Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

Agree. The importance of eye contact cannot be overstated.

I have a 43" screen. I bought a very small but generic UVC camera on AliExpress. With this I can lower the camera down on the screen without be too obtrusive while dangling on the wire. This gives a really great result even if the change is just on my end. People seems much more "present". I can only imagine how "real" it would feel if done on both ends.

Before this I was using an Elagato CamLink with a Canon EOS RP. While it gave a great quality image the offset position was not worth it. Furthermore it seems that most common video chat programs downsamples as noone saw a difference between this and a crappy 720 webcam even though it looked glorious on my end.

So have a go with a cheap small FHD UVC camera. It made wonders for me.

My own feelings echo this.

I've been working remotely for several years. I changed jobs in March, right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic really impacting daily life. As a result I've never met any of my colleagues in person. I often feel like I don't have a good feeling for how they feel about a given topic and spend far too much time and energy trying to manage those relationships.

I'm looking forward to being able to travel again so I can meet at least some of them. In the past, I've participated in "team building" events where the entire (small) engineering group rents out a beach house somewhere for a week. That time is spent split approximately evenly between regular work, brainstorming/planning for the future, and social engagement. I didn't see the value of it before experiencing it, but now I'm 100% in favor of it.

If I ever get to the point where I'm leading an engineering group at a funded startup, semi-annual engineering retreats will definitely be a priority for me. They don't have to be "rent a beach house for two weeks in the Outer Banks", either. I live in rural Arkansas, and there are large cabins on the Buffalo River and White River that go for ~$200 / night or less during the offseason and can comfortably sleep 35 people.

When the "Zoom bombing" trend hit the news, I expected that would be the beginning of the end for the company. They were having security issues due to an integral part of their platform's implementation at the same time that they were seeing an unprecedented increase in usage. Scaling and essentially rearchitecting at the same time, under load, is a huge challenge.

I'm very impressed that they've pulled through. If anything, Zoom has improved during the transition. That's not to say that I find it to be the best solution - I've had several videoconferencing/telepresence solutions work well for me in the past - but it's certainly "good enough" and they're in an enviable market position at this point.

In a few months, I'd love to see some retrospectives come out about how they did it from both the engineering and management perspectives.

My instinct is that stereoscopic vision is a big part of facial awareness. Simply moving it to 3D with virtual avatars wouldn't be enough, though - I think it's probably more about consciously imperceptible social cues.

If those cues could be identified, maybe you could point a high-res camera pointed at the person to capture them and then reproduce them on their VR avatar. I doubt the science is there, though.

Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions.

A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at 'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even though I am CompSci by nature, our success hinged on personal interactions.

Here is what I highly suggest, and has worked wonders for me.

- Learn to talk. Get on calls early, do research on the attendants to try to find some common interests quickly. Think like a salesperson, trying to close the 'people' by being human, friendly. Edit: A good add on to this, is to find their 'pivot person' - a person on the call the team trusts (often a few people down the 'food chain').

- Make self-deprecating fun of yourself. I try to poke fun at myself very quickly to show humbling comedy - and I do it loudly. People like when you make them laugh. By making them laugh at me, no one's feelings are hurt. It gives their team a feeling of superiority, so you must be able to back it up with real firepower later to control.

- Try to take 'their team' side as often as possible. Assume every decision they've made is intelligent, and in good faith. You'd ask for the same.

- See how you can foster individual relationships. For their lead developer, "Hey I saw this about your stack/what we're doing/etc - and thought of you".

- Only 'do other things' on your computer during that meeting immediately related, and very short in duration.

- Don't argue with 'that argumentative, defensive engineer' around the other groups. "That's a really great point - can I call you after this?"

Hope it helps.