Live & Learn in Lockdown

Just because you’re quarantining doesn’t necessarily mean your brain stops. On a screen near you, there’s a world beyond

- Michael Alpiner

One of the by-products of the necessary move toward quarantine from the coronavirus has been the growth of online communication and virtual experiences. With fewer travelers and more of us staying home, there is a heightened demand to discover new tech-enabled avenues to help us work, learn and grow.

To begin with, employees have been forced to bring it on home – literally, as their businesses have closed offices even as work goes on remotely. As a result, online platforms for virtual collaboration have seen exponential growth.

Probably the app that’s gained the highest profile in the public eye since the pandemic started is the modest platform called Zoom. From 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019, Zoom zoomed to 300 million participants in April, and took along with it its company valuation.

However Zoom is by no means alone among virtual meeting platforms; others have also gained ground in the midst of the pandemic, including

• GoToWebinar

• WebEx

• Demio

• LiveStream

Like people, these platforms are more alike than they are different. While Zoom seems to be the choice for teachers instructing remotely or any generic webinar group from book clubs to meditation circles, LiveStream is more geared for business executives for whom presentation is as important as presence. It enables multiple cameras and video editing. Some of the platforms have interactive polling while others don’t, and some have screen sharing and call back features, while others do not. Ultimately, the users can never have it all. It would seem the imperfect live world is only matched by the imperfect virtual world.

REINVENT YOURSELF