Why to auto-answer video calls

http://blog.quicklychat.com/2012/08/03/why-auto-answer-video-calls/

by jmharvey • 14 years ago

52 24 14 years ago

blog.quicklychat.com

webjunkie• 14 years ago

I like this. I think people frequently underestimate the disadvantages of having team members work from home. Sure, basic tasks can be done remotely ("set up this database xy, perform maintenance work here etc") but all other tasks require collaboration. Having everyone in IRC will help, but it is not the same. People will not talk to each other the same. This is where video, instead of Skype calls or similar, might really help.

Edit: By all means put up screenshots so one can see what this app looks like.

ansgri• 14 years ago

If your tasks are basic, they are numerous, and that means a lot of communication, and that means you better be in the office. Besides, this basic crap is boring when done in solitude.

On the contrary, difficult problems (difficult not in integration, but in algorithm) require total concentration and absense of distractions. Therefore you better not be in the office, and (more heresy) be totally disconnected.

Turning off the interenet is a good thing sometimes.

dag11• 14 years ago

If I recall correctly, Skype has an auto-answering video call feature.

benwerd• 14 years ago

Oh hell no. There is, as is noted, a big difference between Internet communications and actually being there. But auto-answering calls doesn't help that; instead, it removes the advantages of these kinds of communications without really introducing any of the advantages of face to face.

Face to face works so well because there are so many unconscious cues we can pick up on. There's a whole other channel of nonverbal, subconscious communication. That isn't really picked up over videoconferencing, so all you'll get are unwanted work interruptions at best, and some really embarrassing situations at worst.

It's polite to knock on a colleague's office door; I don't see ringing before a call as being different. If you need to work face to face, work face to face.

yuranlu4• 14 years ago

It's a good point that there is a big difference between Internet communications and real life, and we're trying hard to address that difference.

There are a lot of nonverbal cues that you pick up in real life, and you pick up more of these with video than just with text or audio.

There are times when it's polite to knock, like if the office door is closed. If the door is open, or you're working in an open office, coworkers can generally just come and say hi. Working face to face is often best, but it's not possible for some people, and we're trying to enable some part of the working face to face experience for those people.

I know that it's hard to buy that auto-answering will help you be more efficient when working together, but together with automatic status detection, it works well for a lot of our early users. If you're ever in the situation where you want to work face to face with someone, but can't, then give us a try, and if it doesn't work for you, let us know why, and we'll try to build something that does.

hammersend• 14 years ago

When I'm in my office, I can hear somebody coming so it is rare that I'm caught completely by surprise. For something like this to work, I'd want at least a 3 second delay and notification before the camera turned on. That might help some.

philwelch• 14 years ago

So much for coding in the shower.

maayank2• 14 years ago

About the product itself[1], I don't think I would be comfortable with coworkers being able to glean if I'm on an IDE or Hacker News.

[1] http://www.quicklychat.com/

yuranlu4• 14 years ago

The SmartStatus is actually fully configurable, so you can choose which applications/websites you appear red/yellow/green for. So if you set Hacker News and your IDE to the same color, then your coworkers won't be able to tell :-)

maayank2• 14 years ago

Ah, thank you! For some reason, reading "Fully Customizable" on the site I didn't understand it as such. Is it possible to set (until chosen otherwise) uniformly to red/yellow/green? As in, to override the SmartStatus and use it as run of the mill IM applications without losing the settings?

lukifer2• 14 years ago

Everything said here is absolutely correct, and yet getting people to actually adopt this practice is going to be a fight up-hill. Here's why:

- Many people will get nervous about the idea that someone can instantly watch them without warning, and simply refuse to buy in.

- Coworkers will start playing pranks at who they can spy on without them noticing, catching someone at an embarrassing moment, or snapping photos of the dumb look on someone's face when they're in deep focus.

- At most companies, there isn't just one person who needs to get ahold of you. If I walk to your desk and there's someone there already, I come back later. Auto-video lets you see one person only, rather than the whole environment.

- It's awkward to show your face, see they're busy and disappear, especially multiple times, and eventually you'll stop trying and just send an email. At most organizations, the good times to just barge in are rare, and the miss-to-hit ratio will get quickly discouraging.

All that said, I applaud the goal, and I might try using this anyway. I've worked with people remotely often and have wondered about how to establish the correct social conventions for chat/audio/video to mitigate some of the loss of subtle information cues you take for granted in an office environment. Keep experimenting, there is promise to the core idea.

lukifer2• 14 years ago

Upon reflection: I think automatic audio might be the better approach. Say "hey, you busy?" and either jump right into audio/video discussion, or dismiss without awkwardness or feeling intruded upon.

ohazi• 14 years ago

Is there a Linux client on the horizon?

yuranlu4• 14 years ago

There is. We actually have a really early version in the works. Email me (yuranlu@quicklychat.com) if you'd like to help us beta test it.

moe• 14 years ago

Sorry, no, popping up a window on my screen is not comparable to a co-worker walking up to my desk. Not even remotely close.

This is so contrived, it hurts...

And then, on your homepage:

This is a big part of the reason teams are much less productive when they're spread apart.

Nonsense. I've worked with many distributed teams and there simply is no correlation between productivity and location.

I don't think you're doing yourselves a favor by pushing the age old "it's just like being there"-fairytale. You can insult the intelligence of your audience like that when you're a Vodafone or a Samsung, but not when you're trying to sell a product (and likely to a largely technical audience).

The question that you have to answer on your homepage is: Why not Skype?

Do that in bold, front and center. Don't bore me with marketing lorem ipsum...

vhf• 14 years ago

When your phone rings, though, you’re forced to act. A ringing phone is specifically designed to take your attention away from whatever you’re doing. Even if you’re too busy to talk, you still have to actively decide to reject the call. And that decision takes you away from whatever you’re doing.

This is the reason why if you really need your work to be done, you got to turn off your phone, cancel your meetings, stop your emails from popping-up, etc.

The effects of interruptions on productivity is now well-known. They kill it.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201204/why... http://workingmoms.about.com/od/executiveopportunities/a/5-W...

sikhnerd• 14 years ago

Thought the concept to be interesting. Installed the mac version, as did my fiance. Signed up, launched (fiance remarked that it's ugly, including the installer - doesn't bother me), added each other.

Called and got massive non-stop feedback. It's unfortunate that the complete lack of echo cancellation (skype, gtalk, etc work great for us using identical setup) makes this dead on arrival.

shasta• 14 years ago

I hope it at least gives me a couple of seconds warning to get my pants on.

petercooper• 14 years ago

How far down is your webcam aiming!? If you set things up right, you could still look decent on a call wearing nothing but a bow-tie collar.

Zenst• 14 years ago

Auto-answearing ANY form of comminication is not good.

I understand the problem that this approach is trying to address and whilst it is in some way a problem there are better ways. I spent less than a minute thinking of a better solution (IMHO) and that is:

You have a webcam on your desk (or remote hot vid mini desk spots) and you are permanatly logged into that. This allows the remote worker to be apart of the office and also for people to walk up and speak to them, allowing the remote worker to be seen as well as see who is approaching, instead of wam bam in your face. This also affords people to see when they are busy or not. To me this approach is better. But this and also assumes the remote worker has the bandwith to accomodate this and there not on some 3g/28.8 connection due to there location and for alot that is why they are remote working anyhow. Rememebr remote working also covers workers in different locations. I and many others I can garantee have worked in companies with more than one office in more than one location and none of them have an issue and tend to still use bridged conference calls or phone calls. Video has it's uses but it also has its distractions and overheads that can outway the task at hand.

jessedhillon• 14 years ago

That sounds like an interesting way to add some of the nuance of physical presence to internet communication, and I would definitely try it. God help the person who occasionally picks their nose at their desk though. You are always watched!

jcoder• 14 years ago

If an employer ever wanted me to use this, it would have to be wired to a webcam that was pointed 30° away from me. I'd take my coworker popping up on my screen the same way I take a coworker knocking on the doorframe of my IRL space and asking if I'm busy, and my wheeling over into the camera's view would be like spinning around to say "no, what's up?"

dinkumthinkum• 14 years ago

Sometimes when I see these kinds of views, I think programmers that work on these kinds of software need to take sociology classes or psychology classes. Then I realize that that is way to abstract and that the problems are really something that should have been discovered throughout life.

Why to auto-answer video calls

Related Stories