6 ms·

> I strongly suggest a blanket policy for video-on during all Zoom calls. How about: Hell, no!? Video is a distraction at best. Usually it prevents discussion

by corty 6y ago

> I strongly suggest a blanket policy for video-on during all Zoom calls. How about: Hell, no!? Video is a distraction at best. Usually it prevents discussion by emphasizing shallow sidechannels to the communication that add nothing but mislead everyone. People need to say what they think and not rely on nonverbal clues. Those only work in person, not over video. A talking head doesn't have posture. Lag means mimic and speech are misaligned. Just treat it like a phone call, no video, just maybe shared slides or whiteboards. More happiness, more productivity, less misunderstandings.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
OkGoDoIt 6y ago
I worked on two separate remote teams over the past year. The first team had video on and zoom calls and my current team has video off. Small anecdotal sample size, but in my experience with the video-on team there was a much stronger sense that I knew who the team was, felt responsible to them, and generally we felt more cohesive as a team even though I never met them in person. My current team no one ever turns their cameras on, I only know what they look like from their employee IDs, and I have zero sense of camaraderie with them. Meetings tend to drag on at least twice as long, since people can easily check out and stop paying attention if something doesn’t seem relevant to them. There’s no small talk or banter, and I find I just kind of listen passively while working until I hear my name and then jump back to full attention. I definitely get the sense that’s what everyone else does as well, since very few people ever speak up unless explicitly called on. Everything feels less tight and less personal. It’s great for the individual employee’s ability to crank out work, but if you care about the actual team cohesiveness and productivity, enforced video on feels like it can make a difference.
- mpweiher 6y ago
  Hmm...could it be that your current team is over-using synchronous communication (calls) where they should be using asynchronous communication? Intersperse occasional video calls for the other stuff.
  - OkGoDoIt 6y ago
    In these two instances we have about the same amount of synchronous video calls on a weekly basis, so I don’t think there’s a difference there. I do agree that in general teams have too many synchronous calls that could be done via email or Slack messages, but as that factor did not vary among these two teams I think it’s a valid apples to apples comparison.
- cwilkes 6y ago
  The sidebar discussion point is interesting: this is an area where technology could help out a lot by only sharing those 2 (or 3 etc) audio streams with one another. That has the potential of being a lot less disruptive than people in a real physical room chatting. Course this will be hard to implement, just like in chat rooms where it easy to get overwhelmed by more than one conversation. Maybe have voice clues like “ask Jimmy about project Thunderdome” creating a TODO list that then are matched up with people and prompted to engage when they are free.
michaelcampbell 6y ago
Indeed. I work for a company whose portfolio includes a well known video chat/collaboration tool, and internally we've not only (unofficially) discouraged video where not necessary (it seems middle management seems unable to catch this clue), but asking employees to start staggering meeting start times to times other than :00 and :30 to keep some "big bang" load off the infrastructure.
- iandanforth 6y ago
  That's an interesting technical phenomenon, do you do anything special for this kind of pulsed load?
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    Not to my knowledge, and to be honest I don't know if the suggested to stagger start times was based in evidence or just "gut feel", and/or what effect it may have had. I know that a lot of my meetings have adopted "weird" start times, which is fine w/me; it's still just a notice by my calendar client.
mdoms 6y ago
> People need to say what they think and not rely on nonverbal clues. Sorry, but this just isn't how human beings work. Those non-verbal queues may not be important to you, but they carry a huge amount of information that is apparently passing you by. And not small, unimportant things, but big things like that quiet shy QA engineer in the corner of the room who clearly wants to say something but can't find an opening or the organiser getting aggravated by a side-discussion.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  People have a lot of good reasons not to turn on their cameras, though. If you live in a small house or apartment, there are often going to be other people in the background who likely do not want to be on camera. It is one thing if people choose to work from home; you can have a reasonable expectation that they should have a proper work setup at their house. That is not what is happening now.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Digital background on Zoom should help you there. One of my coworkers has their apartment with no people in it set as their digital background.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      That's a cool idea!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    also it's much harder to read the internet, check your phone or leave your desk during a call when you have video on. People did all of these back during the in-person days, but it took more effort or less caring. Now it seems S.O.P.
- corty 6y ago
Mc91 6y ago
I have a standup every morning and am happy we are not obligated or somehow pressured to turn video on. I don't have to shave. I don't have to put on a business casual shirt. I don't have to clean up my living room. I don't have to be aware I am being looked at the whole time - seemingly paying attention when someone rambles on about a topic which I am not involved in, not scratching my ear when I want to, whatever. Every two weeks or so, we do have a meeting where people turn their camera on, which is fine. Every morning would be too much of a hassle with everything else going on though.
- swader999 6y ago
  We're all on video with all our meetings. I shave about once every three weeks. Most are wearing t shirts all the time and nobody cares about attire.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I don't really understand the big deal. I usually have video on. I'm essentially always in a T-shirt. If I have to run down and get a coffee or whatever, I shut video off. I'm on video from my desktop and I'm generally in agenda/email/etc. on another system but I can do it on my desktop as well.
    - grogenaut 6y ago
      I'm working about 80% right now from my back yard in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops. However that's no different than when in the office. Not sure why people are still dressing up for work calls.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        I don't actually like working outside that much because of screen glare etc. But, yeah, I'll wear a polo shirt "uniform" when I'm recording a presentation or whatever but otherwise I'm wearing a T.
        6y ago
throwaway87657 6y ago
At my office it's noticeable (well, modulo sample size) that video goes on between people who trust each other and off otherwise. Call with subcontractor? Video off. CEO on the call? Video off. Engineers only? Video on. Means you don't have to monitor your expression all the time.
- Izkata 6y ago
  This is exactly what I've noticed as well, the closer the people in the call work with each other the more likely the video will be on. The main exception being (at least for me and those I've spoken to), one-on-one it's usually on, even if we've not spoken directly before.
crooked-v 6y ago
My personal objection here is more like: I have a 600-square-foot living space, I don't trust background replacement all that much, and people keep insisting on using video conferencing that doesn't have background replacement in the first place. If you want me to leave video on all the time, give me a $100K bonus so I can upgrade to a home with a dedicated office.

by corty 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

OkGoDoIt 6y ago

I worked on two separate remote teams over the past year. The first team had video on and zoom calls and my current team has video off. Small anecdotal sample size, but in my experience with the video-on team there was a much stronger sense that I knew who the team was, felt responsible to them, and generally we felt more cohesive as a team even though I never met them in person. My current team no one ever turns their cameras on, I only know what they look like from their employee IDs, and I have zero sense of camaraderie with them. Meetings tend to drag on at least twice as long, since people can easily check out and stop paying attention if something doesn’t seem relevant to them. There’s no small talk or banter, and I find I just kind of listen passively while working until I hear my name and then jump back to full attention. I definitely get the sense that’s what everyone else does as well, since very few people ever speak up unless explicitly called on. Everything feels less tight and less personal. It’s great for the individual employee’s ability to crank out work, but if you care about the actual team cohesiveness and productivity, enforced video on feels like it can make a difference.

mpweiher 6y ago
Hmm...could it be that your current team is over-using synchronous communication (calls) where they should be using asynchronous communication? Intersperse occasional video calls for the other stuff.
- OkGoDoIt 6y ago
  In these two instances we have about the same amount of synchronous video calls on a weekly basis, so I don’t think there’s a difference there. I do agree that in general teams have too many synchronous calls that could be done via email or Slack messages, but as that factor did not vary among these two teams I think it’s a valid apples to apples comparison.
cwilkes 6y ago
The sidebar discussion point is interesting: this is an area where technology could help out a lot by only sharing those 2 (or 3 etc) audio streams with one another. That has the potential of being a lot less disruptive than people in a real physical room chatting. Course this will be hard to implement, just like in chat rooms where it easy to get overwhelmed by more than one conversation. Maybe have voice clues like “ask Jimmy about project Thunderdome” creating a TODO list that then are matched up with people and prompted to engage when they are free.

michaelcampbell 6y ago

Indeed. I work for a company whose portfolio includes a well known video chat/collaboration tool, and internally we've not only (unofficially) discouraged video where not necessary (it seems middle management seems unable to catch this clue), but asking employees to start staggering meeting start times to times other than :00 and :30 to keep some "big bang" load off the infrastructure.

iandanforth 6y ago
That's an interesting technical phenomenon, do you do anything special for this kind of pulsed load?
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  Not to my knowledge, and to be honest I don't know if the suggested to stagger start times was based in evidence or just "gut feel", and/or what effect it may have had. I know that a lot of my meetings have adopted "weird" start times, which is fine w/me; it's still just a notice by my calendar client.

mdoms 6y ago

> People need to say what they think and not rely on nonverbal clues. Sorry, but this just isn't how human beings work. Those non-verbal queues may not be important to you, but they carry a huge amount of information that is apparently passing you by. And not small, unimportant things, but big things like that quiet shy QA engineer in the corner of the room who clearly wants to say something but can't find an opening or the organiser getting aggravated by a side-discussion.

cortesoft 6y ago
People have a lot of good reasons not to turn on their cameras, though. If you live in a small house or apartment, there are often going to be other people in the background who likely do not want to be on camera. It is one thing if people choose to work from home; you can have a reasonable expectation that they should have a proper work setup at their house. That is not what is happening now.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Digital background on Zoom should help you there. One of my coworkers has their apartment with no people in it set as their digital background.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    That's a cool idea!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  also it's much harder to read the internet, check your phone or leave your desk during a call when you have video on. People did all of these back during the in-person days, but it took more effort or less caring. Now it seems S.O.P.
corty 6y ago

Mc91 6y ago

I have a standup every morning and am happy we are not obligated or somehow pressured to turn video on. I don't have to shave. I don't have to put on a business casual shirt. I don't have to clean up my living room. I don't have to be aware I am being looked at the whole time - seemingly paying attention when someone rambles on about a topic which I am not involved in, not scratching my ear when I want to, whatever. Every two weeks or so, we do have a meeting where people turn their camera on, which is fine. Every morning would be too much of a hassle with everything else going on though.

swader999 6y ago
We're all on video with all our meetings. I shave about once every three weeks. Most are wearing t shirts all the time and nobody cares about attire.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I don't really understand the big deal. I usually have video on. I'm essentially always in a T-shirt. If I have to run down and get a coffee or whatever, I shut video off. I'm on video from my desktop and I'm generally in agenda/email/etc. on another system but I can do it on my desktop as well.
  - grogenaut 6y ago
    I'm working about 80% right now from my back yard in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops. However that's no different than when in the office. Not sure why people are still dressing up for work calls.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I don't actually like working outside that much because of screen glare etc. But, yeah, I'll wear a polo shirt "uniform" when I'm recording a presentation or whatever but otherwise I'm wearing a T.
      - 6y ago

throwaway87657 6y ago

At my office it's noticeable (well, modulo sample size) that video goes on between people who trust each other and off otherwise. Call with subcontractor? Video off. CEO on the call? Video off. Engineers only? Video on. Means you don't have to monitor your expression all the time.

Izkata 6y ago
This is exactly what I've noticed as well, the closer the people in the call work with each other the more likely the video will be on. The main exception being (at least for me and those I've spoken to), one-on-one it's usually on, even if we've not spoken directly before.

crooked-v 6y ago

My personal objection here is more like: I have a 600-square-foot living space, I don't trust background replacement all that much, and people keep insisting on using video conferencing that doesn't have background replacement in the first place. If you want me to leave video on all the time, give me a $100K bonus so I can upgrade to a home with a dedicated office.