Suddenly Virtual. Karin M. Reed

80% of meetings were face‐to‐face, with less than 4% held over video. A little more than 13% of meetings were classified as hybrid, which refers to meetings where a couple of people may be in one conference room talking to folks in another conference room in another city, or country, via telephone or video conference. Thus, the vast majority of us essentially met face‐to‐face, be it in our office, our conference rooms, at our favorite coffee shops, restaurants, or even bars. As the bar graph below shows, things changed both dramatically and quickly.

After the onset of the pandemic, meetings became suddenly virtual. Workers experienced a 60% jump of meetings on video – almost 20 times the rate from before COVID‐19. Telephone meetings jumped to nearly 25% of our meetings while face‐to‐face meetings were one‐seventh its former total. In other words, we stopped meeting face‐to‐face, except in certain occupations deemed essential such as medical doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers. However, even healthcare saw a rapid rise in telehealth. According to a survey by Sermo, an online physician network, 85% of physicians had adopted telehealth (typically video visits with patients), and 60% said they planned to continue using telehealth even after the pandemic is in the past (Wicklund 2020).

      Unsurprisingly, videoconferencing software boomed. Total video calls in Microsoft Teams experienced 1000% growth in March 2020 alone (Spataro 2020). Zoom, Webex, Google groups, BlueJeans, Skype, and other software saw similar or even greater growth during that same time. The default camera in many people's laptops went from being covered with tape for “privacy” to being a window into our homes and the homes of our colleagues, as videoconferencing became the main way for us to meet and collaborate during a pandemic.

Large meetings and conferences shifted to virtual as well, sometimes with lightning‐fast response times. Artificial Intelligence (AI) company Nuance took its global research and development (R&D) conference online in a matter of days using a Microsoft Teams channel and a PDF agenda with links to session events. Hundreds of attendees were able to benefit from the wealth of cutting‐edge information shared through a conference that cost Nuance almost nothing to put on. The previous year's event cost Nuance approximately $700,000 (Spataro 2020). CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association in the IT industry, made the pivot to all virtual. Ten days prior to a long‐planned, in‐person conference in Chicago, they decided to flip the switch and take it all online. The painstakingly prepared agenda, chock‐full of working group meetings, speakers, sessions, and even a St. Patrick's Day celebration along the dyed‐green Chicago River, was reworked for the new platform. And it worked – the virtual event attracted five times more people than were expected to attend the Chicago event, and CompTIA called the industry response to the conference “overwhelmingly positive” (Campbell 2020). The trend continued for months to come. Joe's professional conference, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) conference, was online in June 2020, and the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Researchers (INGRoup) was online in October 2020.

Conclusion

      Given our observations and the trends just identified, how we meet on a regular basis has changed, perhaps for good. Sure, COVID‐19 will not last forever, but the tools used to collaborate during this time will continue to be available and a viable option for working remotely, working from home, and so on. Thus, in the following chapter, we acknowledge the truth: videoconferencing is a viable alternative for face‐to‐face meetings – and it works.

Chapter Takeaways

       The pandemic changed how many people work and how many people meet to collaborate and accomplish their jobs.

       The format for meetings switched from face‐to‐face being the dominant form to the virtual meeting, primarily video‐based interaction.

       The short‐term move to remote meetings will likely be part of a long‐term impact – the way we meet will never be the same.

References

      1 Campbell, Scott. 2020. “Canceled by COVID‐19? Here's how to pivot your in‐person meeting into a virtual success.” CompTIA (blog). https://www.comptia.org/blog/how-in-person-virtual-event#.Xo9TPaSjnGA.linkedin.

      2 Davis, Michelle F., and Jeff Green. 2020. “Three hours longer, the pandemic workday has obliterated work‐life balance.” Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/working-from-home-in-covid-era-means-three-more-hours-on-the-job.

      3 Kantis, Caroline, Samantha Kiernan, and Jason Socrates Bardi. 2020. “UPDATED: Timeline of the Coronavirus.” Think Global Health. Council on Foregin Relations. https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/updated-timeline-coronavirus.

      4 Spataro, Jared. 2020. “Remote work trend report: Meetings.” Microsoft 365 (blog). https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/04/09/remote-work-trend-report-meetings/.

      5 Wicklund, Eric. 2020. “COVID‐19 gives providers a blueprint for new telehealth strategies.” mHealth Intellegence. https://mhealthintelligence.com/features/covid-19-gives-providers-a-blueprint-for-new-telehealth-strategies.

CHAPTER 2 What Happened to Video Communication?: The On‐Camera Coach Perspective

      “How often do you turn your webcam on when in a virtual meeting?”

      For years, Karin has asked that question at the beginning of countless workshops focusing on effective virtual communication. Participants were given three options:

       Never

       Every time

       Only when I see everyone else doing it

      For many years, the top answer was overwhelmingly the same – “never.”

Since COVID‐19 and the mass migration to video collaboration tools, Karin has trained thousands of people on speaking through a webcam, and that formerly popular answer has changed dramatically. Only a handful of those in the post–COVID‐19 world respond that they never turn the camera on, and the number of people who turn the webcam on every time has steadily increased as the pandemic has worn on. However, the vast majority of workshop participants continue to opt for the third response: “Only when I see everyone else doing it.” They are responding to peer pressure for good or ill and not to the sound science and practice that suggests turning on the camera.

      This small window into the adoption of video as a core component of virtual meetings is telling and reflective of a larger trend. Yes, more people are turning on their webcams than ever before, but there are still some barriers to adoption that hold back universal usage.

      In this chapter, we will explore:

       How video became a viable alternative to face‐to‐face interactions.

       What value video brings to virtual meetings.

       How video impacts remote workers.

       Why video can be a critical element in meetings with external stakeholders.

Paving