
Ask HN: How and why video conferencing interactions are different? - saadalem
Why Skype and Zoom aren’t quite as good as meeting in the physical world ?
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BrentOzar
About me: consultant & trainer that does a lot of remote & in-person training.
I'm flying cross-country at the moment (literally, typing this in a plane) to
meet with a group of people for that exact reason - they need to rapidly cover
a lot of topics. It's worth tens of thousands of dollars to them to get
everybody in a room to get that high resolution level of detail & cooperation.

In person, I can see very high resolution details of dozens of people in a
meeting at once, and see at a glance who agrees, disagrees, or isn't following
along at all. Typical example: 15-20 people will be discussing a very tough
architectural decision that will affect a company for years to come. We all
need to see each other clearly and pick up on non-verbal cues that folks might
have an objection, but be hesitant to say it out loud. (Or just might not
really buy into something, but be just going along to save face.)

Remotely, especially when people are in a mix of remote & in-person in
conference rooms, I can't get enough pixels of detail to determine that
information.

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marbiru
my take for one-on-one video calls is that they're hard because you have to
constantly be attentive to the other person, and it seems rude to look away or
do anything else, whereas in in-person conversations it's actually more
possible to look in other directions and still be present. I'm not sure that
applies for larger conferences, though.

