Video Conferencing: What’s (still) missing?

Let's make the new normal, more normal.

Video conferencing is a powerful medium, now entwined into our everyday life. Yet its shortcomings take a toll, leaving us exhausted after just a one hour meeting or remote learning session. We’re taking a deep dive on why.

What we discovered is that true connection is difficult to form, maintain, and build without a mix of communication, collaboration and confidence. This “connection tax” is what we’re all grappling with, and we believe there is a way forward…

We have developed a framework we’re calling the 4C’s of Video Conferencing: Communication, Collaboration, Confidence, and Connection

Where do we start?

In an audit of current solutions, there are two approaches to executing video conferencing: one that embraces the 2D pane of glass and makes it a part of our standard computer desktop. The other is through more transformative experiences such as augmented, mixed, and virtual reality. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, with interesting optimizations inherent to both.

We will break down how each component helps or hinders human connection and, just perhaps, pushes the medium well beyond a poor facsimile of IRL.

Staying in touch these days, video is now the go-to medium. There’s a massive spectrum of uses, from catching up with friends, to weddings, run-of-the-mill work meetings, and essentials like telehealth and remote learning. While our physical selves are locked up, our social and emotional selves are looking for human contact. As useful as video is, there are limitations and pitfalls due to how video products have been designed and built.

We’ll cover a few startups pushing into more creative formats, either breaking out of the rectangle application window, or into AR/MR/VR. These are still novelties, not ready for prime time, and we would even argue they still lack a fundamental compass point. As you read this, there are countless hours and billions of dollars being invested in video, not the least of which are Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

If the tagline of COVID-19 life is “Together Apart,” how successful is video actually making us feel connected?

So for all that video technology and investment have provided us so far, it can be far better. We’re looking to strip everything down to video’s primary components and argue that even the most successful solutions are, at best, only considering one or two, and are entirely missing the most important.

While individually significant, the interplay between them can reinforce how we all can truly come together while being physically apart. Communication starts from the simple loop of informing and understanding, then deepens into authentic self-expression. Collaboration starts with contribution of ideas and moves into real-time processing with a collective presence of mind. Confidence relates to doing both of those things assuredly, with a sense of safety that fosters an openness to ultimately… connect. Connection is what results from enabling all three components.

This is the first of a five-part series that will go deep into each of the 4Cs, how they fit together, and help form genuine bonds among us.

Read on for highlights of each of The Four Cs.

Communication

We’ve all run across the difficulties of feeling confident in a video session when you run into audio interference, unexpected background noise, or the ultimate: speaking incredibly profoundly only to then realize you’re on mute. Non-verbally, cameras in a standard setup mask most of our body language, cutting off our full expression. What is captured skews our interpretation of what’s being expressed, due to the lack of gaze awareness. Some approaches are leaning into digital solutions to better simulate the critical combination of verbal and non-verbal communication. One specific example morphs participants into animated avatars, letting our cartoon proxies convey some nuance of emotion and delivery. By entering a VR space, Facebook uses headsets to create hyper-realistic representations that stand in for us. It’s uncanny. We’ll continue to challenge products that overemphasize the replication of physical attributes in Part Two!

Collaboration

Collaboration is “working together.” People contribute, respond, and then move forward by remixing all that together into a new whole. Generally speaking, how many solutions out there actually facilitate that process? In video conferencing, that is sometimes offered through digital drawing features, chat, and other add-ons. It can be argued these additions are poor band-aids and just another mode of communication from which to choose. Some newer products are looking to recreate the spatial sensibilities missing in a remote work setup by illustrating your physical space better for others to see, using 360 degree cameras, or replicating physical space via screens mounted on the wall. A novel approach layers your image with personalized backgrounds, graphics, and presentations, mimicking a TV host format that helps your audience feel more engaged. In Part Three, we’ll dive into the challenges of using multiple point-solutions to cobble together collaboration and where the map of opportunities lies.

Confidence

The foundation of communication and collaboration is how confident we are—personally and in our technology and security. Compliance often comes with restrictions on the user experience, trading off the other C’s. For products that are more friction-free, they have proven to be less secure. No one wants to be meme’ed. While privacy and security are auditable and necessary, confidence comes from two more obvious angles: how one feels and whether the tool protects them, and whether the technology and internet are reliable. We’ll learn more in Part Four.

Connection

For all the digital communication channels—virtual whiteboards, chat, audio, or video: why so many point solutions, and why does video feel so lacking? What needs aren’t being satisfied?

Our working theory is that none of these products and solutions have focused on connecting us as people. Connection is emergent when everyone involved is present, authentic, open, kind, and trusting, and we’re excited to share more in Part Five.

The Vision for Virtual

We are compelled in this new world to rethink and challenge our communication tools, video being the most necessary. Whether within the rectangle pane of glass or through AR/MR/VR—can they connect us more humanely?

Many of us literally see into each other’s lives every time we take a work meeting, making us unavoidably and intimately connected more than ever before. Can we leverage this unique opportunity we have now to bolster deeper connection? Can we use this focus on connection to span our divides across cities and states, bridging our country and the world, ultimately uniting us beyond borders and even societies?