Now I’m a Believer!
Posted by Ryan Sweeter

At Sidewalk Technologies, we use the same products we sell. I saw demonstrations of the products when I interviewed, but real meetings feel different than demos. Not long after joining the team, I attended our first staff meeting, three of us in our conference room and one through a video conference.  

The three of us in the conference room all sat on different sides of the table, with the remote attendee on the fourth side, putting her at the table with us. We used an Owl Camera in the conference room, which gave our remote coworker a 360-degree view of the table. The Owl Cam “finds” the people in the room and recognizes who’s talking, and automatically switches the camera to them.

Really though, I thought “wow, this is amazing!”

Once we got going, it felt like our remote was in the room with us, we looked at each other in the eye, saw each other’s body language and heard each other perfectly, which prevented any awkward silences.  

It’s not that I didn’t believe in our products before the meeting, but sitting in a meeting, using the same products we sell to our clients, changed my perspective.

Productive meetings produce results for us, and can do the same thing for you.