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My company uses WebEx not Zoom, but I have found meetings far more tolerable since I started disabling inbound video. I've always turned off my own video, but

My company uses WebEx not Zoom, but I have found meetings far more tolerable since I started disabling inbound video. I've always turned off my own video, but turning off everyone else's has been a game changer. The important parts of a remote meeting are the audio and screenshare; video is a net-negative. I get no value from watching people type, fidget around with a phone, have random family members and pets walk by, etc. and actually find it quite distracting.

roland35 6y ago
I find the opposite is true, meetings where I have video enabled are more focused and enjoyable to me (as an introvert too!). I think people pay more attention on video calls in general, and it seems like conversations flow better with fewer of those "you go... No you go!" type moments. Overall it does require people to take work from home seriously though! Back in the days when we worked in offices video calls did have less pets and random people or kids walk in! If people are able to have a dedicated office this works better but obviously not everyone was prepared for a forced work from home experience. It does require a solid internet connection which has been strained lately.
machinehermit 6y ago
How do you show how nice your house is that way though?
vecio 6y ago
I agree with this and have made an audio only conferencing service https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mornin https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mornin
ben509 6y ago
Yup. The worst on Zoom and Google Meet is: a. the person with feedback or background noise causing the video to flip to them b. someone displaying their lunch for everyone to see c. Zoom specialty: obnoxious video backgrounds Zoom helps you block trolls, but does nothing for the pain of having to listen to someone's feedback during an hour long meeting. And you often don't want to interrupt the meeting to pester people about their microphone. It's a similar problem to Slack. We have some people who overuse @here and various similar sins, and Slack's answer is there's no reason to block, just fix your company.[1] What this misses is there's a broad range of behavior between pleasant and malicious. There are also a broad range of social remedies we normally use to deal with this behavior. Most of those social remedies don't work well online. It's surprisingly hard to craft a written correction that doesn't come across as an attack, especially if you're senior and don't want to unintentionally throw that rank around. [1]: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/624239660529684481 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/624239660529684481
- soylentcola 6y ago
  We also use WebEx at work (university setting) and for smaller meetings, we require everyone to use (at a minimum) a set of basic headphones to avoid echo. If they don't use them, they need to keep their mic muted whenever they aren't speaking. For class-related stuff or larger meetings/seminars, we use the Events portion of WebEx instead of Meetings. It's basically the same thing, but there are more "roles" so there's a host who can mute/unmute participants or assign privileges. Panelists are the speakers who can turn their audio and video off by themselves but can only screen share if made a "presenter". Attendees are just the people watching the thing, and they can chat with text but can't turn their own mics on. They can raise their hand or the host can find them in the attendee list if they need to unmute them. Once people got used to how it works, it has been surprisingly effective. You don't need to make sure every attendee in a 300-person seminar has headphones on--just the people who are presenting. If one of the presenters is unwilling or unable to use headphones, I can mute them if they have a live mic that's just causing echo while they sit there and listen. Students and other attendees can still speak with their mics, but only when called on. Incidentally, this also does away with all of the issues of people disrupting Zoom calls because you can only join as a panelist if you are on the list and have the right link. You can still publish the attendee link publicly because the worst thing an attendee can do is type in the chat (and even then, they can only send to "all participants" if you enable it).
- marcusjt 6y ago
  I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned that Meet is rolling out a pretty impressive AI-powered nose reduction feature to solve the background noise problem - see https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21285011/google-meet-background-noise-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21285011/google-meet-backg... (watch the video)
neutronicus 6y ago
I get the following value from video calls: I see management sitting on a porch swing with beautiful scenery in the background and know I need to ask for a god-damn raise

roland35 6y ago

I find the opposite is true, meetings where I have video enabled are more focused and enjoyable to me (as an introvert too!). I think people pay more attention on video calls in general, and it seems like conversations flow better with fewer of those "you go... No you go!" type moments. Overall it does require people to take work from home seriously though! Back in the days when we worked in offices video calls did have less pets and random people or kids walk in! If people are able to have a dedicated office this works better but obviously not everyone was prepared for a forced work from home experience. It does require a solid internet connection which has been strained lately.

machinehermit 6y ago

How do you show how nice your house is that way though?

vecio 6y ago

I agree with this and have made an audio only conferencing service https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mornin https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mornin

ben509 6y ago

Yup. The worst on Zoom and Google Meet is: a. the person with feedback or background noise causing the video to flip to them b. someone displaying their lunch for everyone to see c. Zoom specialty: obnoxious video backgrounds Zoom helps you block trolls, but does nothing for the pain of having to listen to someone's feedback during an hour long meeting. And you often don't want to interrupt the meeting to pester people about their microphone. It's a similar problem to Slack. We have some people who overuse @here and various similar sins, and Slack's answer is there's no reason to block, just fix your company.[1] What this misses is there's a broad range of behavior between pleasant and malicious. There are also a broad range of social remedies we normally use to deal with this behavior. Most of those social remedies don't work well online. It's surprisingly hard to craft a written correction that doesn't come across as an attack, especially if you're senior and don't want to unintentionally throw that rank around. [1]: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/624239660529684481 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/624239660529684481

soylentcola 6y ago
We also use WebEx at work (university setting) and for smaller meetings, we require everyone to use (at a minimum) a set of basic headphones to avoid echo. If they don't use them, they need to keep their mic muted whenever they aren't speaking. For class-related stuff or larger meetings/seminars, we use the Events portion of WebEx instead of Meetings. It's basically the same thing, but there are more "roles" so there's a host who can mute/unmute participants or assign privileges. Panelists are the speakers who can turn their audio and video off by themselves but can only screen share if made a "presenter". Attendees are just the people watching the thing, and they can chat with text but can't turn their own mics on. They can raise their hand or the host can find them in the attendee list if they need to unmute them. Once people got used to how it works, it has been surprisingly effective. You don't need to make sure every attendee in a 300-person seminar has headphones on--just the people who are presenting. If one of the presenters is unwilling or unable to use headphones, I can mute them if they have a live mic that's just causing echo while they sit there and listen. Students and other attendees can still speak with their mics, but only when called on. Incidentally, this also does away with all of the issues of people disrupting Zoom calls because you can only join as a panelist if you are on the list and have the right link. You can still publish the attendee link publicly because the worst thing an attendee can do is type in the chat (and even then, they can only send to "all participants" if you enable it).
marcusjt 6y ago
I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned that Meet is rolling out a pretty impressive AI-powered nose reduction feature to solve the background noise problem - see https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21285011/google-meet-background-noise-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21285011/google-meet-backg... (watch the video)

neutronicus 6y ago

I get the following value from video calls: I see management sitting on a porch swing with beautiful scenery in the background and know I need to ask for a god-damn raise