For many of us, the coronavirus crisis has provided the opportunity to rethink our relationship with many things, among them our mindsets, habits, and obviously technology. It suddenly seems that technology has become much more meaningful to keep communication alive and continue giving life to the market. While people keep moving towards remote work, digital collaboration is steadily growing as an essential part of every business model, schools, universities, organizations, and even interpersonal relationships.
Collaboration can be more productive when it takes place face-to-face, whether that be in-person (or video-oriented when it goes digital). Why is this? Video communication can build trust more easily, making idea-sharing more productive and authentic. Being face to face virtually is more open and transparent among colleagues, co-students or between a teacher and a student.
Let’s consider the reasons why video communication is a positive evolution of a digitally-oriented world, and can also play a meaningful role in the digital transformation era:
1. A video is a convenient way to exchange information. while skipping writing pages of notes and ensuring that a clear message is delivered. When the video communication goes the asynchronous way, then phenomena like talking over one another can be avoided, especially when it has to be implemented in a classroom or virtual office environment, where many will be connected at the same time. Video communication in a virtual environment can keep employees and learners connected and make them excited, self-motivated, and more accountable while using technology (because it incites action). And more importantly, lively storytelling will continue to exist and the need for digesting information won’t go away soon.
2. Video keeps relationships alive and growing. Whether having a video conference live or answering questions asynchronously in byte-sized videos on 100mentors, people still want to keep relations growing during this time. Through videos, communication in a digital world remains relational. It seems that social distancing has created a new concept of “online human connection” world with many video-conferences, online theatrical performances, virtual classes, live sharing of resources about a common problem (COVID-19) and dialogues between experts and non-experts about collective solutions to these urgent issues (Kevin Roose, NYT 2020). This goes beyond the necessity of just sustaining things as they are, but comes as a new norm for the need of people to stay connected and build relations between them.
3. Videos make the conversation more efficient. Being face-to-face through video helps maintain our attention in a way that the written word can’t – after all, we’re a social species. Any information can be easier interpreted in a short amount of time. Here we can think about our100mentors technology. The byte-sized format of our platform is efficient across time-zones and across the glove because you can share videos asynchronously: it takes 20 seconds to construct a wonderment question and 100 seconds to answer concisely and authentically Above all, video, no matter how short, it can be the inspirational beginning of thoughts and eventually evolve into live discussions. Finally, in every communication channel, we all search for some authentic moments to spark our curiosity more and keep the discussion or research about a topic alive. A video-driven interaction is an effective way to do so, thus making the conversation not only more efficient but also more productive.
4. Video can help you create a digital library of memorable content. While trying to recall live conversations or interpret the words in between the lines of an email, videos remain more memorable and engaging. The role of a platform, through which you create pieces of video content: using this, you build a library of your ideas that is connected to you. This way, coming back to the 100mentors app, as a mentor, you can always view and review your ideas, and those of your peers on various topics, think and rethink them, and build their own thinking map (as a virtual web of ideas).
5. Our brains process visual information faster than a text, and that’s why videos remain a great educational medium, above and beyond all the others. Most importantly, we all need to continue learning and thriving in the coronavirus era and beyond. Approaches to learning vary a lot, based on individuals (they can be verbal, kinesthetic, visual, etc.). At the same time, teachers, students, and co-workers never stop asking questions and seeking answers. This is the benefit of a social e-learning platform that uses video. Both mentors and mentees can receive the advantages of it. Byte-sized videos increase knowledge retention since they can be replayed many times. They create a sensory experience on both sides and provide a go-to resource, which can be viewed from literally anywhere.
Video remains the medium of the future We can only benefit from adopting video early. While taking a video, one can show images, infographics, or even texts, but also see each other’s faces. The fact that people can more easily understand and digest a video in a world full of information means that they also can share it, and spread the knowledge they’ve gained.
Videos can be the driving force of a better connected and global communicating digital world. Particularly, byte-sized videos can be the answer to a future boom of informational videos, since they are able to achieve their goals in the minimum time while keeping people thinking and thus thriving.
Getting back to an emphatic question that many writers pose: Is technology Killing Face-to-Face Communication? (Goman Kinsey Carol, Forbes 2018), the answer is no, especially not in a period like this one, at the center of the changes coronavirus brings, and particularly when we talk about video communication – which can just mean taking “face-to-face” virtual.
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