Your meetings aren't working, Verizon recently found. An issue long before the pandemic (our 2019 findings concluded the same), it’s one that’s become heightened in today’s anytime, anywhere work environment.
What's changed since 2019 is business leaders have begun to look inward into how their business—and people—operations may be impacting the company's bottom line. Between the personalization of work, the great reflection, a major skills shortage across industries, and a new generation becoming the dominant majority in the workforce, employee experience has quickly risen to the top of the business priorities list.
To better align with shifting workforce dynamics, today we announced updates across the desktop, mobile and Portal applications of BlueJeans Meetings to help streamline and facilitate more immersive, inclusive and engaging meetings.
With new BlueJeans Meetings features aimed at personalizing the meeting experience to improve individual and team meeting interactions and engagement, or remove the need to meet altogether, we're helping to drive effective collaboration.
Driving Immersive Meetings
From the BlueJeans Meetings desktop application, turning on Weather Person Mode allows users to overlay the presenter on top of the content being shared to facilitate a more natural, inclusive experience that simulates an in-person presentation for virtual and hybrid settings. The feature enables presenters to be placed in front of any type of content or application, expanding beyond slideware to create more dynamic and creative meeting possibilities. Furthermore, the addition of Auto-Camera Framing removes the need to purchase high-quality camera equipment and the potential for human error in camera setup, while limiting distractions by zooming in to focus on the person rather than their background.
On the BlueJeans Mobile app side, customized updates for foldable devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z series, utilize every screen available to maximize the video conferencing experience and make it easier for users to focus on both the content and other meeting participants—fostering a more equitable and efficient meeting experience.
Similarly, participant scrolling enhances the user experience in Active Speaker view to better feature the primary speaker and other meeting attendees, and the addition of HD Content and Video Sharing for iPhone and iPad allows mobile users the ability to share 1080p Content and Video.
Creating an Inclusive Workplace
Business leaders have a responsibility to make hybrid work arrangements work for everyone, which requires a focus on creating more individual and inclusive workflows for teams. While instituting best practices and an acknowledgement that existing “work” expectations are antiquated is a good place to start, creating an inclusive and productive meeting environment also requires intuitive technology to help facilitate immersive, fluid and effective meeting experiences for all participants, regardless of their work mode—office, home, or remote/field.
New BlueJeans Meetings features that allow users to personalize the meeting experience include:
- Multi-Language Closed Captioning and Transcripts: More language options to better support diverse, dispersed teams
- Hide Self View: The ability to hide one's own video, while still allowing others to see you, reduces video fatigue caused from constant hair checks
- Binge Meetings (iOS and iPadOS): Gives users the flexibility to easily get notified and jump into their next call
- CallKit Support (iOS and iPadOS): Providing assistance for remote worker time management, Call Kit Support for iOS and iPadOS allows users to better manage incoming phone calls while on a BlueJeans Meeting by switching over without dropping either call
- Breakout Sessions: The ability to ‘Ask for Help’ with broadcasting a message creates better communication across dispersed breakout participants
- Virtual Backgrounds: Virtual backgrounds available on iOS, iPadOS and Android devices means more options to personalize or minimize unwanted backgrounds distractions
- RTMP Streaming: On the Desktop, Stream your Meeting to any feed with a URL and Streaming Key (previously only available in BlueJeans Events)
Additionally, updates to the BlueJeans app on Meta Portal can help to account for different working patterns and preferences. These include Collab Board Support and a Share Screen Link for fast second Screen Login access/share.
When used with BlueJeans Smart Meetings, which allows users to capture critical meeting moments, assign action items and quickly consume meeting highlights post-meeting, the enhanced BlueJeans Meetings experience gives organizations more flexibility, resources and support when it comes to implementing effective changes in how their teams work and collaborate together in today’s hybrid work environment.
Meetings are the best place to show what a culture stands for, and the experience needs to be one that’s immersive in order to be mutually engaging and effective. Learn how BlueJeans Meetings can help and download your free trial of BlueJeans today.
About the Author
Peter Verwayen is the Senior Director of Product at BlueJeans Network and was a member of the original BlueJeans launch team. Prior to joining BlueJeans, he spent nine years at Cisco/WebEx, where he owned all service provider audio integrations into WebEx and Jabber, and brought the first Room-to-Remote, interop solution to market.
