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Opening your camera does not only reveal your face and your expressions, it also shows your surroundings. This can be a statement too, for good or for bad. Google announced customizable backgrounds are coming, here are some thoughts on what that will do to our Meet culture.
Coming to an alpine panorama near you
The coming split: Real background royalty vs. fake background average
The coming split: Real background royalty vs. fake background average
I express myself through my real background
I express myself through my real background
Those are people who work permanently from home (or in dedicated offices) and have the resources, competence and good taste to shape their background to express themselves.
These people already have a big presence - when you call them, you step into their curated world. The decoration serves their needs to project the image they would like to project - in image of power, of humility, of competence. Perhaps there are personal items that tell a story and can double as ice breakers.
After a while, you can be sure that some people will leave nothing to chance. The lighting, the mood, colors, sound quality - improving these and giving those people more presence will certainly be one of the jobs of the future. Invisible microphones, speakers, lights and voice processing software has already created a run during the pandemic and can easily run into the thousands of dollars.
The last thing those people need? A software-generated background. They will be using mahogany chairs in a world of plastic. Not using a background will be a token of authenticity. It will be #nofilter day everyday.
Obviously, this is not feasible for anybody. Not everyone has a nice home to begin with, with enough quiet room for a dedicated home office and no other people to pop in and out. Not every company and position even allows working from home, and not every company can afford nice offices.
A curated home office will likely become a status symbol.
A fake background gives me security
A fake background gives me security
Another group of people will benefit a lot from Meet's upcoming backgrounds, but for a different reason. Opening your camera does not only show your face and your expression, it also shows your room, the way you live. It may reveal how big your room is, which may reveal how big your house is and how much you earn - whether that is true or imagined is another question. Also, how tidy your room is, how much care you put into your surroundings may be interpreted (by you or by others, or by your paranoia) as proxies for how well you do your job, how much you can be trusted to take care of others.
This is another reason why we have offices. Just like why some schools have uniforms.
Once Meet enables us to put custom backgrounds over our imperfect reality, expect lots of colleagues to use them and to never go back. Asking people to remove their custom background will be as awkward as asking them today to turn their camera around and show the rest of their apartment. For those people, showing the real apartment will be reserved for friends and family.
People stuck in the 2000s
People stuck in the 2000s
It is very annoying to be in calls where nobody turns on their cameras - that seems to be a herd thing. Maybe people in certain groups resent having to use Meet, or it is common practice to multitask during calls. Whatever it is, there is no tenable excuse - those meetings are always less intense, more "hello? hello?" and never what they could be. If you work at PwC and prefer that sort of experience, you should do some soul searching before somebody does it for you.
As for backgrounds? Artificial backgrounds will remove even more phoney excuses. So absolutely do call people out ("Hey Drew, I can't see you!"). Our meetings are too expensive to not give 100%. And how can we expect create trust in society when we do not even trust our team mates?
Food for thought: Should a company allow people to use their own backgrounds?
Food for thought: Should a company allow people to use their own backgrounds?
If you go to the office, you will be subject to some sort of dress code. We have not seen this for home offices, where people have been expected to maintain a minimal standard (out of self preservation). The rest of the tone is set by your facilities team and decoration. In many offices, you cannot decorate your walls with whatever you like (even if you are a partner), nor can you freely choose your computer's wallpaper.
I will leave you to ponder whether your firm should do more than to provide officially approved backgrounds, but to actually force people to use them. Those exist - they either look like Slides covers or pictures from neat offices. They are also generic and with 280.000 people using Meet, day in and day out, there is not much you can do to stand out. Should you stand out? Would you want to be remembered by your background, would you risk that it may offend people?
Also: A company is not a bunch of exchangeable brains coming together - that would just be a market of freelancers, no culture and no corporations. There is a reason we speak, write, dress and use colors the way we do, all over the world. All of this is probably a wider cultural discussion around working from home in general, far out of the scope of a simple article. Just food for thought.
If you feel your rights are under attack, fret not: Meet will let you choose your own background. This debate is hypothetical.
I would have all my career conversations here.
Does this mean I want my choices background limited to corporate design? Not really, you will see me on the Death Star where the format permits. Until I get my act together and curate my real background to ascend to the chosen few, that is. Nothing beats fancy reality. Thank you for reading!
#strategy #meetPublished 2020-07-07 by Holger MatthiesModified 2020-07-09 by Holger Matthies
Image by Lucas Film
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