The Face Grid

I have spoken at many conferences and meetings over the years. I have been a keynote, an expert speaker, a moderator, a panelist, an emcee, a participant, and even a performer. Public speaking is a unique form of communication because the relationship between speaker and listener is entirely different than in normal face-to-face conversations.

In the COVID era, we now have a new way of speaking both within private groups and to the public. The verbification of “Zoom”, implies a new mode of communication, different from any I have seen. Of course, people have been using Zoom and similar online services for years. But never before have we relied so exclusively on this means of communication for professional and personal interactions. It is the dominance of this kind of meeting that, in my view, is novel and worth exploring.

The core of the novelty is the “grid view”, which will likely be the meme/format that will define communication in this era. The grid view is a unified view of dozens of people looking straight at you, all the same size. Well, mostly, but more on that later. We are not used to this. It’s never happened to us before: dozens of people with their eyes trained directly at you!

It is actually quite intense, there have been articles written about the new ailment of “zoom fatigue” — a feeling I have experienced on a number of occasions. I think it’s worth spending some time to understand this new tool of humanity and its effects on how we communicate with each other.

Let’s explore a few major and subtle differences with this new media.

When you are speaking online in one of these grids, everyone in the sea of faces in front of you is silent. They are all listening to, and looking at YOU. The experience of speaking on stage in a physical conference room is very different: the audience watches the speaker from a distance, and most of their faces fade into the obscurity of the back of the conference room. The speaker delivers her remarks without direct contact with the listeners; she hopes that she is getting her point across, but she is unable to verify this in the same way that one does when engaged in a face-to-face conversation. A speaking coach once taught me that when speaking, I should divide and focus on six areas of the auditorium so people in those areas think you are speaking directly to them. Online, you are looking at the camera and simultaneously looking at everyone!

Even when dealing with smaller meetings there is distance and physical separation between speaker and audience. A speaker giving remarks at a conference table is not in a good position to see all the audience’s faces, she must crane her neck in order to look at some of her listeners to gauge their reactions. Sitting naturally, the speaker can only get a good visual face-to-face connection with those directly in front of her, across the table. A truly round table is better, but it doesn’t scale above a dozen or so people (think Dr. Strangelove and Knights of the Round Table).

Online, however, despite the geographical distance, there is no such facial distance: each audience member’s face is presented fully-frontal, in all its detail. You (the speaker) can see the whites of their eyes and every detail of their reactions. Each listener is as close to you as each other listener; there is no hiding in the obscurity of the back of the room, nor is there any real possibility that any audience member’s reactions to your comments will go unnoticed. Every listener — boss, client, colleague, or assistant — are equal in their presence and their vulnerability.

The listener’s role in a grid conversation is also oddly transformed. In real life meetings, the listener can let her guard down on the assumption that everyone is looking at whoever is speaking — the physical arrangement of the space allows the listener to obscure herself, and, in a sense, to hide in a crowd. Online, the listener knows that they are displayed with the same presence and the same clarity with which the speaker is being displayed to the audience. You know that the speaker and others can see you very clearly, and maybe looking directly at you, which creates an obligation to be visually listening. More contribution to the zoom fatigue. This ubiquitous visual presence of speaker and audience demonstrates the vast difference between audio conference calls — during which one has no idea what the non-speakers are doing — and video grid conferences — during which every person is, in a sense, being watched.

This takes me to extravehicular activities when a listener goes AWOL. The reason for slipping out of the camera frame — bio break, coffee refill, letting out the puppy — is beside the point. Your absence is deafeningly loud: there you are, not there in the box where you should be. You could, of course, turn the camera off, but then everybody then wonders: what’s with that guy? Is she still here? What is she hiding? Is she still listening?

Then there is the problem of perceived inattention. Others in the meeting can see your face for sure, but they often can’t see your hands. They also can’t see your screen (unless your glasses betray a reflection). And if your eyes dart around and away from the camera, they can’t tell what you might be looking at. Are you distracted? Are you doing research on what we are talking about? Or shopping on Amazon? Do you think what I am saying is boring?

Sure, these are all sources of fatigue, but I think they also make our conversations more interactive and meaningful. The online meetings I have had virtually over the past few weeks have been far more productive and substantive than conversations I have had pre-COVID in large and small conference rooms alike. And I think the reason for this is that a grid view conversation has the intimacy of a face-to-face conversation with the benefit of scale. We listen to each other more deeply in this context.

It is, of course, true that virtual meetings lack the in-person benefits. But in my view, COVID has led us to stumble across a valuable new mode of conversation, and, once things return to “normal”, we should continue to engage with it and develop it. It is worth noting that the grid view doesn’t scale infinitely, beyond 50 or may 100 people, the faces become so small that it would be hard to see them clearly. But this does not diminish the points being raised here.

Thoughts on how we can make this communication tool better!

Let’s talk about virtual backgrounds, what a thing! All the way from a guy walking in on himself, to lovely sunsets on beaches, city landscapes, space scenes, and product/brand promotion. This is the new variety in our lives! Instead of wearing different clothes, we communicate our personal brand and modality with backdrops! Kinda cool I think. It allows us to flip from serious business to casual at a click of the button.

The question of how to dress is worthy of mentioning. I have been on business meetings when someone was wearing Superman PJ bottoms. Does it matter? Probably not, it’s just another element of color in today’s online meetings.

Your closeness to the camera, the lens’ focal length and the surrounding furniture is yet another interesting aspect. Some people like showing just their head and shoulders on the screen, while others are further back sometimes visibly sitting or lounging, on a wide shot, as it were. What is the right way to do this? All I can say is that I am having a meeting with you and not your surroundings, I’d rather see the whites of your eyes than your memorabilia collection! But hey, it’s more color on people’s personalities!

On public online meetings, what we know as webinars, the audience’s experience when the panelists are all on the video grid is also different. In physical conference rooms or even on broadcast TV, the audience tends to look only at the speaker, often with his image shown on a screen. With an online video grid, the audience can easily look at all the panelists, the one speaking and others listening are all the same size. With these kinds of panels, the reaction of other speakers to what is being said is often as informative to the words being spoken by the speaker. With a grid, this interaction is all there for us to see. Another win for the grid.

Of course, the one thing online still has a problem with is latency and the duplex audio issues. While technology no doubt will improve, the speed of light will never be zero so lag will always be there, making online never quite as personal as being face to face with other people. But, it’s good enough and we can make it work!

The main problem with latency is that it’s hard to interrupt someone talking, something that we easily and often do in real life. But, this is not a bad thing, interruptions are generally rude and often indicate that people are not listening. WIll we get into the habit of listening more since interruptions are awkward online? A silver lining of COVID maybe.

The human brain is trained to recognize and make sense of facial movements, the so-called non-verbal communications. We do this without knowing it. Clearly, online grid meetings play directly to this; there they are, faces that our brains love to watch, telling us things that were hard to do pre-COVID.

Of course, the big questions facing us is how do we get back to some resemblance of normal. Many are eager to get back to their office cubicles and be able to network in real life with coworkers, clients, and others. Networking and human connections are the oft-stated reason for wanting to return. I understand that having lunch or coffee break with coworkers or meeting someone new is what we are really talking about, as far as work meetings are concerned, Do we really want to go back to them if there is something better?

I think the video grid aspect of online meetings is a game-changer, a positive that has come out of this horrendous pandemic that we are living through. I think those not mandating or at least encouraging video at these meetings are missing out on this amazing productivity improvement.

It is an irony that a side effect of a lockdown is that we have found a better way to communicate and meet. The only thing missing is the face to face social interactions of the old normal, the drink at the bar, lunch with colleagues, coffee breaks with an old friend, chance meetings, and dinners where you really get to know each other. Let’s hope we can get those back, but as far as meetings and conferences, I would go with the online grid anytime.

I can’t wait for my next face grid meeting!