by Charlie Wilson, Respoke General Manager
When I’m out and about, I often find myself bragging about the great work environment that we’ve cultivated while working on Respoke. We have a team that’s focused more on producing results than on dress codes or office hours. That attitude has allowed us to build a world-class service in a relatively short amount of time.
Because of the distributed nature of our team (at one point 60% of the team worked remotely), we have embraced the kinds of real-time communications tools that we encourage our customers to build. We’ve built instant messaging apps, video chat apps, and screen sharing apps. We even have our Apollo collaboration tool that combines all of these and more into a single app with web and mobile interfaces. Never has there been a time when I’ve been more comfortable participating in a video conference because when it’s ubiquitous, no one thinks twice about getting in front of the camera.
There are times, however, when important calls take place with individuals outside of our immediate team. These may (and will) occur at any time with an important customer, a potential client, or maybe a virtual meeting with the boss’s boss (aka Grandboss). Whatever the reason, this is when I have to put my best foot forward and be prepared to be on camera. Unfortunately, being able to work from anywhere can lead to potentially uncomfortable situations when the grandboss wants to have a spur-of-the-moment video chat.
In order to be ready for such situations, I needed an easy solution.
While there may be cool green-screen or other technology solutions to remedy such situations, my answer to this was to use a good ‘ol fashioned super-sized backdrop photograph. I chose one that mimics a scene from my office. Thanks to Ryan McCartney and the awesome team at Xarisma, I was able to have a banner printed that looks just like my office.
Using my phone, I took a picture from the vantage point of the semi-permanent webcam that’s on my office computer monitor. I then sent that picture to the Xarisma team and they proceeded to make a banner that was 4’ tall and 6’ wide, per my instructions. If I were to do it over again, I think I would have opted for something larger, maybe 6’ or 8’ tall and up to 8’ wide.
I had them put loops on the top and bottom of the banner so that it could be hung. I then bought some PVC pipe and created a frame and a stand from which to hang the banner. I used ¾” piping which seemed to have the right balance of weight and strength. I also did not glue the joints so that I could take it apart and transport it easily.
I decided to take my setup for its first test drive on a family beach trip last week. During last year’s annual vacation, I had to leave the beach for a couple of days to meet with some potential customers. In fact, a similar meeting that overlapped with this year’s family vacation was the inspiration for this idea. What better time and place to put such a concept through its paces. Of course the kids weren’t extremely appreciative when I pulled them off the beach to help me build the frame, but a chance to be on camera helped to ease their pain.
Once it was put together, I found a nice level spot from which I could do the video conference. Because I used PVC, the frame was very light and I was able to carry it myself. You can see from the picture that in the heat of the moment I didn’t think to change into a collared shirt, so that might be something to put on the checklist for next time.
Other pitfalls that I encountered included nephews that magically appeared in my ‘office,’ almost as if they had just come out of the pool, and one of my kids video-chat bombing my setup when I stepped away to get something cool to drink.
Overall, I’d say it was a success. Although I didn’t have the customer call that I had planned for, the experience of setting up the backdrop and being prepared for such a call was very beneficial. I also now have a setup that can be used at will for those important calls that might happen on future occasions when I’m away from the office.
