The best way to express appreciation or gratitude for someone in a large (10+ people) Zoom session is a gratitude attack. What’s a gratitude attack? A thread...

Step 1: make sure you are recording. This gives the recipient an artifact/souvenir, and rewatching the video is a key part of reliving the magic.

Step 2: introduce the concept of a gratitude attack (ie, what this thread explains) to everyone in the session. Do so with some panache because the goal is to get the audience committed and hyped about the process. If they’re legit appreciative of the recipient it won’t be hard

Step 3: Give everyone a minute to think of something positive about the recipient. Ask them to think on why are you grateful for them and their work? The recipient is probably starting to get embarrassed, which after you’ve done several of these, becomes enjoyable to watch :)

Step 4: unmute everyone

Step 5: on the count of 3, everyone says what they appreciate about this person. With big body language because gallery view in the zoom grid ain’t always the easiest way to convey big emotions and expressions

All of the voices overlap. It’s cacophony. That’s the point. Doesn’t matter that it’s hard to make out specific sentences. This is about the feeling, not the actual words. A zoom meeting full of people smiling and emphatically saying why someone is awesome is a beautiful thing

Step 6: repeat for the next recipient

On tough days, the recipient can watch that clip and know that a lot of people are glad they’re around. Nice ray of sunshine on the bad days.

It took forever to get the flow and process right. I’m sharing this bc
A) there are some people I need to express gratitude for soon and
B) some of y’all might have ideas for how to top this. Or take it to the next level. If so, let’s hear it...