Video fatigue and the choice between Zoom and Loom
Video fatigue and the choice between Zoom and Loom
From our Managing Director, Andi Catt
I saw an interesting article about how Zoom calls drain your energy. This is especially problematic when most of us are having to use video-conferencing socially as well as professionally.
At The Call Business, we are a virtual team and have always worked remotely and therefore done most of our meetings via video. Here are our top tips for coping with a day of video meetings:
Take breaks and move about between calls.
On long calls, schedule comfort breaks.
Using a standing desk can definitely help; If you don’t have one and the shops are not open where you are, improvise. One friend uses a music stand to hold her iPad so she can stand for video calls.
For less formal meetings, move your laptop to a different location: your kitchen, your balcony or the garden.
When you're using video calls for family and friends’ catch ups, use a different location. Or try the free virtual backdrops that are available.
Video vs email
Despite the challenges of video conferencing, it still has many advantages over email communications. Video lets you deliver your message with personality, making it easier to connect with colleagues, prospects, and customers, even when you can’t be there face2face. And video provides the opportunity to include tone, expressions, and body language so you can ensure you’re understood.
Whether you’re sharing an idea, talking a colleague through something, delivering feedback, or explaining a complex concept, simply saying it is a lot faster than writing it and making screen shots. It is so much easier to get your point over when you can explain verbally and share your screen.
There are, however, other ways of using video for comms. There’s nothing to stop you from recording a video to get your point across, explain your views, show some visuals – and then send that to your colleagues. There are various apps you can use for this but the one that I use is Loom.
Zoom vs Loom
Using Loom, or something similar, you can record and share videos—and watch the videos your colleagues share—when it is convenient for you. It is even possible to watch videos slightly speeded up in order to maximise your time. 2x makes your colleagues sound like Donald Duck. 1.5x is OK.
I found Loom last year when working with a client based on the west coast of the USA (I am based in mainland Europe). Timezones meant we had a really small window to meet up. We had a lot to discuss and our email trails were like War and Peace. Writing back and forth was time-consuming and felt impersonal. Loom solved that problem and I have been using it ever since.
I can sit at my desk and record a video message to a colleague or client either using my camera view or sharing a document on screen or a combination of both. Once the video is recorded I can save it, trim it, edit it and then, when I am happy, I can share a link.
If I have prepared documents or presentations for discussion with my team, prior to the meeting I can talk through the rationale, the context etc on a Loom video and share the documents and the video with the attendees, in advance. This gives them a much better understanding than sending documents alone and enables them to come to our video conference already up to speed, with questions ready.
In some instances, by using a Loom video, we entirely negate the need to schedule a meeting.
What started off as the solution to a stressful problem has turned into a great working practice that saves time and stress.