[ryandrake]

At a lot of companies, teleconferencing systems are astonishingly bad. Like, “why did they even consider buying this” bad. Often the first 10 minutes of a meeting will be spent figuring out how to use the conf system or rebooting it because it’s not working. Then figuring out which cable to plug into in order to project remotely. Then asking if everyone is here. Then telling Karen to mute her microphone because she’s apparently in a hurricane. Then Roger is 30 minutes late because he had the wrong dial-in code...

[billyggruff]

Teleconferencing systems with a 'communal' screen and camera do not make much sense to me nowadays.

Most employees have at least 2 devices with built-in cameras and a screen that can be utilized for videoconferencing.

Give everybody a headset. Done.

[denimnerd]

we do that on many days, but the audio quality is so much better on the "mainframe" cisco setup.

[ghostly_s]

Bizarre, do you have some really cheapo headsets or something? (Or let me guess...using your iPhone earpods?) In my role I've tested a lot of pricey speakerphone systems, and we find headset audio quality to be far superior in every circumstance.

[denimnerd]

no, the issue is that part of the team ends up in one conference room with 1 shitty conference phone. people don't speak up loud enough, don't speak into the mic, etc.. look up cisco ix5000 which is what I'm talking about. it's a whole 'nother beast.

yeah when everyone is on a headset it's fine as long as people mute themselves but when it's a few people on a headset and most in a conference room it's terrible.

[Symbiote]

No thanks! That adds chatter to the open office.

[Aeolun]

Only karen is incapable of either hearing or understanding the word ‘MUTE’ so everyone rolls their eyes while they try to yell over the hurricane and clack, clack, clack of her keyboard.

Then she’s finally muted, and someone else unmutes and takes over the disturbance.

It’s unimaginable to me...

[denimnerd]

Yeah the conference rooms sound terrible from an audio stand point but we have these rooms with these huge cisco telepresence things. the audio is incredible. the video is good and helps because I can see body language.