The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 142 - Zoom Face

Transcript:

Jen: Hi, Peter.

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Okay, I want to ask you to please describe for the listeners...

Pete: Okay.

Jen: ...what my face is doing. [makes face]

Pete: It's a shocked face. It is the chin tucked in, the mouth is agape.

Jen: Okay, what about this one? [makes face]

Pete: That's like a hand over the mouth kind of situation, where you're a little bit surprised but you're also like, "Ooh, did he say that?"

Jen: Okay, what about this one? [makes face]

Pete: It looks like you're laughing hysterically. You're leaning back, you're kind of celebrating. Mouth open again, looking at the ceiling. Yep.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: What's going on?

Jen: What you are describing is a phenomenon I'm going to be coining today, and I would like to unpack with you. It is a phenomenon known as "Zoom Face".

Pete: "Zoom Face." Yep. Yep, yep, yep. I have a feeling I know where this is going. Ah, this is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Please tell me, please tell me you've been doing these in-person to people. What's been happening?

Jen: Okay, so here's the thing. I, and you, and pretty much everyone I know who I Zoom with, we have turned into human emojis over the last year, because we have been living on mute. And because we can't-

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: Oh, see? What you just did. "Mmm." That is a cue to me that you understand me, that you've heard me. We're unable to give each other those cues when we're on mute. And so (I can only speak for myself), I have started leaning into Zoom Face and basically trying to show all of my emotions and reactions on my face, so the person on the other end of the Zoom call knows how I feel about it. And then today, I had a really weird experience where I was walking down the street and I saw my friend, Stephen Lukas. And I had a mask on, and I felt myself under my mask doing Zoom Face of shock, to show how shocked I was to see him on the street. And then I realized my Zoom Face was covered. And so, I pulled down my mask to show my shocked face. And then I was like, "Wait, I can just say, 'Stephen!'" So, I did that. And then I was like, "Oh my gosh. I have lost all of my human body language, facial expressions like social etiquette." And I just, I want to hear what you have to say about that.

Pete: I think it's real. And I guess the broader topic may be, or the broader category is the behaviors that we've picked up or got familiar with over the last year that either need to be retrained, or not as relevant into an in-person. So I think I shared with you on a recent episode, I did my first in-person workshop for the last fourteen months or something. And during the first twenty minutes...I'm just realizing why it felt so weird, in this moment. During the first twenty-odd minutes, I was...you know, me and my friend, Mary, we're running this workshop, and we're kind of doing a bit of an intro setting-up-the-day kind of situation. And I found myself, my inner dialogue was kind of like, "This is not quite landing. You're not quite doing it properly. What is it? Like, there's not quite the reaction that you're seeking with this." And I think it's because we were all in-person, and actually people weren't doing Zoom Face.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Whereas I'm used to people doing Zoom Face, so I know that they're like, "Oh, yeah. I understand." You know, like a vigorous nod of the head, or like, "Oh, yeah. That's a good point." You know? And when you're in-person there was just, there was so much less overt gestures, I guess, in this context. And I wonder if that's why the story I was telling myself for the first twenty minutes was like, "This is not quite going to plan."

Jen: Mmm. That's so funny. Well, you know, I think this actually points to some conversations we've had recently about hybrid models, and like how the social cues and the culture of being online versus the culture and social cues of being in-person...we have to figure out how to sort that out if we're going to be doing some sort of a hybrid situation. Because, like to your point about, "I can't tell if this is landing," I have gotten so accustomed to the chat flying by when I'm teaching class.

Pete: Right.

Jen: If I make a point, someone will write exactly what I said and quote it in the chat. And then other people do the up arrow or, you know, an applause or like, "Drop that mic, Jen," or whatever...things they would never say out loud if we were off mute. And then the other thing that...actually, I'm saying, "the other thing," as if there's one. I have like a whole list of things that I have ascribed to Zoom Face to unpack here. I have not been challenged in the last year and a half to remember anybody's name at all, period.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: I see everybody's name under their face, so I've not had to even practice that skill. And I'm terrified for what that means when we get back in-person. Because I love calling people by their name, and I find it hard sometimes to remember names. So, woof to that. And then the other thing is, when I'm teaching my in-person classes, I sit with the people who are in the class.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So like, I'm not facing the class. I'm facing the person who's up in front of me working, because it's an acting class so someone is up and working.

Pete: Uh-huh. So, you're almost in the crowd.

Jen: I'm in the crowd. Which used to feel good, but now I'm realizing there was so much story I was missing by not looking at people's faces while they were watching the person who was working. So like, there's just so much, Pete. Zoom Face has got me like, "Hmm?"

Pete: Oh dear. Oh dear. Zoom Face. Well, I feel like there's an interesting point to that. I'm just like trying to go through the catalogue of episodes, the last ten, whether we've covered this, but I'm going to just share it anyway. An interesting point around the hybrid world that we're moving towards is it's not back to what was pre-pandemic, which was all in-person, all the time. And it's not what we've just come through, which was all remote, all the time. It's this kind of new blend of the two. And so I still think there are certain things that are helpful to do remotely using Zoom. I actually think Zoom Face, in the right context (maybe not in-person, but in the right context), it's super helpful to know what other people are thinking, whether people are engaged without having to actually call on people to come off mute, or all of those things. Like there are so many little great benefits for classes, keynotes, workshops, even just meetings that I hope will stay and that we won't just necessarily throw them out. But then there's also, to your point, there's like the retraining of, is the retraining of ourselves of what it's like to do in-person again. Yeah.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'm thinking to myself, "I just need to catalogue all these behaviors I've accumulated in my online presence and my online persona, and like ask myself, 'Is this relevant to an in-person experience? And if so, how am I going to cultivate it? And if not, how am I going to let it go?'" Like, here's another example. When you're talking about creating culture, one of the things that has been so beneficial with having a chat box is people who would normally not say anything, because they would have to raise their hand and speak out loud, will say it in the chat.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And I want to make sure that when we're back in-person, I'm creating the space for the people who don't really feel that confident or comfortable sharing out loud to have some way to express what their opinion is, instead of silencing them because they're not an extrovert. You know?

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, I think the chat also can act as an artifact. I feel like in some instances, people use the chat as if they would use their notebook if it was in-person.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So like, I write down that quote that Jen said in my personal notebook if it's in-person, but no one else sees that. Whereas if I put it in chat, a lot of people see it. And (I know you do this as well) you like, you might save the chat after the fact and use it. As a teacher, use it to like learn. But also, use it to share with the rest of the group, to say, "These were all the ideas you had. These were the things we talked about." Which is a useful artifact for their learning.

Jen: Totally. I mean, we...I not only save the chat, we post the chats in our online classrooms. And we encourage people, whenever someone brings up a resource, to drop a link to that thing in the chat. So, we have this amazing record of all of these resources. We've got podcasts, and TV shows, and books, and plays, and changemakers to follow, and all of these things that get brought up in class. And they're, like you said, there's this archive. And I don't think...no, that's not fair. Sometimes when we have community meetings at the studio, we'll ask people to share their notes in our community page, but it's not like a regular practice. But sharing the online notes has become a regular practice. So, how do I create a scenario where people can have a place to share their in-person notes with the other people who are in-person? That is interesting.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. So I was reminded, as you were sharing, about a keynote I did a couple of weeks ago. It was remote, so it was on Zoom. And in Australia, they have people back in offices a few days a week now. And so, some of the participants were in the office, and some of them were at home. And what I know, from the start...because it was sort of that, you know, the five minutes before when people are starting to come into the room and we're having a bit of a chat. And what I noticed is that a few people were actually in the same meeting room and, I think, really effectively and quite rightly decided to each be on their own laptop, their own Zoom screen. But it was really funny because (I'm just thinking about your point around Zoom Face) I could see, you could kind of see them having a Zoom Face, but then looking at the other person in the boardroom, and then kind of laughing at what was going on in-person, as well as...if you know what I mean? So they were like looking over the top of the camera at the other person, like, "Oh, that was a good point. Can you believe he said that?" And then also like interacting with this screen.

Jen: Oh my gosh. That's so funny.

Pete: Yeah. But the reason I bring that up is actually, there's a...I think it was Shopify and also Slack. So I went to a conference last week that Slack ran, and they were talking about hybrid, and the world we're entering. And they were saying that, I think it's, I'm pretty sure it's Shopify, have set the rule that: So if you have a meeting and at least one person is at home, everyone has to dial in remotely and you do it as a Zoom call, or a Google Hangouts, or whatever platform they use, rather than having that potential hierarchy of, "There's five of us here in-person, but there's one person dialing in," and the one person kind of feels left out and they're like making Zoom Face but no one else is making Zoom Face, and they're kind of like, "What's this person doing? Why are they carrying on?" You know? So there's these interesting new ways that people are starting to think about...like, I know we started with a comical idea of Zoom Face. But actually, like what does that teach us about how we should structure meetings, certain events, workshops moving forward?

Jen: That's so interesting. That's so interesting. I don't know where I fall on that. Because early in the pandemic, so October, my daughter's school went back in-person and they were doing (and they still are doing) one week in-person, one week remote. So, the grades are rotating. And for the in-person week, not all the kids opted to go back in-person. And so, the original plan was that all the kids would bring their computers every day and if there was anyone who was remote, everyone would open their laptop and Zoom for the person at home. Well, that fell off real quickly. They ended up not doing that. But (I can't remember if I ever mentioned this on the show) back in November, we went to California for a month to stay with my family. And while we were there, my daughter was remote the whole time. And it was a nightmare for her to be one of the only people remote when everyone else was in-person. There were times where she couldn't hear what people were saying. Or like in art class, they were all working with physical materials. And she's over here, you know, going like, "Grandma, do you have any popsicle sticks and glue?" You know? So I can see how it can be great, and also how it can be terrible at the same time. So, I feel like I need to unpack that one a little bit more to decide if I even have like a solid opinion to land on.

Pete: Yeah, me too. I think the takeaway I have from that is: Try and avoid it altogether. So either decide upfront (I know that there's always going to be exceptions where you can't), but at least try and say, "Okay. So on Tuesdays, we're going to do our meetings in-person. And so, everyone make the effort to come to the office for that particular meeting." Or if you know that six people are going to be in the office but one person's not, can you, I don't know, give that one person permission to catch up at a different time? Because, yeah, I feel like you don't want to necessarily make that a habit where we're all sitting in an office in an in-person environment, but we're all on Zoom. Like, that feels a bit...

Jen: Yeah. I mean, that just, that feels like scary. That feels like, I don't know, a dystopian nightmare.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Jen: For some reason, this just brought up for me my very first interactive keynote I ever did. (If you go down the YouTube rabbit hole far enough, you'll find it.) I had a group of people in the room with me, and then I had people in two other countries joining as a team. So it was a public speaking workshop...or, a keynote on public speaking. (How meta.)

Pete: (Meta.)

Jen: And there were these big screens set up where the group calling in from. I think it was London was on one screen, and the group calling in maybe was from Paris was on the other screen, and then the New York group was right in front of me. But that organization, this was their culture. They were used to working like that, so it worked completely fine. And I was the one who had to adapt to something that they had embedded deeply, which was that, "We're an international organization. And we are going to find ways to work together across border lines."

Pete: Right. And I guess that's the thing I see as a potentially exciting opportunity for studios like yours, for organizations like Slack, or whoever. That I think there's an opportunity to...not completely redefine but actually recreate a little bit, what our workplace culture looks like. From a meeting perspective, from how many times I'm going into the office, or how many times I'm going to an in-person class at JWS versus a remote class. Like there's this opportunity where we kind of get to tweak that culture a little bit, or play with that culture a little bit. Because I would say...I guess the thing that I hear in all of this conversation is, what's required as we go through the transition to hybrid is humility...

Jen: Yes.

Pete: ...to realize, like, no one's ever done this before. We're probably going to make Zoom Face to a stranger on the street. It's going to be all these weird, social, awkward interactions. And there's going to be moments where someone's in the office, and someone's not, and it's awkward. And like just some sort of humility, and level of grace, and just kind of, I guess lightheartedness in a way, to accept that we're all just kind of figuring this new world out, and that's okay.

Jen: Yeah. This definitely feels like a moment for Rule Number Six: Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And I think you're right. The thing that is just really becoming clear for me is that now is the moment to start paying attention to those quirkyisms of being online, and asking the kinds of questions that will help us to determine what needs to move forward, what needs to go, what needs to be adapted, what needs to be iterated, so that we can continue to function like real human beings who know how to interact with each other.

Pete: As I nod my head vigorously, Jen, I want to say, that is The Long and The Short Of It.