot of noise will come from you typing on your keyboard or just picking up background noise. It's very, very bad. No one on your team should be using their built-in microphone and ideally no one on the workshop if you can recommend that people just have their phone earbuds or anything like that that they can connect to their laptop, that's a much better audio experience for everyone. But for you, the facilitator investing in a good quality microphone will go a long way to making the experience more pleasant for people listening to you as you facilitate the workshop. Also related to the audio is that you should make sure that everyone is using headphones during the workshop so that you don't get any feedback from someone's speakers, then going into their microphone and making echo for everyone involved. So everyone should be wearing headphones. And if you're gonna be wearing headphones for a half-day workshop, then it also makes sense to invest in some good quality headphones or maybe the ones that you already have are comfortable enough, but just make sure that you can wear them for multiple hours and not have them annoy you and you don't need to take them out. And so you don't need to spend too much money on this, but the most important thing is that you shouldn't be or anyone else shouldn't be using their speakers and everyone should have headphones on. Now, when it comes to video, you can use your laptop's webcam when you're in a pinch, but it's really better if you just buy an inexpensive webcam that you can place on eye level just so that you're not looking down on everyone as you're facilitating and they usually have an external webcam will usually have better quality than what's built into your laptop. And equally important is the lighting that you have. So you should really avoid sitting in a dark corner or somewhere with really bad lighting because that'll just make your video as a facilitator look really, really bad. And what you can do is either just place your setup in a way if it's possible so that you have light coming at you and not from behind you. And if that's not possible, you can also buy an inexpensive lamp for your desk or a ring light that you can clip onto your desk that will make your video a lot nicer. But if you can't buy equipment for your lighting, at least make sure that you're not sitting with bright windows behind you or if you're not sitting in a dark corner and only your background is bright. So make sure to try to avoid that. Next, let's talk about monitors. If you're gonna be facilitating workshops, it really, really helps to have either a really big monitor so that you can have both the digital whiteboard and the video call right next to each other so that you can see all of your participants' faces and you can be working on the digital whiteboard at the same time or even better if you have multiple displays. So maybe you have a laptop and an external display and you can put the digital whiteboard on one and the video call on the other because it's really important for you as a facilitator to not just be in the digital whiteboard without seeing what's happening with everyone. You don't know if someone maybe left their desk or someone really like visibly seems like they're having trouble with something. So it's really important for you, the facilitator, at the very least to have a good monitor set up. I mean, it's not the end of the world if you're working on a laptop and you don't have a lot of room to work with but still make sure to have the video visible in addition to the digital whiteboard. So maybe you can tile your windows or like have it in split screen mode so that you can see both at the same time. Finally, if you're gonna be running a lot of workshops remotely, it makes sense to invest in a sit stand desk in a good chair. So a sit stand desk means that you can adjust this desk. It's not always a standing desk nor is it always a sitting desk and you can adjust it whenever you need to. Maybe during the workshop so that you're alternating between these two states as you need to. Otherwise you might be hurting your body and your posture when you're sitting down all the time or you might get tired if you're standing all the time. So having a sit stand desk that's adjustable is very, very useful. Now, these desks can be expensive sometimes but it's really worth the investment if you're someone who's gonna be facilitating a lot of these workshops because if you don't, chances are you will be hurting your back, you'll be hurting your body over a long period of time of just hunching over your computer. And lastly, for the chair, just make sure you have something that has good lumbar support so that it supports your lower back that it's comfortable to sit in for extended periods of time. Some chairs are okay to sit in for a short amount of time but then you find out that it's really uncomfortable if you've been sitting in it for like an hour or more and you should have something that's comfortable for you throughout the workshop and throughout multiple workshops if you're gonna be doing this as a regular thing. So again, we know that this stuff costs money and if you don't have that ideal hardware setup and that's what it is really, it's like the perfect setup for you to have, don't worry too much about it, especially if you're running your remote workshop for the first time and you don't have all these things, just try your best to approximate that with good lighting, making sure you have a headset and making sure your audio is good, that'll take you most of the way there. But if you're gonna be doing this regularly, it makes sense to invest in this equipment just because it'll make the experience for everyone involved that much better. Welcome back to the video. I hope you enjoyed how to set up your hardware for a perfect remote workshop. If that was useful for you, if you like that kind of nerdy workshoppy stuff, down below there's a one hour free training. You'll see a link down below where we're gonna show you exactly how to get into that whole facilitation game, how to run the perfect workshops, any types of workshops. It can be a design sprint, design thinking, doesn't really matter. That free training is down below for a limited time. Check that out if you liked it. Let us know in the comments if this type of video is useful for you. I didn't sleep great last night. That's why I'm talking a little bit weird today. So I'm gonna go eat this stack of post-its and have a great day everybody. Bye bye.