What Our Changing Videoconferencing Habits Mean for IT

By now, your organization’s employees and your internal IT department should be accustomed to remote or hybrid work and videoconferencing technology.

We’ve been using platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Webex, Bluejeans, Slack and several others to meet and collaborate for about seven months, and many organizations have barely skipped a beat, and that’s leading to more and more companies adopting a flexible remote work strategy even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

Virtual meetings are now a part of our daily lives, and they will continue to be as organizations increasingly adopt hybrid work strategies and become more flexible about where and when people get their work done.

In an interview with My TechDecisions, Mark Strassman, senior vice president of LogMeIn’s unified communications and collaboration unit that oversees products like GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar, spoke about how our videoconferencing habits have changed dramatically because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote work.

Since videoconferencing is here to stay, it is now incumbent upon your organization to equip your employees with the necessary tools, hardware and accessories to bring the virtual experience to the next level.

How our virtual meetings are changing

According to the company’s data from its GoToMeeting platform, the method, size and timing of video meetings changed noticeably this year.

The percentage of meetings taken on a mobile device grew from 5% last year to 12% this year, weekend meetings grew from 3% last year to 8.5% this year, meetings and webinars both nearly doubled in average size, and the percentage of people switching on their video feed during meetings grew by four times.

“Previously, people joining remotely would join for screen sharing or just join over audio,” Strassman says. “Now, the vast majority are turning video on when before they weren’t.”

The largest spike – government – is largely because of the critical need for the government to continue doing its job.

It’s a market that historically hasn’t embraced technology like videoconferencing, but now bodies are forced to hold municipal meetings over video platforms, legislative groups are meeting virtually to make laws and courts conference over the internet to apply those laws.

How videoconferencing is evolving

When the world shifted to remote work in the late winter and early spring, workers simply used their laptop’s built-in microphone and camera to join calls in dimly lit rooms.

Now, organizations are realizing that the quality of those built-in components is poor, and they’re investing in solutions like video bars, microphones, and headsets.

As workers return to the office, organizations will need to bring that same kind of technology to the conference room.

“I think as people are realizing they’re kind of doing video for the long haul, it’s not just about something that works,” Strassman says. “It’s about something that works well.”

And, as videoconferencing and collaboration providers evolve and roll out new offerings and startups enter the crowded virtual meeting market, platforms are becoming more of a one-stop shop for enterprise communications.

“So we as companies are looking out and saying, ‘OK, all these tools we are going to have wall-to-wall, not just a few users in the company,” Strassman says.

“So, how do we start bringing together both to have a better ROI … and to have a more consistent experience among our users and among IT?”

Providers of these meeting and unified communications platforms now need to provide integrations with both other tools in their organizations workflow and other competing communications platforms to help take the burden off of their customers IT department and provide more ROI.

“With meeting solutions, there is not one. We’ve increased traffic, Zoom has increased traffic, Webex has increased traffic, Teams has increased traffic,” Strassman says. “There will be a lot of different players.”

This article was originally posted on Oct 13, 2020

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!