I still remember several months into the pandemic how my then-company’s VP brought up how we can go back into the office, but we wouldn’t be able to meet in the same room or be in close proximity to each other, and so any/all communications would still need to be done via MS Teams.
I think even he realized how ridiculous that sounded because there was a momentary pause before he finished his sentence.
When I worked for Bell, they had just ended their WFH policy. I was required to be in the office every day. The rest of my team was still under the policy according to their contract, including my boss who was a 10 minute walk from the office, so they all worked from home. And most of my meetings involved teams in 3 different cities, not to mention the fact that it was Bell, so all meetings were over the phone with a screen sharing app. There were some other people that worked in the office, but they worked with different teams so I didn’t interact with them beyond saying “hi” in the break room as I was getting coffee. But it was apparently very important that I be in the office.
Some days I really appreciate the fact that I left IT.
Fuck Bell
I don’t get it, apart from companies wanting to cover their corporate real estate investments.
All of my work is on a computer
All of my colleagues’ work is on computer.
So why the fuck would I want to meet in person to address a problem? So one of us can literally breathe down the other’s neck looking at the same screen?
GTFO.
You just said it in your first sentence. It’s not rocket surgery, your literal meat existence will be used for passive profit.
For their greedy brains, this is literally about control and surveillance. They can’t make sure that you are working the full company time and even overtime while at home in your comfort and pyjamas.
Teams room technician here. Just wanna say= fuck teams. For the love of god, use any implementation of video conferencing besides teams.
One small detail that encapsulates all that’s wrong with teams= the software that runs the room-scale experience frequently refers to itself as ‘skype for business’, even in current, official documentation from Microsoft. Hell, the (well known) default password for the system is the acronym ‘sfb’.
Please. If you’re spec’ing new software for video conferencing, use anything but teams.
Oh! I always thought that password was short for “Sam Fankman-Bried”
WebEx room systems are great, easy to configure and great service to use, great for ver large conferences (think 1000-5000 or more) and it integrates with Teams meetings as well. That said, Zoom integration is terrible, they need to work on advanced conferencing features such as translator audio channels, echo and noise canceling is utter trash for the app, breakout rooms limited list goes on.
I’ve heard good stuff about WebEx! How does the desktop app perform, from your experience?
The good
- webinars, they coined the term, unmatched especially at very large scale.
- New app with integrated meetings app is much better.
- Chat and spaces are good,
- routing content to SharePoint is great integration for document management and collaboration to protect documents and important content without worrying staff with process
- Admin troubleshooting is unmatched when someone complains about an issue it makes it very easy to identify what happened. something teams is absolutely atrocious at (we run both)
- Outlook integration is great which integrates with room systems and booking room panels
- adhoc meetings from panels outside rooms show in room calendars and all sync which is a nice feature
The bad
- Events need better integration
- Echo and noise cancellation is poor, get headphones they are a must, mic pickup fades in and out all the time on speakers on various devices or use a room system
- Conference translator audio channels don’t seem to exist for large multicultural conferences. +1 for Zoom
- video could be crisper, costs money to go 1080p and above
Want
- space conferences could be better (not to be confused with meetings/events) with a discord like voice+video+sharing like experience for spaces instead of just bulk calling all members…(would help bring people together more when working remotely) people could just join “live spaces” dropping in and out
