I’ve worked as a full time video producer at an e-learning company for a few years now. During this time I’ve been exposed to the wonderful world of video conferencing. These meetings are a far cry from those of my past. I recall essentially being bolted down to a chair and being forced to watch a staff manager make vague attempts at revitalizing his career in stand up comedy. Michael Scott’s meetings in the office were not a far cry from those of my previous jobs. I’m only slightly exaggerating.
The point here is that in every job I had in the past I was beholden to be present for arbitrary staff meetings. I was required to come in for every bit of information to be pieced out to me. Thankfully, these days seem far behind. At my current job I’ve still had to attend meetings that seemed arbitrary but, thankfully this has been virtually. I can be a disembodied voice and no one has to see me cringe at their horrific jokes. I don’t have to stare at a wall while corporate leaders congratulate each other on how great of a job they’re doing.
To be honest there have even been moments where I have enjoyed a game of Red Dead Redemption 2 whilst listening to how well our company did that year. This probably makes me sound like a lazy employee that doesn’t care much for my company but, truthfully the content of these meetings has ever pertained to me. This seems like a strange reason to say that I couldn’t live without video conferencing. “It enables me to be mentally absent during meetings” but, this is a small portion of the benefits I’ve received from this technology.
Video conferencing has enabled me to never miss a meeting in my busy life. It’s allowed me to answer questions face to face and solve problems in real time. It enables us to share our screens with each other or even take over someone else’s screen and quickly troubleshoot something without asking someone to move out of the way. Without tools like this I’d be forced to go into the office for every little thing. It wouldn’t be a good use of my time. We live in a time where we can work from home and be MORE productive than in the office. Video conferencing is one of the tools that allows things like this.
COMM2400 - Social Media Tools and Strategies 