In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes

Andy Warhol never had to deal with Zoom did he? Imagine what his backgrounds would have been like.

After over a year of virtual meetings, I have some thoughts.

All of the platforms we are using - Teams, Zoom and Hangout were never designed for constant use. Everything from a team get-together, to a briefing, to a pitch has changed - these are no longer in person but on a screen. And not surprisingly, everyone has reported this switch to be more exhausting. A performance if you will. Does my hair look okay? Have I got my lipstick on? Is anyone going to comment if my bookshelf isn’t perfect? Hey Roomrater made a whole Twitter feed of that…

I started to schedule 15 or 30 minute meetings a couple of months ago. I had noticed that often with an hour scheduled for a slot, there was no need for that full 60 minutes. In fact, who was the first person to schedule a meeting for an hour? And why has it been assumed that virtual meetings should be deemed the same time length? I haven't seen my usual go-to workplace enthusiasts talking about this. It’s even worse if you are flexing between real-life meetings and virtual.

I spent the last few weeks in person and last week entirely IRL on the ground delivering a project in a Covid-safe environment, masked, social distancing and taking lateral flow tests. Conversely, this week I have spent three days on video calls from 9am-5pm or later with very few breaks in between. To go back to peering into a screen after a week in the field is a very odd and discombobulating experience. It made me realise that a lot of people still haven’t been able to go back to the office or their workplace. Don’t get me wrong, neither is good or bad give our current situation in the UK. I just don’t like eating my lunch standing up in the kitchen, but that has become commonplace due to the immense guilt I’ve felt being away from my screen.

Back to meeting times. I’ve found that if a meeting finishes early, everyone is immediately delighted. Those ten or fifteen minutes can be the difference between making a coffee, slipping some washing on or just going for a walk. For most platforms, the default meeting setting is one hour. So you change the default settings. F&*k up the system.

I’ll leave you with some Marcus JH Brown. You might like it.