Zoom & MS Teams were the leading digital meeting platforms to come to the fore, with Zoom perhaps being the foremost. They quickly made access to their platform free for an hour session. Zoom enabled families to remain in touch and pub quizzes to continue.
Working for the NHS, I was required to work from home, as many other organisations and companies did, except for the government, which the country found out later. The NHS chose MS Teams as its platform. We held our daily MDT over Teams, and the essential triage and coordination work was done remotely and over the same platform. GPs and Consultants held their clinics online. Life went online.
The NHS, or at least in the trust I work for, still continues its meetings and training sessions using Teams today.
I wasn't a great fan of working from home, and I'm not all that keen on training sessions being over Teams either, especially when the provider isn't well-versed in presenting; it can drag on a bit.
I certainly get the monetary savings that working over these platforms brings to companies. Savings on hire car use, hotels, and expenses must show on the bottom line for businesses. There are also the same advantages to gain from online training, especially the yearly mandatory ones that many companies now require.
I now use Zoom regularly. I attend two writing workshops online and a weekly 'write-in' on a Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, in all these sessions, people join from America and Europe. It certainly brings people together.
My writing group, Ottery Writers, kept going through the lockdowns with the help of Zoom meetings. Much of the early planning for the Ottery Literary Festival was using Zoom.
These online systems are clever pieces of kit. File sharing, screen sharing and breakout spaces are just a few things that make such systems useful for business.
They can make you look very silly if you are not careful. We can remember Jackie Weaver and the infamous Handforth Parish Council meeting that made the headlines to the pandemic-weary public during lockdown. There were many similar cases around that time as well.
When PowerPoint was the new kid on the block for us in the Royal Marines, it brought relief for the easel, sheet of tin, and the instructor's collection of magnetic mnemonics to learn and in came 'death by PowerPoint', same instructors, but a breath of fresh air, or more like a stuffy classroom.
Online systems don't take away the skill of presenting your subject. No matter what convenience and savings these apps give, you won't get the message across efficiently if you can't present.
Yes, these apps were our saviour during lockdown, and in this age of austerity, they are extremely helpful. They have been a great success. Initially designed to disrupt the meetings and training industry, they have brought us closer together in a way never imagined before.
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