Using Hangouts has kind of eliminated the conference call problem for me. Audio quality is great, you can see who is speaking or know who wants to speak if the mute icon disappears.
This website is mimicking corporate conference calls.. and yes, companies take regular phone calls because they are collectively aware that expecting everyone to contact their business using Google Hangouts would be silly.
Ultimately the problems with these meetings involve the social problems. Someone is absorbed in thought so they don't notice that a more quiet person in another room wants to talk. They point at the screen, not realizing that the other office can't see that. They point using their mouse cursor not realizing that it's too small to see on the screen. Or the more mundane; not having an agenda, inviting too many people, not inviting enough people, etc.
And, of course, "we're getting kicked out".
Audio quality is variable. Sometimes there's serious lag. Screenshare often gets stuck. Sometimes Hangouts (well, now it's Meet) goes split-brain and some people join to find no one there, even though everyone else can see each other. Browser support is hideously narrow. Unmute sometimes doesn't work.
Oh, and the worst part: There are all these pesky humans involved!
Seriously, most of the stuff satirized in this art piece are human factors, or at least factors that have not particularly been changed by Hangouts and its ilk.
Plus the second somebody says something important, the audio drops out or gets choppy.
Yeah.... we have a long ways to go for conference calls of any type....
I remember those traditional conference phones usually having really good microphone quality and noise-reduction. You still have to invest in that gear with hangouts/Zoom/others.
Yes, especially at large, non-technical companies. Technically, we are using WebEx, but most remote folks are dialing in to a phone number versus using audio on their laptop.
I'm in at least one meeting a day that has dial in people.
I absolutely hate google hangouts.
There should be an app that logs you into your mandatory conference calls so you can get the checkmark for attending, but completely isolates the user. Then, when you suddenly have to talk, and someone pings you, it will call you, and while its ringing it will play a pre-recorded, 'Oh damn, I think I'm having connection issues, can you repeat the question?'
Phone calls, on the other hand, can work from just about anywhere using any service provider. Makes it much more useful than Hangouts.
And then there's the non-native speaker...
A good number of "Training" videos at my work are recorded meetings / webinars in which someone demonstrated a skill or walked through an issue. I've watched maybe 40 of these archived videos so far. There is not a single one that does not have the meeting eventually brought to an abrupt halt when an attendee starts shouting "MAILBOX OF EXTENSION X-X-X-X IS NOT AVAILABLE."
I've got one!
This is absolutely awesome piece of art. I've worked at the BigCo for the 7 years (switched to startup a 3 years ago) and this site turned me on so much nostalgia.
Plaid & Bob Jaroc - War Dialer: https://youtu.be/sfLQ8EEoKeU?t=22s
High Hopes (a hidden track after the end of the song — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Hopes_(Pink_Floyd_song)#C...): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl0d0Q7MyzA
Young Lust (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Lust_(song)): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EM_fK9eOaQ
Keep Talking (no phone call in the actual song, but Stephen Hawking’s voice was taken from a British Telecom advert — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Talking): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ7zbzJZsjs
Such a great song. I love the original, he sounds like Weird Al! Beats the Blondie version hands down imho...
It's always the person who has a $500 microphone set up too, so you get to not only hear them chew, but you can even hear the inner workings of their esophagus swallowing every bite.
My favourite was a conference call on which, for ten minutes, we heard someone’s three year olds puking, crying, screaming and crapping themselves while the mom tried to clean up with the mute button accidentally disengaged.
Then my manager, the person who would actually make any decisions, took a call and stepped out of the room while the sales-droid was mid-pitch. The other three of us are suppressing laughter, and then see $boss hang up and just walk away while a polished, chipper voice drones on about all the great features of whatever it was.
At which point we have an etiquette problem. One person looks at me uncomfortably and leaves. I can tell the other really wants to bolt too, so I break in and apologetically manufacture a vague emergency to explain why we need to pick up the call later.
Later, the teleconference software added a button where the organizer could mute everyone and we could solve this problem.
PM: Ok, thanks, so could we just get an update on work items x,y,z
Me: ...
---
I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed ... and mad. I assume he heard parts of what I was saying and it triggered some rudimentary pattern recognition in his brain stem that remembered he was interested in x, y, and z.
Makes me laugh every time.
Yeah, we have the technology, but in practice you get this...
* an all-too-realistic snapshot of corporate life
* a sobering commentary on the state of conference call norms and terribly interoperating related technologies
* if Bladerunner met Office Space
* a playbook on how to respond to various real-world conference call mishaps
* the funniest thing I've seen in some time
The visuals remind me of Koyaanisqatsi - I'd love Philip Glass as a soundtrack.
God, I hate open offices and conference calls/webinars.
edit: it's even better with multiple tabs open.
i opened a radio show with 5 minutes of it once. then i sent it to some friends and half of them thought my email had been hacked and used to send out a phishing link (i felt bad after the fact for making it seem a little more ok to click on sketchy links).
Ooh sorry, I mean the interrrnet, not the interrrrrnet
