231–240 of 284 posts
99% of meetings that we have, somebody is sharing their screen to show a slide deck or an agenda or to walk through and troubleshoot something.
I've put some effort into my setup in the past 24 months; multiple Elgato and Hue lights, a Streamdeck for macros and scene control, condenser microphone on an arm with an audio interface, OBS studio etc. I am not a streamer, but I'm likely set up like one; I've studied their methods of light and composition, and learned a lot. I have some serious scarring from facial surgery decades past, and being able to control t…
I've put some effort into my setup in the past 24 months; multiple Elgato and Hue lights, a Streamdeck for macros and scene control, condenser microphone on an arm with an audio interface, OBS studio etc. I am not a streamer, but I'm likely set up like one; I've studied their methods of light and composition, and learned a lot. I have some serious scarring from facial surgery decades past, and being able to control t…
I really like the StreamCam so far, and I would say it's probably the best camera on the market right now for all-purpose video usage (not quite as expensive as the top tier, but 95% of the way there in quality; better looking than the C920/30 webcams you see around a lot of offices).
Ditto on lighting though. I don't use any kind of video-specific lighting, but just putting more lamps on my desk has made a world of difference. And I think the backlighting effect also makes my monitors less stressful on my eyes.
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What is your use case? There is really no need for a high-quality condenser mic in the vast majority of cases. For work meetings, voice chats, streaming, etc. the difference between an AT2020 and a high-quality mic will be entirely imperceptible.
To be fair, the AT2020 is a high-quality mic compared to the dollar store AirPods your colleagues are using...
I spent a little bit of my own money to make my home video setup as nice as possible. It's frustrating that coworkers are now returning to the office and the meeting room video/audio quality is still pure garbage.
We are pretty small and have a 'camera on' policy for our one one hour meeting on Friday every week, and if you don't want to have your camera on you are asked not to participate, and an eight hour interview day every Tuesday. The only exception is for observers present during the meeting (for instance: customer representatives that do not have anything to contribute but are just there to listen and make their own no…
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Some context: I'm a lead engineer on a team with six products. I keep my camera off in meetings. I'm in far more meetings than I can possibly be productive in. I'm also usually not the active speaker in meetings. Why stare into a camera when what my yearly bonuses are calculated on is work/team output? I've found most meetings I get into are either: - Developers who can't figure something out from documentation and a…
The perceived the need to keep the camera off during a meeting is a good indication there is something wrong with the meeting, not that it's a good thing to keep the camera off. We had some recurring meetings where people consistently didn't show up. The managers first impulse was to make the meeting mandatory. But the first thought should be: why are people not showing up? Engineers hate being unproductive, it shoul…
They strongly favored actual call-in-with-a-phone phone conferencing. No video. Not even, necessarily, a computer at all.
Some places do video conferencing but have a culture of keeping cameras off. Usually this is driven from the top down.
... it is nice to have video for e.g. visual social cues of who might want to say something next, or whatever, but having cameras off is fine too.
However, having the camera off definitely saves a ton on fatigue by keeping you from feeling like you have to sit in one spot, in more-or-less one position, staring at either one particular screen or at your camera, to mime paying attention. Me, I like to pace and wander around the house when I'm on a call, even if I'm very interested in it. Hard to do that with video on.
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Some context: I'm a lead engineer on a team with six products. I keep my camera off in meetings. I'm in far more meetings than I can possibly be productive in. I'm also usually not the active speaker in meetings. Why stare into a camera when what my yearly bonuses are calculated on is work/team output? I've found most meetings I get into are either: - Developers who can't figure something out from documentation and a…
The perceived the need to keep the camera off during a meeting is a good indication there is something wrong with the meeting, not that it's a good thing to keep the camera off. We had some recurring meetings where people consistently didn't show up. The managers first impulse was to make the meeting mandatory. But the first thought should be: why are people not showing up? Engineers hate being unproductive, it shoul…
And they work! Nobody in those orgs thinks they are the equivalent of "not showing up." How do you think bankers, lawyers and CPAs got huge deals done in the 80s and 90s, despite everyone being in different offices and often in different cities? Lots and lots of conference calls.
Video calls are a recent innovation made possible by tech. But many organizations have no functional memory of how to do calls prior to Zoom et al. And so some of them have created these bizarre sets of social norms around having to have video on to be "present", apparently unaware of the decades of doing it without video that worked extremely well with less fatigue.
Personally, I love walking around (if only just pacing) while on the phone. The physical movement makes my mind work better and allows me to better process what the other person is saying. And that's how lots of people did it prior to video.
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The easy fix to this is sharing presentation files before the meeting so everyone can follow along however they want. Meetings should mostly be to discuss the information that you already have, not to be surprised with brand new information.
Couldn't agree more with this, however it's hard to make happen in practice. A lot of times people are so caught up in their own tasks and responsibilities they don't set aside time to read up before a meeting, not to mention slides/docs are rarely laid out well enough for people to inform themselves completely.
The point isn't to come completely informed. Just enough to prepare some thoughts and questions.
To make a different point than all the camera naysayers so far: I I'd be WFH for two years during covid, and everyone had their cameras off, I'd go crazy. Not seeing a face for months, being stressed about the other party in a meeting not even paying attention, just speaking into a void etc.
It's extremely rude in my opinion when people simply don't turn their cameras on in virtual meetings. Unfortunately, no one at my workplace except me does.
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Do you feel this during in person meetings? Where you are constantly surveilled and every movement you make watched? You feel this way shopping in the grocery store? Where the cashier is constantly looking at you when speaking? Is your productivity lower because the other people in the store can see you?
The problem with virtual meetings is you can't tell what someone is looking at. If you have 9 people looking straight ahead, it looks like they are all looking at you. This may not be an issue for you, but it makes some people uncomfortable. Add anxiety disorder and it's a fucking nightmare. I have no issue if I can see where people are looking.