#TechTalksWithMelwyn – Zooming the Quarantine Away With Zoom Communications
This week on #TechTalksWithMelwyn, I will tell you all about the Zoom Communications – the quarantine favorite virtual meeting tool.
Welcome to the world of work from home – originally the home turf of billionaires in their exotic mansions and pools. I’m sure quite a few of us always thought it would be great if we could get some work done from home so we could scratch off those chores we never got to on the weekend and cook and eat healthy meals. But now that we are in the middle of a mandatory work-from-home, it doesn’t really feel that great, does it?
Multiple industries have always been looking at ways to reduce costs of flying employees for individual meetings, maintaining individual desks and expensive office space by having employees connect virtually. Attempts have varied from the Cisco Telepresence costing a few thousand dollars to online meetings on WebEx, Skype for Business, etc. which have seen varying degrees of success with global companies.
During the COVID-19 remote working sessions, a new favorite has emerged both in the business and recreational spheres – Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM). Started by Eric Yuan in 2011, it quickly grew to claim 1 million participants by May of 2011. In the recreational/personal space, Zoom has become a favorite because it allows multiple users to connect simultaneously while sharing high-quality video – not to mention the interesting backgrounds you can have of the famed aurora borealis or blowing beaches in the Caribbean. Not only does Zoom Communications boast of having better video quality than most other free apps out there, but it also allows more than 4 users to share their video on the same conference call – a key limitation that the otherwise popular Whatsapp messenger has.
From an end-user perspective, Zoom Communications clears the confusion of a million different buttons and knowing what to click when and for what. Did I mention the fancy moving backgrounds or the fact that you can simply add your own background image to show friends and co-workers what you want them to see? Gone are the days where you had to readjust the bookshelf to show your co-workers and friends exactly what you want them to think you read; or cover-up that poster because listening to Nickelback isn’t what the popular kids approve anymore. If you’ve read so far, you are possibly part of the new crew getting acclimatized to the work-from-home regime, so here is a background of ‘The Office’ that you could use (courtesy of u/docreid on r/DunderMifflin)!
