The Death of the Virtual Background

Video conferencing platforms have seen extraordinary growth in recent months. To be more specific, Zoom has seen daily active users jump from 10 million daily active users to over 200 million daily users in just 3 months. As of mid-March, Microsoft had seen a 12 million user increase in just one week of its Teams platform. Cisco Webex reported 6.7 billion meeting minutes in the month of March alone. 6.7 billion! The pandemic has had unprecedented ramifications on how we do business in our new norm.

With more and more data coming out daily, it appears many business are waiting for the experts to weigh in on when it will be safe to return back to the office. With that said, all reports suggest that even going back to the office will look considerably different than what working in the office looked like back in January/February.

To shift gears for a minute, we've all heard the old saying, "people buy from people that they like and trust". Can we all agree that most of us have gotten more, "real" with each other in the world of covid-19 than ever before? We are all just a bit more honest about how we are doing emotionally, we are having more conversations about the challenges of; being at home all the time, distance learning and, "Zoom fatigue".

As we've opened up with our; customers, suppliers and prospects, why are many of us still hiding behind virtual backgrounds? I know, you hadn't worked from home before and; the basement you are working in isn't finished, the treadmill is right behind you, you are sitting at the kitchen table, you are working in your bedroom and the bed would be in your video conferencing sessions.

I think it is fair to say the the technology isn't quite there on virtual backgrounds. More simply put, most virtual background technologies just suck. Most of us using them just look ridiculous. We disappear at times, our ears or hair aren't in the image properly, our entire body fades in an out depending on the lighting and the virtual background itself. We should use this time to open up a bit more to those on the other end of a video conference. We should get real with one another. I genuinely believe getting real will lend itself to deeper relationships that are more open and honest.

Let a customer see the treadmill in the unfinished basement. I bet it has a better chance of opening up a conversation than it does cause harm. There is a pretty good chance, most of us are in the same boat anyway right? We should use this time to make the bed before the video call, move the laundry off the treadmill, put on a fresh pair of pajama pants and a nice work shirt and just be ourselves. We can all hear the kids in the background anyway. Let's use this time to simply get real with one another.