My personal favourite after the first 10 days: ZOOM! Exploration in times of Home Office and Video Conferencing

Change only happens when the pressure is high enough. Corporates worldwide have been forced to send their employees to their ‘home offices’. Well, for most of them the emphasis was more on ‘home’ than ‘office’... dinner tables, kitchen, balconies, sofas – they all became their new ‘office’. After having setup the ‘process’ of working at home (meaning having organised who is allowed to use the table when and at what times everybody has to be quiet etc.), it's time to think about how to keep in touch with the company, the customers, the suppliers etc. Lucky for those working for companies which already made arrangements to accommodate remote working and video conferencing; lucky for those already trained in using video conferencing tools. Unfortunately, this is the minority. For many, the usage of video conferencing is as new as America was to Christoph Kolumbus. Virtual meetings are unknown and first step is never easy. So before we end up on the wrong continent, I've made a list of all the solutions I've encountered over the years.

Disclaimer: these are my personal impressions. They neither are exhaustive nor have I mentioned all functionalities, let’s just call it a “dumb user” experience...

Facetime and Whatsapp Video

A great way to stay in touch with your friends, family or even your business partner. But do not use it for customer calls. It’s just not professional.

Take-away: nice for a quick conversation amongst friends – but that’s it!

Skype ( www.skype.com )

Everybody already knows Skype. It’s the 'Facebook' kind of tool you are using to keep in touch with your family. Furthermore Skype, owned by Microsoft, is bound to a Microsoft account. 

Personal impression: It’s exactly as mentioned above: to keep in touch with your family!      

• Most of us have a personal picture as profile, do you want your business partner to see you like this?
• Lacks document sharing functionalities etc.
• Can be used on a laptop or over the mobile
• Most of us already have Skype installed

Take-away: Continue to use it for to stay in touch with your grandparents – but not within the business world.

Skype for Business ( www.skype.com )

As the naming says: it’s the business version of Skype. There is a Skype Meetings App which has to be installed. Then you have to type in the meeting URL to join the call. However, Skype for Business is currently being replaced by Microsoft Teams (as part of the O365-package). 

Personal impression: As a Mac-user, I personally had problems with logging in. The process always took longer than expected and caused me to be slightly late for my meetings. Furthermore, I also had to re-install the app several times. Overall, I’ve stopped using it for customer meetings, as I just didn’t trust it to work properly.

Take-away: Ok, but I’ve stopped using it after it disappointing me on multiple occasions.

Amazon Chime ( www.aws.amazon.com/chime )

After having had a few sessions with Amazon themselves, I was invited to use Chime for meetings. Overall it worked well. Screensharing was possible as well as conferencing with many attendees. Additionally, the pay-per-use model is very compelling and global business calling capabilities are provided as well. Everything is very professional but comes with a price tag. Pricing starts at 50$/month for a small company.

Take-away: Good for bigger companies, expensive for smaller ones.

Cisco WebEx ( www.webex.com )

Having its roots in calling and networks, CISCO already has provided video conferencing tools for a long time. It’s perfect for Webinars, online-teaching, Webcasts etc.. The price ranges from 0$ to 30$ / month for a wide variety of functionalities.

Personal impression: a very professional tool. However, it wasn’t that easy to install it. Furthermore, your chat-partner has to install it as well and it cost me too much time of the planned 1-hour-session until everybody was finally online.

Take-away: Good, but only if you have regular meetings with the same partners. (Btw: use the code wecare2020 to get a discount!)

Google Hangouts ( www.hangouts.google.com )

To use Google Hangouts you need a Gmail account. Google uses it internally as an enterprise communication tool. Therefore, it soon became part of the G suite line and can be used for up to 10 participants at a time. The professional version is called Google Hangouts can be used with up to 100 participants users. It’s free but you pay for storage or the calling function.

Personal impression: It works but again, having a Mac makes it a bit more complicated to setup and use.

Take-away: I’ll use it when being invited, but not as a host.

Bluejeans (www.bluejeans.com )

This is an excellent tool to communicate onsite (in a well-equipped meeting room) with external conference participants. Even the cheap version also allows you to organize conferences from a laptop for up to 50 participants. Here – again – it's very easy to join the conference just by clicking the provided link. 

Personal impression: Having used it already for long calls from meeting rooms – it works very well.

Take-away: Nearly perfect and my personal favourite if there wasn't one more thing…

Zoom ( www.zoom.us )

Zoom just had me from the first meeting as guest. No installation, it just clicked the link and I was in the meeting – as simple as that. It provides a wide range of functionalities with a very straightforward pricing model. For 12$, you already can organize meetings with up to 100 participants. Webinars etc. are available depending on the price model. Screensharing, App-sharing is very user-friendly and they have clear instructions on how to setup a meeting. A big plus is that you can handover your mouse control to any participant as well as the recording functionality to share the conference later (150MB/h recording). Lastly, security is guaranteed with a 256-bit TLS encryption.

Personal impression: It works, is reliable and comes with an affordable price tag.

Take-away: Very user-friendly for organizers and participants -> my personal favourite!

Summary

Yes, there are many more tools like GoToMeeting, Cyber Link U Meeting or LifeSize and I am sure that over the next week, my horizon will open up for those solutions as well. Nevertheless, I think all of us should now accept the fact that change is here, and it can’t be stopped. Home-office and videoconferencing will become part of the new normal. Corporates have to incorporate this new way of work as company attractiveness will heavily depend on how they support flexible working models. But 'A fool with a tool is still a fool': whatever the solution, successful videoconferences must have a clear leader, people listening (not mailing) and talking in short but clear statements while focussing on the subject.

The next level for corporates is offering flexibility in how they engage with customers and partners worldwide - not mentioning the advantages of reducing carbon costs of travel.

One more thing

After having discussed my impressions with my eldest daughter who’s studying at university, she told me about Discord ( www.discordapp.com ). It seems to be THE tool for youngsters to socialise. So, if you want to catch the youth, try Discord …

Questions? Zoom me! Here’s my Zoom-Meeting-ID: 222-555-2522 .