What’s your Zoom view?

While some offices and schools are reopening (or have been open since June), there’s still a large chunk of the Delaware workforce that’s working from home and conducting most, if not all, of their meetings via Zoom. And with 40% of office tenants in Wilmington still having no set plan for bringing employees back to the office, that isn’t going to change any time soon.

A Zoom panel at Technical.ly’s Introduced|Virtual event, May 2020. (Screenshot)

Zoom (and other virtual video meeting platforms) can be draining. Too much of it can contribute to burnout. Having a camera on you for long periods of time can trigger anxiety and sometimes make people self-conscious about the way their spaces look.

But it can also be fun to create a Zoom view, whether with a .jpg background or by curating your actual space.

Sometimes, the view can invite fellow Zoomers into a dynamic space, such as with artist Dennis Beach when we interviewed him from his studio recently for a story on NextFab makers.

Dennis Beach in his studio. (Screenshot)

Often, people find a relatively neutral background in their office, living room, kitchen or porch and call it a day. And that works fine for a lot of people. But some put time and thought into their Zoom view, whether you truly appreciate it during the quarterly meeting or not.

Desa Burton, executive director of Zip Code Wilmington, prefers a real (not digital) view that looks good and doubles as a happy place (and who doesn’t need one of those?).

“I like to mix it up between a serene faux green wall (that I was planning on installing in my office before COVID lockdown happened) and an energetic reminder from Tina Turner that you have to wake up and get at it every day,” she said. “Both backgrounds are from my home office from either side of the long table I use as a desk.  They make me happy, right down to the orange velvet chairs!”

Desa Burton’s green wall. (Courtesy photo)

Desa Burton’s Tina Turner wall. (Courtesy photo)

Ken Grant, manager of Delaware public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic, also went HGTV with his Zoom space.

 “When all of this started back in March, I converted a spare room into a real home office (as opposed to just using the dining room table) – and while the desk area was good, I quickly realized that I needed more behind me than a blank wall for these Zoom meetings,” Grant said. “So, two bookshelves got moved from other parts of the house and a ‘Hamilton‘ calendar, travel photos, art work from Eunice LaFate, and a world map went up.”

The view in action:

Ken Grant’s Zoom view. (Courtesy image)

And the setup he sees while on a Zoom meeting:

Grant’s view while on a Zoom meeting. (Courtesy photo)

Although he took time curating his Zoom view, Grant isn’t opposed to virtual background.

“I have used plenty of different virtual backgrounds (many featuring my ‘happy places’ in Oman and the UAE) and now that Zoom is offering filters, well — some meetings are really getting interesting.”

Have you created your perfect Zoom view at home or elsewhere? Send details and pics of your setup to delaware@technical.ly.