BlueJeans Meetings now offers every meeting attendee the ability to add a custom lower third to their video tile to deliver a critical dose of non-verbal context during any type of video conference. For the uninitiated, lower thirds are defined as graphic overlays that video producers add to a broadcast to highlight the name of an on-screen speaker or point out supplemental information regarding the topic at hand. Now, BlueJeans is empowering every meeting participant with the ability to customize their own name tag to enhance the production quality of the meeting, while providing a simple technique for spotlighting useful information for other meeting attendees.
Lower thirds are simple to tailor to your unique needs. End users can easily access the options by clicking on Preferences in the menu bar and selecting the Lower Third button from the top ribbon. From here, easily toggle the feature and customize it to your liking. You can select from pre-defined strip colors or enter a color code to ensure you are staying on brand. Similarly, the text color can be modified as necessary.
Next, you have the freedom to enter a company name, title, and subtitle. Don’t feel like you have to be restricted to anything specific in these boxes…they are yours to customize!
Once you have enabled the feature, your lower third will pop up to give you the ability to preview your selections and ensure they are just right. The configuration will immediately be visible in your meetings (as long as the other attendees are on desktop app version 2.25). In our testing so far, we have identified some powerful use cases for lower thirds:
- External Meetings—Let’s be honest…it’s hard to remember every detail about new contacts you meet at the beginning of a multi-company meeting. Imagine if everyone could simply add their title to their name tag in the meeting so you could appropriately address individuals with confidence.
- Distance Learning—Lower thirds present an entirely new canvas to share feedback and to respond to questions in real-time. Instead of relying on the chat feature, students can update their title or subtitle to reflect their answers, enabling teachers to more easily call on students to share their perspective.
- Team-Building—Similar to virtual backgrounds, custom name cards are fun. Considering the flexibility meeting attendees have, you can imagine plenty of icebreakers that can take advantage of lower thirds and even role-playing exercises to help teams better understand each other and become more productive.
Overall, we feel like the possibilities with lower thirds are endless and we are excited to hear how you are adopting them in your organization. If you haven’t yet updated to the latest version of BlueJeans, please click here and if you aren’t currently a customer, please try BlueJeans for free.
About the Author
Zachary Bosin serves as Vice President of Product Marketing and Communications at BlueJeans Network, where he is responsible for shaping and executing the go-to-market strategy for BlueJeans’ award-winning meetings platform. He was most recently Director of Solutions Marketing at Veritas, where he led messaging, campaign strategy, and content development for the Digital Compliance portfolio. Previously, he served as an Analyst at the world’s leading member-based advisory company, CEB, now Gartner. Zach received his MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University.
