MSP [x] Video Nasties

Warning. This podcast contains humans. Hi, how are you doing? This is Matt and welcome to another MSPX.

Now, this show is going to go out on both video and audio, which means I get to edit it twice, but I'm very happy to report that from next week, MSP, our audio show, will be returning to BFM and its regular weekly schedule. Now, Malaysia is starting to reopen its economy and get people back to work, but it's not business as usual, at least not yet. So I will continue to record both the podcast and the audio show and these video shows from home for the foreseeable future. If you're listening to the audio version of this, you can find the videos on CulturePop's YouTube and IGTV channels.

So why are we coming back to video conferencing for today's episode? Even though countries around the world are starting to loosen movement and working restrictions, many of those nations and the companies that operate in them are advising people to work from home where and when possible. Some companies are asking non-critical employees to continue to work from home, which means that even though many of us can now go about our daily lives to to some kind of limited effect, video conferencing is going to remain a critical component of our daily lives, whether it's to stay in touch with family members who used to be just a car journey away and are suddenly distant or to meet with work from home colleagues to collaborate or conduct team building exercises or just to hang out with friends in the evening eating and watching Netflix together over a Wi-Fi link instead of meeting up in real life. Now, one of the things we come back to quite often on these shows is how fast digital norms evolve.

Technologies appear and suddenly they dominate our lives and video conferencing is one of these technologies. It's been around in some form for 20 years, probably more actually, but for most of us it's something that we use occasionally and pretty much grudgingly. Now in the face of a disease that no one anticipated, we're living a huge chunk of our lives on screen and this thing that we happily ignored until two months ago is now starting to cause us these feelings of stress and of course this sensation of overload. So what is the problem with video?

Well, it turns out that it's not a great solution to the problem of meeting people face to face. For starters, there are the platforms themselves. If you're lucky, your company may limit it up to a single platform, but many people are actually juggling multiple apps. It might be Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts.

It could be Zoom or Skype or even Messenger videos. So you're desperately trying to remember how each platform works, where the chat is and how to share your screen, because not all of us have the luxury of living in Instagram-ready homes and the pressure of everyone being confined and living in such close proximity means that working space may be at a premium. So you have the added pressure of what your surroundings look like. Now, some video services allow you to insert your own background or to blur out everything around you, but not all of them do.

Those are just some of the technical problems. And it turns out that the human side is even more complex. All those little verbal and nonverbal cues that make up the mood of a room are much more difficult for us to discern through this medium of a video chat. And those micro delays that see half a dozen people piling in at once and talking over each other only for everyone to start saying, sorry, sorry, no, no, you go ahead.

It makes things very difficult. Jokes fall flat, tempers afraid, and connection dropouts become these maddening things that really disrupt the whole course of a meeting and really kind of ruin your day. Now, there's also evidence that those micro delays can make you appear less attentive, engaged, and friendly. And that means that we have to pay a lot more attention during video calls, both in terms of listening, but also to process the body language that we're seeing on screen.

Couple that with the fact that people often disappear on and off screen during the meetings, and you have no idea what's going on with the majority of people most of the time. And nor do you know who could be looking at you at any given time. I was at a digital conference last weekend, and you would scroll through the delegates who were yawning and eating and scratching. I quickly muted my own video feed after that.

But this is where that wider social aspect comes in. I read another article recently where a US based judge was complaining that people were attending his virtual court hearings with bed torsos, and some were even addressing him from in bed. So it can get quite comical at times. You know, we've all experienced it.

Somebody's been asked a question. They panic and forget their microphone has been muted. So you're treated to 30 seconds of them mining until someone manages to shout across to them to get them to unmute and go back live. But overall, it impacts poorly on the people who aren't especially performative in meetings.

For them, video conferencing is going to be an additional layer of performance anxiety that they're going to have to suffer through. Now, it's not all bad news. There are plenty of steps you can take to reduce the pressure. The first is to ask your colleagues if that meeting is really necessary.

Can you do it with a call? Can you do it with text messages or even an email? You can also make use of collaborative work tools. So all the big players, whether it's Microsoft, Google, even Apple, they all offer these kind of collaborative documents.

So you can put those presentations and reports together without the hassle of that virtual meeting huddle. You can also schedule a little pre-meeting time with your workmates. Most of us head up to meetings with a friend or have a side conference before it starts. And we can keep that kind of behavior going.

And while you're on the call, you can think about muting the video feed when you're not talking or just pointing the camera away from you. Just bring yourself back into shot when you've actually got something to say. But do make a point of remembering, of course, how to switch them back on in a hurry. And like any meeting schedule, build yourself some breaks, acknowledge that video meetings are tougher and try to keep them to a limit that is manageable for you.

Because developing that personal system of management is going to be key because it looks like video conferencing is here to stay. As I mentioned at the start, companies may try to limit future disruption by operating more flexible work from home business models. We may see limits on public and social gatherings for many months to come. So we have to figure out how to live with all of that social pressure as well.

This fear that our lives have turned into an episode of Black Mirror that we're trapped in boxes of varying size and quality. And we have this screen as our main interface with the outside world. Because that's how it feels sometimes. It feels like our lives have become some vast digital and social sandbox for people like me to experiment with.

But there isn't a blueprint for where we are now. We don't know what the outcomes are going to be. But we do know that isolation is no answer either. Isolation and loneliness, they can be so destroying, they can be incredibly disruptive.

Mental health professionals are worried about the long term impact and hangover of all of these lockdowns, especially amongst the young who's craving for social contact is actually a critical part of their development. So try and use this digital armory positively. Use these tools in a way that works for you. Ringfence that work-life balance thing.

Don't be lured into always being available just because your dining table is now your office. And time with your friends is supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be a chore that you have to suffer through. The chances are if you're feeling bored or devalued by the video experience, then your friends probably are too.

So do something different. Even if it means jumping on an app like House Party rather than just doing those zooms and just, you know, play some silly quiz games. Silent zooms have become a thing, often between large groups of strangers. They're literally just people working with the video on and the microphones muted.

But they're offering silent support to one another. And a lot of people seem to be finding some kind of consolation and solidarity in these things. And if you're trying to meet new people at one of those virtual pubs or clubs, well, bear in mind the reason you avoid 90% of the people when you do that in real life. Being online is likely to make a lot of people's social behaviour worse rather than better.

That's me out. Leave a comment below. Tell me about your experiences with video chat and meetings. As I said, MSP will be back on air on BFM from this Friday.

I'll be back with another of these MSPX shows very, very soon. And if you like the show, feel free to tell your friends. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.

And remember to keep those videos nice.